# Canon Cinema EOS C300 Mark II Exhibits Black Hole Sun Phenomenon



## Canon Rumors Guy (Mar 23, 2016)

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<p>In certain situations, it appears the Canon Cinema EOS C300 Mark II exhibits what is known as “black hole sun”, which is where highlights burn to black in certain situations.</p>
<p>The likely fix is a firmware update which could come quite quickly. I imagine Canon knows about the issue.</p>
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## jeffa4444 (Mar 23, 2016)

It appears to be excessive blooming (you have to wonder why you would walk up to a xenon car head light and point a camera that close!). Pretty much all CMOS sensors will produce blooming if pushed beyond their design limits even anti-blooming circuitry has its limitations.


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## avbmenon (Mar 23, 2016)

Learnt of a new phenomenon. Black Sun  Thanks for sharing. Would like to try it with other video cameras and see how they cope.


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## George D. (Mar 23, 2016)

Canon knows if you want to look straight into the sun there is one solution: 8)


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## CanoKnight (Mar 23, 2016)

This was reported for the 5d mk II too back in 2008 or 2009. Ken Rockwell called it the Uranus problem.


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## bsbeamer (Mar 23, 2016)

Blackmagic had this problem for awhile and has since been addressed in a firmware update. I'm not sure if this is a "deal killer" sort of issue/bug/programming when it's happening to a sub $1K camera - it can be forgiven if it's eventually addressed (despite many who were outraged over the issue).

When this is happening to a $15K+ camera, it's a different class of problem. At that price tag, these are issues people never expect to see. It's likely a "simple" mathematical calculation in combination with codec. (Unless it is present on output as well?) I hope they fix this soon before there's a group of DPs who stop recommending the C300 as their go-to solution, regardless of if it actually impacts THEIR work or not.


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## GmwDarkroom (Mar 23, 2016)

Going to cause huge problems if they want to use it on the next Star Trek movie.


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## shawnc (Mar 23, 2016)

Missed a perfect Soundgarden moment.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 23, 2016)

It happened much more seriously for the 5D MK II and still was not a big deal for most. Canon updated the firmware and that fixed it.


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## bgoyette (Mar 23, 2016)

I'm not sure what this guy did is evidence of a "problem" with the camera, no more than shooting under fluorescents without white balancing and complaining about the green, or underexposing CLog2 and complaining about the grain. This example only seems to exist to prove a point, but isn't indicative of any normally occurring phenomena with the camera. I've been shooting with the C300II for months now, and I've pointed it at many light sources to the point of flare. I've never seen it.


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## bgoyette (Mar 23, 2016)

Just as a quick test. I just pointed my C300 Mark II at the sun, and ramped the exposure up so it was completely blown out...(essentially, overexposing the scene, and then pointing the camera at the sun.) Lets just say anyone shooting this way is kinda missing the point...but I'll let you judge whether there is a black hole or not.

https://vimeo.com/160116991

This article should be taken down. It's based on a single russian video, with no proof that the camera involved is a C300 Mark II.


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## neuroanatomist (Mar 23, 2016)

avbmenon said:


> Learnt of a new phenomenon. Black [Hole] Sun



Not new, it was a phenomenon back in 1994 when Soundgarden released the song.


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## rupertwalker (Mar 23, 2016)

The black sun happened to me a couple months ago when I first received my C300 Mark II, Canon acknowledged the problem and gave me a full refund. C300 Mark II cameras with this problem will experience much higher than normal noise levels and may have disgusting looking magenta flares that coat the entire frame when aimed at bright light sources.

Buyers beware!!!!!!!


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## grainier (Mar 23, 2016)

The same happens to my eyes when one of those cars comes towards me at just the right angle.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Mar 23, 2016)

Reminds me of the 5D2 MkII issue. They were able to quickly fix that and the fix did zero damage to any aspect of the image quality as far as anyone could tell.


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## jeffa4444 (Mar 23, 2016)

Watching it again just proves to me what a stupid test it was. No one in their right mind would over-expose a shot to that degree and expect it not to over-load the light wells & spill into adjacent pixels over-loading them and the anti- blooming circuitry. A more controlled test should be conducted and measured against another type of camera.


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## LukasS (Mar 24, 2016)

bgoyette said:


> It's based on a single russian video...



Not russian - it's by Polish website: www.videodslr.pl


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## IglooEater (Mar 24, 2016)

jeffa4444 said:


> Watching it again just proves to me what a stupid test it was. No one in their right mind would over-expose a shot to that degree and expect it not to over-load the light wells & spill into adjacent pixels over-loading them and the anti- blooming circuitry. A more controlled test should be conducted and measured against another type of camera.



I agree that it's kind of a dumb test. However, I can remember Blackmagic cameras getting hammered mercilessly as being a tool not up to professional standards due to the exact same issue.


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## Maui5150 (Mar 25, 2016)

This sort of reminds me of the lasers from a few years back. Gee... If I let a laser fire directly on the sensor it can damage it. I know. Shocker.


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## steve oakley (Mar 26, 2016)

here is my c300 mk2 test. its very faint. I'm looking at LED 150W fresnel and its slight in the ungraded image, but in grading goes away. nothing like in the other test. note I've loaded the new firmware 1.0.3 that was release a day ago https://youtu.be/YW_AtZ1FqzA


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