Can Heat Damage Your Epic?

[Phil Bates]

My understanding is that 104°F is the top operating limit suggested for the Epic. So, what do you do on a day that is 110° and the fans can't keep up? Can you damage the Epic by running it that hot? Will the Epic shut down before any damage can take place?

Thanks,
Phil

 

[Mark Andersen]

As I understand it, the camera will shut down or warn you when it's getting too hot. Keep it in the shade when it's really hot, also I've heard of some using medical style ice packs in extreme conditions. Also fan should be on high if you can get away with the sound. I'll bet there are other threads on this, I know it's been discussed before.

 

[Jon Carr]

Shot for a week straight in 110 degree weather, no problems at all. Keep you fan recording speed as high as your sound guy will let you, and standby at 100.

 

[Phil Bates]

Thanks guys!

P

 

[Philip Lima]

No problems at all with the Epic in the heat. Recently shot in the desert east of San Deigo for a a couple days. It was right around 120F for about 3-4 hours in the middle of the day and the camera performed flawlessly. The fans were up to 100% all of the time because we weren't rolling any sound, so that made it easy.

 

[Jeff Barklage]

I just finished a 4 day shoot on a stage that was pretty hot...due to audio issues, we had to kill the AC most of the day and just deal with the heat (about 100,000 watts of space lights).
Shot on my Epic....we noticed thatnthe back focus drifted a bit on the last day. We usually swapped between my Cooke 18-100 and Speed Panchros. No major camera bouncing or erattic camera vibrations. Room temps around 100 degrees. Long takes, usually around 6 minutes each.
We noticed the focus shifting closer and closer to infinity as the last day wore on.
Back at the shop, after everything cooled, I checked the back focus with my RedNull and it was quite a bit odd....I reset the back focus and it is correct. So, my thoughts are to keep a back focus checking device close at hand during hot shoots.

 

[Paul Russell]

Shot all day in Abu Dhabi recently, no problem.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

My understanding is that 104°F is the top operating limit suggested for the Epic. So, what do you do on a day that is 110° and the fans can't keep up? Can you damage the Epic by running it that hot? Will the Epic shut down before any damage can take place?

Thanks,
Phil

First of all we need to come from the understanding that extended exposures to extreme temperature will damage just about any electronic.

Having said that, we shot EPIC, on extreme temperature form the deserts of Rak and Dubai, to the Dry Saunas, going up to 140ºF yet the camera never shot down, and the SSD's were so hot you could almost not even hold them in your hands, all footage was perfect, of course the fan was going like a Jet engine full blast.

Still I strongly advise to consider shorter takes and keep the camera cool in between takes, especially when forced to keep the Fan to a minimum or off when recording Audio, is like driving a car that is telling you is overheating and the engine lights are on, take care of it, before it leaves you on foot...