5D Mark II Black Dots....Problem?

There have been reports here and other places about "black dots" appearing to the right of blown out lights in night shots with the 5D MII. I have the camera on order and am seriously considering canceling my order until this is resolved. I called up Canon tech support and the person I spoke to stated that they don't know of any problems with the camera. I gave him the address of the link above, but I was told that they only respond to issues by actual owners and would not look at something on the web.


Thought I'd start a separate thread on this since this issue has appeared in more than one thread here. Of current owners, who has experienced this and what is your view as to whether this is a fundamental camera bug?

For those who haven't seen this phenomenon yet...



This is a 100% crop at 200 ISO that was first spotted in this thread

My plan is to buy one after xmas, assuming that this issue has been sorted by then. There are now numerous examples by different people who have posted images with the same defect of a black dot to the right of a bright point of light. As far as iStock is concerned this effectively rules out using the camera for night shots until the issue is resolved or explained.

you could just fill in the dots.... its an extra feature to keep you busy! :P


probably a firmware issue (or at least i hope so )





Kurt

Oi Oi, here we go again Canon, I'm sure it'll be fixed by firmware, I just dont believe anyone should have to deal with nonsense like this when they shell out all their money for a product that should perform

I did contact them and they are looking into the issue. In my opinion I think they know about all these problems and just sell the product anyway hoping no one would notice. Sont they realize if your buying a pro body chances are you will notice!

I kinda wish this would be a major issue with buyers so Canon drops the price even further. I am buying it, dots or not. Also, makes me feel less depressed for not preordering it.

I wonder if they will stop shipping so they don't run itnoe everything being returned?

Maybe the the firmware will put in the missing numbers for the dot to dot game.


If I remember correctly Canon said there was no auto focus issue with the 1D mkIII.

Does anybody else have this issue with their 5DMII's?

My fear is that it may be deeper than the firmware. I'm sure Canon will ulitmately resolve the issue, but I wouldn't like to participate in a painful camera swap or repair program.


As jaywarren asked above it would be a great communal help if other's who have received their 5DMIIs could do some night shots to see if this is in fact a generic problem vs. particular cameras.


Also, would be good to know if this only happens when long exposure noise reduction (dark frame subtraction) is being used as the symptom sounds suspiciously like the "black pitting" phenomenon described here (not quite the same but similar).

This one is realy interesting

http://www.panopeeper.com/Demo/Canon5DMkII_BlackPixels.GIF

Hmmm. Think I may cancel my order and see what Canon comes back with.....

Understandable, I am coming very close myself to cancelling my order. I just sent Canon tech support a message with a couple of links and asking for Canon's position on the problem. I told them that I am very close to cancelling my order.

On the image above, it looks like there are some red and green dots too. I suspect that it is simply some sort of Christmas promotion to simulate Christmas lights and the issue will go away in the first week of January or so!

I have a hard time accepting that no one in Canon knows about the issue, with all the sophisticated testing that they do before the camera came into the market, a problem that only took a customer one day to discover, and in fact all over the world. My guess is that they are aware of the issue, but decided to release the camera while they are working on a solution to resolve it. A marketing decision perhaps, a timing for Christmas decision may be! In any case, a camera of this ranking certainly should not have a major issue as this one seems to have.

Maybe if we all sent a message that we are cancelling orders unless there is a definitive statement from Canon we might get one. I sure don't want to go through the hassle of paying for a camera I have to send back and then wait 6 months to have returned. I am seriously disappointed.


You don't suppose this is a confederacy of Nikon users trying to hold up anyone getting the camera do you? LOL

No kidding... I too find it hard to believe that they wouldn't notice it. It is such an abvious flaw that the experts who created it should have (if they didn't already) caught the problem. Of course, since they decided to let them ship, I bet it is firmware. I HOPE so at least. I would be very dissapointed with Canon if they knew about the problem (which I find it hard to believe they didn't) and then let them ship anyway without it being able to be solved very easily.

There is no way they didn't notice this, so I'm surprised they released them to public before fixing it. It's bad publicity... very bad. Good news is though that this will most likely be solved with a firmware upgrade, as I doubt they would risk thousands of returns (which would happen if this was something not "fixable"). That would just break their bank, especially in this climate... And again, very bad business practice to release a product with such a flaw... I'm really confused.

The trouble is either way it does not say much about the leadership, if they knew and ship anyway, it is a very bad PR nightmare for the company, and if they didn't know about the problem..... Hmmmmm.... I think that is worse of a problem!

(Edited on 2008-12-04 21:57:07 by YinYang)