Some say it's a technical limitation for heat management, memory management. While some others say it's to escape the additional tax that applies if a camera is classified as a video camera, the latter being defined as something that records beyond 30 minutes.<p>What's the true reason?
Like most head scratchers, it’s EU taxes.<p>The import taxes are higher on video cameras than still cameras, so they artificially limit the length of videos you can record to avoid being classified as a video camera.<p>> Video camera recorders are subject to import duty of 4.9% or 14%, still image cameras are duty free.<p><a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2016-001277-ASW_EN.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2016-00127...</a><p>(Update: included better link)
Some still cameras with video features also do actually lack in heat dissipation department and may really shut down because they overheat. Sometimes earlier than said 30 minute limit kicks in.<p>And say you use slow memory card in your otherwise capable camera... I have one here, which is allowing me to capture, depending on subject, 4-15 seconds of video. It just cant write stuff onto memory card fast enough and fills its memory buffer and then its done. With proper fast flash card, same camera runs up to 29:59 and with certain tweaks, until flash card is full.
The question is based on a misconception. Here's what my particular camera can do, the Fujifilm X-T5, from dpreview.com:<p>"Fujifilm says the camera can shoot 6.2K/30 video for 90 minutes or 4K/60p for 60 minutes at 25°C (77°F); these numbers drop significantly at higher temperatures, and there's no option to add a fan to compensate."<p>Here's what the next more expensive, slightly bigger camera can do the Fujifilm X-h2, from Cameralabs.com<p>"Also inherited from the X-H2S is unlimited internal recording, sailing past the previous half hour limit and also without overheating issues in my tests. I made five separate recordings, each starting with a full battery, and was able to record between 100 and 120 minutes in any format from 1080 to 8k before the battery expired. In each case at the end of the recording, the camera had become very warm behind the screen, but showed no warning of overheating. Battery power was the limiting factor in these tests.<p>All my tests were made at room temperature in the UK, but if you’re filming under hotter conditions and experiencing overheating, you can extend your recording times by fitting an optional fan accessory. As seen here on the S version, this simply screws into the back of the body when the screen’s folded out – not particularly elegant, but it will extend your times."<p>It seems to me it's clearly an issue of heat management in a small form factor since an optional fan accessory extends the film length in the higher end camera.
It’s definitely not universal.<p>A few years back I had a Sony DSC-HX90V (basically their best compact camera), purchased in Australia, that was capped at 20 minutes. (I discovered this by losing most of an hour-long session. I don’t believe this limitation was documented, as I did read its manual and would expect to have remembered that.)<p>I understand the Sony α6000 generation (mirrorless; α6000, α6300, α6500) had a mixture of limitations: in many situations, around a 20 minute cap due to file system or file format limits, thermal limits that would often shut it down well before that, and a hard limit of “approximately 29 minutes” for unstated reasons I will not speculate on.<p>The α6100 generation (α6100, α6400, α6600) lacks all these limitations. I purchased one in India. Its battery allows it to record for around 80 minutes, and with power via Micro-USB I’ve recorded for 100 minutes in an ambient temperature of over 40°C on multiple occasions, and five hours once for a test.
Heat management, the EU import tax, all of those are certainly small factors. But the main reason is absolutely market segmentation: if you want to record "professional" video content, better buy a professional video camera for a higher price. It's that simple.
Heat buildup cause a lot of noise to appear in the image.<p>New cameras are overcoming this with fans. Look at the just realeased Sony fx30 or the Panasonic S5ii. Both have built in fans to aid in cooling getting them unlimited record times.<p>I shoot with a sigma FP that has no recording limit and no fan. It is designed as basically a giant heat sink. It also has some of the lowest amounts of noise of any camera.<p>I’m sure the eu thing comes into play in hitting that 30 minute mark but it’s probably a convenient choice of time limit when solving the heat buildup issue.<p>FWIW I’ve followed film cameras closely for years and have never heard of this EU law while all reviews etc talk about heat buildup because it is so detrimental to image quality.
Lots of the comments here get at the reason, which is import taxes, but there's confusion about the impact of it on the high-end camera market. Most professional setups that use "still" cameras are running them into a video mixer (like Blackmagic ATEM) which connects to a computer. You can record directly onto disk and stream live at the same time using free software like OBS. The camera just sits with its shutter open but doesn't record anything, thus there's no time limit. The Sony A7 series is quite popular for this application. What I'm describing is kind of the tip of the iceberg in terms of video capture complexity.
EU tax for videocameras vs still cameras<p>Though I wonder who needs to record more than 30 minutes in one take? Seems like extremely niche scenario even with videocameras.<p>I remember Ukraine or Russia had for many years even crazier tax on cars which were improted partially disassembled and then assembled locally to avoid much higher import tax on completely assembled car, but can't find it now. Seems it was scratched after they joined WTO,m before there was like 30% import tax on cars.
The fact is when you are recording a good quality video you never go over a few minutes of recording. So usually it doesn't bother film makers too much.<p>If you're recording a live opera it's a problem but then you usually have much higher quality gear without the limitations of a DSLR.