Leica SL2 overheats after 33min / Battery issue (2022, Firmware 4.1)

[Photoworks]

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1 hour ago, Nico1700 said:

I'm asking myself why, because on an external recorder the camera is practically doing nothing, except sending the HDMI signal. That should be easy.. 

Do you have an Atomos Ninja? Do you record ProRes / DNX? 

I have Videodevices PIX-E recorder with prores.

But I agree, if you are feeding a clean signal out over HDMI my understanding it that it would warm up less. It was warm yesterday, 85/33c.

I know 4K60p is challenging for most cameras, but I didn't expect it on external recorder.. but my Blackmagic does not do 4k60p either .

Never got the Atomos Ninja 5 because I assume they would come out with a brighter version of it soon . I got a Atomos Shanobi 7 instead for outdoor shooting and record to SD card.

[beewee]

5 hours ago, Nico1700 said:

I'm asking myself why, because on an external recorder the camera is practically doing nothing, except sending the HDMI signal. That should be easy.. 

The SL2 is doing a ton of heavy lifting when it’s trying to read around 95 MB of data per frame and then down res it to 4K at whatever frame rate your using, all the while doing geometric lens corrections, colour adjustments, etc… all in real time, and then having to convert to an efficient codec for output to HDMI.

Just think about how much effort it takes for your computer when you export in 4K and then do it in real time on a little battery.

Edited July 4, 2022 by beewee

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[BernardC]

15 hours ago, Nico1700 said:

I'm asking myself why, because on an external recorder the camera is practically doing nothing, except sending the HDMI signal. That should be easy..

It should be doing the same amount of work, except that I/O goes through the HDMI controller instead of the SD card controller. No doubt that makes a difference, but the difference probably isn't huge.

15 hours ago, Nico1700 said:

In a way you are right and yes many other cameras overheat also, but on the other hand if one pay's the premium price for a hybrid Leica camera, it is expected to work flawlessly or at least what the specs promise.

Keep in mind that dedicated video cameras also overheat, even though most of their internal space is dedicated to cooling. They'll keep shooting, but you may need to re-calibrate the sensor if it gets above a specified temperature.

Given that you are doing very long takes at weddings (I presume as a fixed/remote camera), you could experiment with a USB-powered fan. I presume you are taking other precautions, like keeping the camera shaded for outdoor ceremonies.

[Photoworks]

QUICK UPDATE:

today I was doing some video interview with two SL2 bodies running at the same time...

One was going for ever no problem and the other was stopping at 20 min from heat stroke. I tried restarting it and it worked 15min.

Not sure why the 2 cameras are so different when they have the same setting, both HDMI external monitor, same lens.

maybe a question for Leica, maybe the heat sensor is the issue.

[beewee]

19 minutes ago, Photoworks said:

QUICK UPDATE:

today I was doing some video interview with two SL2 bodies running at the same time...

One was going for ever no problem and the other was stopping at 20 min from heat stroke. I tried restarting it and it worked 15min.

Not sure why the 2 cameras are so different when they have the same setting, both HDMI external monitor, same lens.

maybe a question for Leica, maybe the heat sensor is the issue.

Was one body in some place exposed to the sun or closer to lights? Or maybe one camera had slightly better airflow. It’s possible that both cameras were running close to the edge of their thermal envelop but something minor tipped the scale for one and not the other.

One other question would be whether one camera was newer than the other. It’s also possible that Leica had some different versions of hardware, maybe DSPs, sensor, or other heat generating components due to supply shortages or just known issues that they want to improve on over the production life so some cameras may physically be slightly different enough underneath and perform better for long video recording.

Edited July 5, 2022 by beewee

[Photoworks]

13 hours ago, beewee said:

Was one body in some place exposed to the sun or closer to lights? Or maybe one camera had slightly better airflow. It’s possible that both cameras were running close to the edge of their thermal envelop but something minor tipped the scale for one and not the other.

One other question would be whether one camera was newer than the other. It’s also possible that Leica had some different versions of hardware, maybe DSPs, sensor, or other heat generating components due to supply shortages or just known issues that they want to improve on over the production life so some cameras may physically be slightly different enough underneath and perform better for long video recording.

both cameras are 2 years all. the only difference was that I had battery grip on the camera that was stopping. It could be that that blocks the flow of cooling on the bottom.
What would be ironic since the SL2 has a power issue and giving it more can affect you capture . I will try another test with the grip on the other camera.

[Nico1700]

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On 7/4/2022 at 2:13 PM, BernardC said:

It should be doing the same amount of work, except that I/O goes through the HDMI controller instead of the SD card controller. No doubt that makes a difference, but the difference probably isn't huge.

Keep in mind that dedicated video cameras also overheat, even though most of their internal space is dedicated to cooling. They'll keep shooting, but you may need to re-calibrate the sensor if it gets above a specified temperature.

Given that you are doing very long takes at weddings (I presume as a fixed/remote camera), you could experiment with a USB-powered fan. I presume you are taking other precautions, like keeping the camera shaded for outdoor ceremonies.

The camera i shoot 60 fps (A-Cam) is always in movement on a gimbal or handheld, so i can slow down the movement to make it even more smooth. 

Recalibrate the sensor? I never heard about that, but i might have to do it, because i have another problem now. A kind of flickering in the shadows on some iso (ASA) values. It is not always on the same iso and not on all, so i presume an internal problem. It is flickering between the different color channels. Might have to open another post for that

[BernardC]

4 minutes ago, Nico1700 said:

Recalibrate the sensor? I never heard about that, but i might have to do it, because i have another problem now.

That's an option on cine cameras, like Red, Arri, etc.