topic Re: White spot on photo - please help! in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

White spot on photo - please help!

lauraespinosa01 — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 15:24:18 GMT

Hi all,

My Canon 60D just started showing all these white pixels on photos. I'll attach an example. Using different lenses does not make a difference, so it appears to be the camera.

You have to zoom in to see it, but then it's very obvious. Hundreds of little white dots that form lines across the photo.

Aside from this, the camera is in good shape. It's not new by any means, but I take very good care of it. It hasn't been dropped or gotten wet or anything.

Any ideas what the problem is? 😞

Thank you in advance,

Laura

Re: White spot on photo - please help!

jrhoffman75 — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 17:02:31 GMT

I don't have any thoghts yet; I am posting a 100% screenshot to let others see the phenomena and maybe have thoughts.

I can't tell what you took a photo of, so I don't know if all the spots and general clutter is the scene or a dirty sensor.

Do you have more than one SD card you can try? Can you format the card and then try again?

Re: White spot on photo - please help!

TCampbell — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 17:29:17 GMT

It was hard to see, but I right-clicked the image to "open in new tab" and was finally able to see them. They start near that dark spot in the middle of the image and are located in an area going downward and slightly to the right.

What's interesting is that while the dots seem random, they stort of line up in rows of higher density and those rows are even sorted into columns of higher density -- there's a pattern.

The camera can't record "white" per se... the photo-sites on the sensor are under a color filter array (CFA) -- in this case the CFA is a Bayer mask. Each photosite can detect only red light, green light, or blue light. To create "white" requires that the image be de-mosaiced (or de-Bayered) by looking at the surrounding photosites to derive the combined RGB color of each pixel.

This leads me to wonder... were these shot in JPEG or RAW?

Are these genuinely straight out of the camera or did you import them into some image processing program (if so, which one?)

On the off chance that there's a problem with the memory card (because this really doesn't look like a sensor problem - sensors tend to fail in individual "stuck" pixels or in entire rows or columns that quite working) have you tested using a different memory card?

Re: White spot on photo - please help!

lauraespinosa01 — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 17:31:21 GMT

Thank you for your response and for enlarging the photo for me. Yes, I've tried different cards and it doesn't make a difference either.

The photo is a white wall and what you're seeing is dirt on the wall. The problem is just the tiny white dots which appear to be pixels, so not dirt...

Thanks again.

Re: White spot on photo - please help!

lauraespinosa01 — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 17:34:25 GMT

TCampbell- thanks for your response!

It was shot in JPEG and no, it hasn't been imported into any program. I can see the white dots on my camera screen immediately after taking the photo.

I did try a different memory card and it didn't make a difference 😞

Re: White spot on photo - please help!

lauraespinosa01 — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 17:42:17 GMT

Here is a better photo that shows the problem...

Thank you again for your responses, I really appreciate it!!

Re: White spot on photo - please help!

TCampbell — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 18:18:27 GMT

In that case, it looks like something is creating some sort of electronic "noise" and is corrupting your images. (e.g. the sensor may be having a read-out problem, etc.)

That... or alien life is trying to communicate with you but nobody speaks that language. 😉

Since there is no setting that causes this, there's nothing you can reset/disable to eliminate it.

You should contact Canon and arrange to have the camera evaluated and serviced.

Re: White spot on photo - please help!

lauraespinosa01 — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 21:02:13 GMT

Thanks Tim.

I just remembered that when this happened the red light by the memory card slot was blinking excessively as if the memory were full or something, even if there was only a photo or two on it. Is it possible that it's a problem with the memory card reader? Have you ever heard of anything like that?

Re: White spot on photo - please help!

jrhoffman75 — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 21:13:43 GMT

Since you say you see it on the camera LCD when you take the picture I would conclude its a camera problem and not a card problem. What you see on the LCD immediately after taking the photo is what is being written to the card.

When you press the blue playback arrow then you are seeing what is on the card.