The Canon EOS 7D is a digital single lens reflex camera made and sold by Canon from its inaugural year of 2009. Still widely used, this precision machine is known for being a great tool for recreational as well as professional photography. Though it is much loved by users for its great performance, users often experience the technical problem of the camera overheating during prolonged shooting sessions.
Normally, cameras tend to heat up in response to external temperatures, or even due to its internal functions. Certain modes such as night vision, if used for prolonged periods of times can cause a device to heat up. Additionally, sometimes older cameras heat up when they receive may commands in a short span of time.
There are a range of different reasons that can cause your Canon EOS 7D to overheat. If your camera does feel hotter than usual, your first step should be to calm down and carefully try to figure out what might be causing it to heat up. The reason could be something small and easily rectifiable, such as moving the camera away from the sun towards the shade. Other solutions might be more technical.
Increased heat levels within your camera for prolonged periods of time can seriously damage your device and lower its life span. You should however remember that your camera doesn’t need to get to that extreme stage. Here are some tips and tricks to help you prevent your prized Canon EOS 7D from overheating. Most of the tricks are pretty simple and can help save your device from harm.
Let’s explore!
What Happens If Your Canon 70D Overheats
Devices tend to become slightly warmer when in use. Though small temperature variations are normal, larger variations can seriously damage your device.
A Canon EOS 7D speedily heating up becomes a less effective photography tool. It would be prone to crashes between the photography and filming sessions, which might even culminate in data loss. When the device is in risk of excessive heating up, a pop up warning message comes on the LCD screen. As a self-protecting mechanism, the device usually stops recording when this happens.
When the thermal indicator is on the camera would still function for a little while, however the photographs taken during this period would have a lower image quality.
Some Reasons Why Your Canon 70D Is Potentially Overheating
Before you can prevent overheating in your device, you should understand the root cause for the excess heat. The Canon EOS 7D is known to heat up for a variety of different causes. Here are a few of the most common reasons:
- Sunlight: Direct and prolonged exposure to sunlight is a major cause for overheating. Typically the Canon 7D comes in a distinct black color. Since dark colors are generally excellent conductors of heat, having a black camera would make it easy to heat up the whole device when in the line of direct sunlight.
- Draining battery: Typically when the battery is draining, heat is produced within a Canon 7D as that is where the battery is located.
- Slow memory cards: older or even slower memory cards can increase the internal temperature of your device by forcing it to work harder to write the information to the cards.
- Old device: when your camera becomes older, there is an inevitable change in its functionality. These changes may make it have to work harder, or may even affect the device batter. When this is the case, your camera will be more prone to heating up than before.
How To Curb Overheating Within Your Canon 70D
Here are some measures you can take to prevent your favorite photography device from heating up internally, as well as externally.
Ways To Prevent External Heating Up
- Use an Umbrella: Make use of an umbrella to block sunlight while using a Canon 7D outside. The umbrella can be a large one to provide shade to you, or even a tiny one just for your camera.
- Store in a Bag: Stow your device away in a heat-proof bag when it is not in use. Leaving the camera out in the sun would just make it heat up, even if it is not turned on.
- Gel packs: a cold (but not wet!) gel pack wrapped around your camera while you keep it in your bag can help keep the device cool. The gel pack should ideally be placed near the device processors. However, it is important to ensure that you don’t let your Canon 7D experience drastic temperature changes.
- Towel Wrap: you can encumber the heating up of your device by protecting it from the elements. Covering or wrapping a towel around your Canon 7D would minimize direct exposure to sunlight and surrounding heat, allowing your device to stay cool.
Ways To Avoid Internal Heating Up
- Use external battery alternatives: You can easily use a battery grip, or a ‘dummy’ battery with a cable to prevent heating up caused by a draining battery. By relocating a principal cause for increasing internal heat, you can prevent overheating.
- Remove batteries in between shooting sessions: since batteries generate heat when they are in use, you can help your camera (and the batteries themselves) cool down by removing the hot batteries in the time between your photography/ filming sessions.
- Opt for good quality memory cards: if you want to prevent device overheating while also ensuring first-class performance, you should get a better quality memory card. Cheap memory cards tend to have a less consistent ‘write speed’, which makes the camera work harder to write and secure the data. The good card should have at least 50mbps write speed. Making use of faster CompactFlash (CF) cards will also help stop your Canon 7D from ‘lagging’.
- Change memory cards during a session: swapping a hot CF card for a cooler one would help solve the issue of hot internal cards. However, care should be taken while doing this as replacing a hotter card with a cooler one will not cool down the adjacent components of the camera that might have heated up due to prior exposure with the hot card.
- Two-Camera rotation: for intensive photography sessions, a great way to prevent heating up cameras is to take along another camera. Using both cameras intermittently would prevent excess stress on one device, and allow both devices time to cool down.
- Change your camera: as mentioned before, older devices tend to heat up more quickly. If this is the case, you should consider getting a new Canon 7D.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a warranty cover a Canon 7D that is damaged by overheating?
Canon doesn’t offer a warranty for damage caused by overheating, unless the reason for overheating was a malfunction of the basic hardware of the device itself. Faults in manufacturing are the only warranty claims that the company caters to. Overheating caused by external temperatures would not be entertained by the warranty.
To get a warranty for damaged caused by manufacturing or assembling defects, the device must be within the one-year warranty they received at the time of purchase.
Can I use a wet towel to cool down my Canon EOS 7D?
Using a wet towel will not be a good option, as the dampness might infiltrate your device and cause structural damage to its internal components. It is best to use things are dry, soft, and cool to help reduce the camera’s temperature while also protecting it from damage such as surface scratches.
Can human ice packs be used for cooling down my Canon EOS 7D?
Human ice packs can be used if only they are wrapped in a waterproof bag to ensure that your camera does not get wet as you attempt to cool it down. However, uncovered ice packs are a solid ‘no’ as condensation droplets often appear on its surface which may trickle down into your camera itself, causing the device some irreparable damage.
Conclusion
To help make sure that your photography or filming sessions go smoothly and without any hassle, it is a great idea to take measures that would prevent your Canon EOS 7D from heating up. The simplest way to do so is by keeping your camera out of direct sunlight as much as possible, especially when it is in use.
Cameras are delicate precision machines and need to be protected from overheating which would inevitably mess up its internal circuits and systems, and reduce its overall efficiency. Caring for your device by preventing excessive rises in heat levels would prolong the camera’s life, and allow you to better experience its features and specifications.
The ways to prevent your Canon EOS 7D from heating damage are not complicated. You can either protect the device from external ways of heating up, or manage its internal systems so that you can prevent excessive heating within the device itself.
I hope this guide helps you keep your Canon EOS 7D in mint condition, and allows you to enjoy using it for many more years to come!
Happy clicking!
