It's been a long hard road, learning about EU camera laws, taxes and regulations, and how they affect the new camera I'm holding in my hand today.
But most of the cameras you can buy today that shoot 1080P or 4K video, have time limits built into the firmware, so they won't qualify as video cameras and be taxed in a higher bracket if sold in the EU.
Lumix, Sony, Canon, apparently are all touched by this new law, which was passed some time around 2007 and went into effect shortly after, from what I read.. I'm guessing all these Japan companies were facing huge payouts to the EU if they didn't limit the video record times. (IF YOU KNOW MORE than me, please comment below.)
Sidenote:
I love the FZ1000 and am just now learning to use it well. I'm off to the beach and Santa Cruz coastline to take pictures of the Monterey Pines north of town at Greyhound Rock Park.
Here's a great tutorial on that camera in case you are interested in the best single-lense cam for under $1000 to shoot 20mp photos, and 4K video made today: (you can also see what this camera looks like physically)
I've never owned a camera with a video recording limit, and I'm not used to having to worry about it, if I want to deploy a video camera for wildlife, or ceremonies, security, etc.
Some cameras today, simply heat up, and won't run 15 minutes. That's a different issue..
And of course, limits on the size of the memory card, or the lenght of time the camera can record at 4K on 1 battery at a time kick in, because I have YET to find a consumer grade camera that will allow USB power and recharge while being used!
My DREAM was an FZ1000 that would film without a time limit, in 4K. I was on the prowl... search engines, here I come!
Firmware based limits; a very thorny problem that is rarely hacked by pirate firmware releases. Now that cameras hook up to our smartphones, it's a little scarey to think you would allow some russian hacker to access to your camera that gets connected directly by wifi to your smart phone.. but some early DSLRs do have hacked firmware releases available; however, they usually take a few years to appear, so are never available for recent model cameras.
But for the Lumex cameras, there does appear to be a workaround:
Most larger cams can be hacked to take off the 4K video recording time limit, see 2 different YT videos below:
This hack uses the camera's Service Mode, that will allow the camera access to NTSC modes (if set as an EU camera) and also will sometimes eliminate the 4K video limits imposed in the firmware at the same time. There are small caveats however, like perhaps USB functions may be lost (temporarily), until Service Mode is reverted.
I was successful with my FZ1000 recently, and I had a little party that lasted all night! ;-)
After literally months of fighting with cameras, and not realizing these new laws had been passed, and were also being imposed on most of the rest of the world as well as EU, it was FUN to find a workaround.
This hack supposedly works on most of the larger Lumex cameras; sorry I lost my list I was building.
From what I read, FZ2500 doesn't need it (no limit) and G6, G7, G8, GX80, GX85, those kinds of cameras, this hack works!
PLEASE!
Much as I have done with the FZ1000:
I would love to find a way to put my Lumix LX10 in Service Mode (and negate it's recording limit of 15 minutes for 4K video). I have tried and failed many times now. LX10 DOES NOT have a time LIMIT on 1080P 30fps video, from the factory.
If you find a way, please comment on my post, or post a video on YT and point us to it!