Robert’s Photography Blog

The photography forums, especially at DPReview, have been buzzing recently with reports of strange artifacts in photos from the new Canon 5D Mark II. In some cases, small black dots appear next to bright highlights. In mid-December, Canon issued an apology and stated that a fix was forthcoming.

On January 8th, Canon released a firmware update v1.0.7 for the EOS 5D Mk II. The firmware update addresses the ‘black dot’ and vertical banding issues experienced by users of firmware v1.0.6.

What has changed in new firmware?

It improves and mitigates the following image quality phenomena:

#1. Black dot phenomenon (the right side of point light sources becomes black)

When shooting night scenes, the right side of point light sources (such as lights from building windows) may become black. The phenomenon may become visible if the images are enlarged to 100% or greater on a monitor or if extremely large prints of the images are made. This firmware improves and mitigates this phenomenon.

#2. Vertical banding noise

If the recording format is set to sRAW1, vertical banding noise may become visible depending on the camera settings, subject, and background. The firmware improves and mitigates this phenomenon.

The company also asks users to update their DPP and Picture Style Editor software. Why? If the existing software applications are used to display sRAW1 and sRAW2 images that were captured by a camera with Firmware Version 1.0.7, dark, low-contrast areas in the images may appear slightly magenta. If the updated software applications are used to display sRAW1 and sRAW2 images, the color of the images will appear normal, regardless of the camera firmware version.

If you are curious, examples of before and after photos have been posted by Andrew Yip on his blog.

The latest firmware version can be downloaded from Canon’s website.