Canon Camera Question

[Dan Schultz]

I have a Canon SX530HS 'Powershot' camera that's driving me nuts. It works fine for both stills and movies but has one flaw that I cannot find a solution for. When shooting movies it times out around the 4 gig mark or about 18 minutes. I thought maybe it had something to do with the size of the media I was recording to so I switched from a 16 gig card to a 64 gig card and the problem is the same.

This happens when the camera is on a tripod and making a movie. Human intervention is not the cause. It has to be some sort of preset but I can't find it in the menu or in the manual. Maybe just something I'm overlooking.

Any ideas?

Never mind. I think I got it figured out. I could delete the post but thought maybe the information might be helpful to others. I did a 'low level' format on the 64 gig card and also changed the resolution from the highest resolution to VGA. The camera recorded for about 52 minutes before the battery crapped out. I'm sure a fully charged batter would have gone WELL over an hour. I changed the video setting from VGA to HD and am running another test to see how long it records. I'm guessing this will work fine.

I don't think the shutting off was due as much to the media capacity as it was to the speed at which the Ultra High Density mode was able to transfer data to the sd card.

[Dan Schultz]

I have the same camera, Dan. And I think you're taking the correct approach. The battery is only a 7-1/2 volt battery. If you could patch in a larger capacity external battery or power source, I think you'd be able to record as long as your SD card held out regardless of format. I haven't figured out if that's possible yet or not.

The camera recorded almost exactly one hour at VGA before it shut off. There was still plenty of battery.

Of particular note is that at the VGA setting (according to the camera) the capacity of a 64 gig media card is 999 minutes.

What's going on here doesn't appear to have anything to do with the size of the media card or battery life.

I think it has to do either with a buffer that's internal to the camera software or the speed at which the media can handle data. I know there are more expensive media cards that are suppose to handle data faster. Just to settle my curiosity I may try one at some point.

For the time being... I know that I can record a shade under an hour and that's all I really need to capture a one-hour concert.

[pecktime]

Check the manual, some of these cameras can only record 4 gigabytes or so at a time before they have to stop. It's a software OS thing, and nothing to do with SD card or battery life.

[Dan Schultz]

Check the manual, some of these cameras can only record 4 gigabytes or so at a time before they have to stop. It's a software OS thing, and nothing to do with SD card or battery life.

Yup. That's what I've concluded. I can record for about a hour in VHS mode... about 30 minutes in HD mode... and about 18 minutes in FHD. Times and formats all time out at around 4 gigs.

Seems like a pretty stupid restraint to put into an operating system. Sounds like it's time to bug Canon for a software upgrade!