Did Canon Quietly Fix the R5 Overheating problem with THE 1.1 Camera Firmware? Canon is improving the overheating issue of the R5 under the radar

Earlier today Canon announced new firmware versions for several of its products including the upcoming R5 camera. That last update (version 1.1.0) brings a number of improvements but possibly the most interesting one which Canon seems not to discuss too much is improvements to the recording time of the camera which is known to have overheating issues when shooting high quality and high-resolution videos.

As we discussed here on several different posts, Canon’s R5 (and to some extent the R6 as well) has some serious overheating limitations when shooting 4K HQ video and 8K video which limits both how long you can shoot in these modes and your recovery time after the camera stopped shooting due to overheating.

We also discussed the fact that Canon actively limited the shooting time using a timer even if the camera did not overheat significantly and more importantly that there are fairly simple ways to overcome these limitations. So far Canon was silent about these DIY solutions and even with today’s firmware release, we didn’t hear a full explanation to the phenomena.

In the video above photographer Gordon Laing and in the video below our colleague Jordan Drake had a chance to play with the R5 with the new firmware version comparing it to the older one and both found about 5-10 min improvements in shooting time and recovery time (depending on the specific model and other parameters). This is of course welcome but is still far from making the camera really useful, especially if you need to have it cool down for an hour just to squeeze in another 10-15 min of 4K HQ video.

Here is the official list of improvements/changes to the Canon EOS R5 according to Canon:

  • Useful messaging is now displayed when [HDMI display: Camera+External monitor] and [Overheat control: on] settings are enabled
  • When using certain RF lenses for movie shooting, the in-lens image stabilization mechanism has been improved
  • Fixes a phenomenon in which the “Slow Synchro” setting screen is not accurately displayed when the language is set to English.
  • Fixes a typo displayed on the communication setting screen when the language is set to Korean.
  • Connectivity during FTP transmission has been improved
  • Fixes a phenomenon, in which the card access time may take longer when using certain CFexpress cards
  • Temperature detection and shooting time control in video shooting have been improved. In addition, the total shooting time when the short-time recording and power-on/off are performed repeatedly at room temperature is improved
  • The phenomenon in which the movie recording time available is not correctly displayed when the Date/Time/Zone is not set has been corrected

You can download the new firmware for PC and Mac from the Canon website.

Jordan Drake on the new 1.1 firmware and some testings

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If you don’t want to miss any new photography product be sure to check out our product photography section on our photo gear channel.

Update: Dan Watson on the 1.1 version of the R5

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Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.

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