Black-dot in highlight (Sun)

hi,

I am shooting a lot of sun going down and the black "hot-spot" is costing me a lot of postproduction. What to do?

Tomas Tomasson
Director of photography
tomastomasson com

Close the aperture on your lens more.

close the aperture... so the entire look of your video changes, yea thats the right solution...

shoot with a different camera i guess until blackmagic fixes this ridiculous black spot. (never)

close the aperture... so the entire look of your video changes, yea thats the right solution...

shoot with a different camera i guess until blackmagic fixes this ridiculous black spot. (never)

ok....adjust your shutter speed, us an ND filter

either way, lower your exposure.

You'll find that very same fault on a number of other cameras, even significantly more expensive ones. You'll also find it in lots of tv-shows if you know where to look. It's by no means a problem specific to blackmagic cameras, and obviously neither other manufacturers nor other dops are able to banish it completely...

I wonder if there is a filter / plugin to automatically remove the sun spot? It should be easy, just create a filter that detects absolute black spots inside clipped highlights and switch them to 100% white. Of course you'd only enable the filter in clips that show black spots, as there may be shooting conditions that look very similar.

You'll find that very same fault on a number of other cameras, even significantly more expensive ones. You'll also find it in lots of tv-shows if you know where to look. It's by no means a problem specific to blackmagic cameras, and obviously neither other manufacturers nor other dops are able to banish it completely...

I wonder if there is a filter / plugin to automatically remove the sun spot? It should be easy, just create a filter that detects absolute black spots inside clipped highlights and switch them to 100% white. Of course you'd only enable the filter in clips that show black spots, as there may be shooting conditions that look very similar.

Well, first of all, I am not seeing this black spot on my Canon dSLR camera, which is a $1500 camera! I know RED has a spot like this in the sun but it is much smaller and not as noticeable. It can be difficult to fix this in post in some shots, like when a person is walking across the frame and blocking the sun for some frames and when shooting out off a window of a moving car and trees are passing in front of the sun. I must say, this is the ugliest highlight artefact I have seen in any camera and I can not believe that BlackMagic can not fix this bug.
p.s. regarding stopping down the exposure, that will do the trick in some scenarios but usually not for me... and also, who wants to shoot on a camera that does this with the highlights when you have to clip the image?

Well, first of all, I am not seeing this black spot on my Canon dSLR camera, which is a $1500 camera! I know RED has a spot like this in the sun but it is much smaller and not as noticeable. It can be difficult to fix this in post in some shots, like when a person is walking across the frame and blocking the sun for some frames and when shooting out off a window of a moving car and trees are passing in front of the sun. I must say, this is the ugliest highlight artefact I have seen in any camera and I can not believe that BlackMagic can not fix this bug.
p.s. regarding stopping down the exposure, that will do the trick in some scenarios but usually not for me... and also, who wants to shoot on a camera that does this with the highlights when you have to clip the image?

The Alexa also has the black-dot sun issue.

It doesnt always do it in the highlights or when you clip the image - just when you clip AND have it pointed at a very very bright light source.

I would actually be more worried about focusing so much light onto the sensor anyway and risking damaging it.

Well, first of all, I am not seeing this black spot on my Canon dSLR camera, which is a $1500 camera! I know RED has a spot like this in the sun but it is much smaller and not as noticeable. It can be difficult to fix this in post in some shots, like when a person is walking across the frame and blocking the sun for some frames and when shooting out off a window of a moving car and trees are passing in front of the sun. I must say, this is the ugliest highlight artefact I have seen in any camera and I can not believe that BlackMagic can not fix this bug.
p.s. regarding stopping down the exposure, that will do the trick in some scenarios but usually not for me... and also, who wants to shoot on a camera that does this with the highlights when you have to clip the image?

The Alexa also has the black-dot sun issue.

It doesnt always do it in the highlights or when you clip the image - just when you clip AND have it pointed at a very very bright light source.

I would actually be more worried about focusing so much light onto the sensor anyway and risking damaging it.

There is a big different in the Black-dot in the Alexa and the BlackMagic cameras. In Alexa and RED cameras, the dot is not as big and not Black like in the BlackMagic camera. The reason I am using BlackMagic camera is to save money on rental, since the BlackMagic is fordable to buy and it is 4k. With the black spot in the BlackMagic as is, I either have to rent RED Dragon for those sun scenes or fix the BlackMagic footage in post. Fixing the sun in a 4k 6 hour footage will cost the same or more as renting RED dragon for a day and then on top of that, I need to figure out a new pipeline to record 4k 6 hour footage from the RED dragon. Then if I change the camera, I need to match the look of that camera to the BlackMagic camera, either in post or in-camera so this is endless problems. Anyway, does anyone know if the URSA has the Black-dot in the sun?

Here is a footage shot on Canon 5D MK2 camera in Magic Lantern RAW mode. It would take me for ever to fix this shot if it would be 6 hour long in 4k. This is my problem:(



kind regards,

Tomas Tomasson
Director of Photography

Tom Majerski, do you have some payments or discounts to protect BM here?
You appears very fast when protection of BM's interests required.
It's just a bug. It need to be fixed! Thats it!

BM creates great cameras! Lets fix it a bit to make just greater!

Tom Majerski, do you have some payments or discounts to protect BM here?
You appears very fast when protection of BM's interests required.
It's just a bug. It need to be fixed! Thats it!

BM creates great cameras! Lets fix it a bit to make just greater!

No, I just object to misinformation and don't think it is in any way a helpful comment to just automatically without any inquiry or analysis conclude that something is faulty.

If you really paid attention to my comments and contributions over my time on the forum you would see that I am often critical of the cameras too - but only when warranted. I also have gone out of my way many times to assist other users, on this forum and many others.

In this instance the OP asked what to do about getting a black sun in the image - I suggested what they could do.

I then pointed out that other even more high end and older cameras also have the issue - which yes, would be good to have fixed - but it is often portrayed as some kind of debilitating issue unique to blackmagic cameras - which is untrue and inaccurate.

At the very least you can disagree with my opinions or my methods but at least unlike you - I have not sought to defame or insult anyone.

There is a big different in the Black-dot in the Alexa and the BlackMagic cameras. In Alexa and RED cameras, the dot is not as big and not Black like in the BlackMagic camera

(above - Alexa footage - not a great example but I have nothing else to hand)

The black dot is typically the same size as the emitter - and even if a bit smaller or bigger, it is still visible and would require the same removal process.

I'm not sure what you want from this thread - you asked what to do about the black sun issue and until (assuming they do fix it in the future) it is fixed, the only solution is to do as I originally advised.

It is possible to shoot the sun and other very bright objects without the black sun of death - you just need to stop down a bit (however you prefer to do it).

Debating which cameras have it does nothing to fix the original issue.

It exists on these cameras, it exists on others - some companies fix it, some dont.

Interesting Tom! Yes, the black spot is there, but it's really small! In BM cameras it's bigger unfortunately, and in the shot of the trees's branches posted by Tomas it will be a pain. You can do a luma matte with all the foreground elements clipped to black and use it like a matte, but the black spot will be black too and the tracking is really difficult in that particular situation. For a six hour shot it will be really hard to do it by hands...
Probably the only way is to shot with another camera or to stop down the lens with ND or closing the iris, but it will change the look of the shot obviously.
Its needed a compromise in any case...

Interesting Tom! Yes, the black spot is there, but it's really small! In BM cameras it's bigger unfortunately,

The size of the black spot depends on the size of the emitter. In the alexa shot - its a single LED array (very small)

Also, big or small - it is still visible and needs the same amount of removing.

First of all I want to thank you Tom for all your comments. I know you are trying to help. The fact is that I have never seen as bad black spot as in the BlackMagic camera. I think the people who build the camera should address that issue right away and say up front what their plan is with it. Are they trying to fix it or do the user just have to live with this bug. I love this camera. Here are images I shot with the camera and it is interesting to compare it with the footage you shown from the Alexa.

Are they trying to fix it or do the user just have to live with this bug.

I hope they do at some point fix it - they rarely seem to publically announce their long term firmware plans or cam development.

In the mean time, the best option I find is to just expose accordingly. Far better than trying to fix it in post I reckon.

It is almost certainly not something which is easy or simple to fix - else it would have been fixed a long time ago, the same goes for the other camera manufacturers who's cameras exhibit the artefact.

[CaptainHook]

I think the people who build the camera should address that issue right away and say up front what their plan is with it.

Kristian Lam (the camera product manager) discussed this issue at the bottom of his post here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21179#p131768

I think the people who build the camera should address that issue right away and say up front what their plan is with it.

Kristian Lam (the camera product manager) discussed this issue at the bottom of his post here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21179#p131768

I know, he did that more than half a year ago... Since then a lot of firmware updates have come and none talked about the Black-Dot. I think that is strange...

Learning to build, and use, masks in your NLE will ease the pain of the "black hole sun".
I don't like it, but I can make it go away in a few quick steps.

Learning to build, and use, masks in your NLE will ease the pain of the "black hole sun".
I don't like it, but I can make it go away in a few quick steps.

What is NLE?

What is NLE?

Non-Linear Editor. Such as Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier, Avid, Sony Vegas, etc.

I know, he did that more than half a year ago... Since then a lot of firmware updates have come and none talked about the Black-Dot. I think that is strange...

It's a hardware limitation, something that firmware can't necessarily fix. If they come up with a way to fix it, they'll tell us. Even if it comes to them putting in a fix in DaVinci Resolve