5d mark II strange black dots?

Stealthy Ninja wrote in post #6960177
Wow, I didn't post over the Christmas long weekend, so I thought this thread would be 100 pages long by now. But it hasn't moved! I guess everyone was out taking photos of Christmas lights with their 5Dmkii's to test the black dots.

I guess there has been no further word from Canon on the subject...

Heh heh...

Still out taking images with the 5D Mk I. Haven't noticed any black dots, though I confess that I haven't looked for any either.

I'm still watching for any news on the subject, though I'm not quite as concerned about it as I was over the AF issue on the 1D3.

TheHoff wrote in post #6960201
I think they're busy photoshopping all of the dots out of their pics. We're not likely to hear from 5D2 users any time soon.

At 21+ megapixels, that could take a while...

TheHoff wrote in post #6960201
I think they're busy photoshopping all of the dots out of their pics. We're not likely to hear from 5D2 users any time soon.

Tom W wrote in post #6960278
At 21+ megapixels, that could take a while...

I guess that depends on how smart you are with the downloading and the clicking of the button of the mouse.

http://ray.cg.tuwien.a​c.at …sAndTricks/5D-BlackSpots/

Stealthy Ninja wrote in post #6960340
I guess that depends on how smart you are with the downloading and the clicking of the button of the mouse.

http://ray.cg.tuwien.a​c.at …sAndTricks/5D-BlackSpots/

Wow - the fix was quick. Not the official fix, mind you, but somebody's fix. Although the significance of the issue may not be as big as claimed (even though I've already vented on the issue).

It's an illusion! I see no black dots but I do see Christmas tree lights! I've taken numerous pictures of the Christmas tree and no black spots anywhere!

Also, I have a 5D Mark II and can look myself, unlike some I know that only quote hearsay. Stories start with a spark then grow into a bonfire and mostly by people that don't own the camera. It must be a problem, even Canon admits it, but it seems to be rare and only under certain conditions but no proof of rarity or conditions. In other words: do all cameras have the problem in rare instances or do only some cameras have the problem? That needs to be clarified I guess. I shoot nothing but RAW so maybe that's a clue, I don't know.

I think that if the problem can be duplicated consistently then they could try different things and see where it lies.

It may be that this has turned out to be a big non-issue. Doesn't cause a problem in the real world.

Tom W wrote in post #6960793
Wow - the fix was quick. Not the official fix, mind you, but somebody's fix. Although the significance of the issue may not be as big as claimed (even though I've already vented on the issue).

It's been out for a while. This thread is a bit too long for it's own good I think (and yet I contribute another post... ).

I think it must have been a small batch, try as I might to replicate, and yes, I did try, as stupid as I think that is....I have no black dots, or banding...I love my new 5Dmk2, it really is an incredible feeling shooting at 3200 and getting very sharp, very detailed images, still blows me away when I view the EXIF's
To those with the black dots, I feel for you, and hope Canon makes things right for you

Stealthy Ninja wrote in post #6960935
This thread is a bit too long for it's own good

Yes, it did turn out to be a long thread. And what was posted in the 6 (or so) posts previous to this has been previously said in the thread about a dozen times (or so).

Comment on this thread:

Yes, it is long. It has wandered occasionally through the emotional regions of everyone’s hopes, dreams, and “I told you so’s”. It has been everything from vindication for those who have predicted disaster to those who have predicted the 5D2 to be the best product to come down the pike in years. But despite the variety of comments, it has kept me informed on some of the birthing pains of what will most likely be a great product line for Canon, and a very rewarding piece of equipment for those lucky enough to afford one. I look forward to the 5D2 to be a great product line, and hope that this speed bump at it’s start will be just that, only another minor speed bump in the photographic lives of my friends in this forum.

I'm buying a 5D2 tonight most probably. Any further news from Canon besides the official statement? (I'd still buy it if it had black dots till I died, but anyway...)

golfecho wrote in post #6962206
Comment on this thread:

Yes, it is long. It has wandered occasionally through the emotional regions of everyone’s hopes, dreams, and “I told you so’s”. It has been everything from vindication for those who have predicted disaster to those who have predicted the 5D2 to be the best product to come down the pike in years. But despite the variety of comments, it has kept me informed on some of the birthing pains of what will most likely be a great product line for Canon, and a very rewarding piece of equipment for those lucky enough to afford one. I look forward to the 5D2 to be a great product line, and hope that this speed bump at it’s start will be just that, only another minor speed bump in the photographic lives of my friends in this forum.

Speed bumps are fun sometimes. It's all about your attitude to 'danger'.

Metaphorically speaking that is... and in reality too... like a little rollercoaster without the fear of death....

Ken Rockwell's take on the situation:
http://www.kenrockwell​.com …-mark-ii/black-pixels.htm

Ken Rockwell is a joke.

I went to the National Zoo in DC the evening after Christmas for their Zoo Lights event. I got black dots. I have a picture I used the 15mm fisheye on at my friend's bar where they had lights up. I got black dots. It's only in high contrast shots, but Douche Bag's rant about how it only happens in obscure situations is se retarded. Anyone shooting night time shots with lots of lights, anything like city scapes, are going to be prone to having this issue if it's something that's happening with their camera.

Ken is an a$$. That goodness for gearhead non-photographers and their diligence to do everything they can to try to break it. If it wasn't for them Canon would loose 1/2 of it's test team. These gearheads are insuring that we all get a better product in the long run.

thatkatmat wrote in post #6961148
I think it must have been a small batch, try as I might to replicate, and yes, I did try, as stupid as I think that is....I have no black dots, or banding...I love my new 5Dmk2, it really is an incredible feeling shooting at 3200 and getting very sharp, very detailed images, still blows me away when I view the EXIF's
To those with the black dots, I feel for you, and hope Canon makes things right for you

I'm not so sure it was just a particular batch. Mine was ordered direct from Canon just under 2 weeks ago and sent to me last week (I got it on Christmas Eve). Saturday night I went to a Christmas lights show and carried the 5D Mark II along to break it in. When I was going through the images on my computer after the fact, I got curious and started looking around and did happen to find some black dots (I don't have highlight tone priority or anything like that enabled). Also, they only appear on the right side of my images (not just the right side of the highlights, but just the right side of the entire image- highlights on the left side of it don't seem to display the same thing). Further, not all of the images have the black spots. I was shooting in manual mode so my settings didn't change between exposures. I do notice that the black spots are far less noticeable if the amount of camera shake is higher, but if you look hard they are still there. They're more prominent when the overall image is sharper.

I gave the Photoshop action posted in this thread a whirl and it does help out quite a bit- its result actually makes the image look more like it has camera shake when zoomed into the image at 100% (meaning the edges of the highlights look slightly fuzzy and very little of the black spots remain visible, but you can tell its there if you look), but doesn't seem to affect it when viewed in its entirety. This issue isn't that much of a concern to me because I very rarely shoot in these conditions and even then, they go unnoticed unless you do a lot of heavy cropping or zoom in to see fine details.
For the heck of it, here's a 100% crop of a shot from Saturday.

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