john_forney1

<p>I tried the technique suggested by Scott on the first page and it resolved my problem. I tried a few long exposure shots and the red dot was not there. Thank you.</p>

<p>I also contacted Canon customer service before I tried this. They said it would not harm the camera but were not sure if it would help.</p>

<p>I noticed that when I use LENR that the red dot is often replaced by a black dot which may be noticeable on a white background when the image is blown up. I will try Scott’s technique tonight and let you know how it works out.</p>

<p>Thank you for the replies. I have had the camera since around March 2010. Went I went back to my archived photos I noticed that the most noticeable spot first seemed to appear about three weeks ago. I was not really looking for small defects before. If I send the camera to Canon how much do you think it would cost to remap the sensor and would it really make that much of a difference?</p>

<p>When I use the long exposure noise reduction under the image command is it better to set it on ‘auto’ or ‘on’. Is this what Bob Atkins refers to as dark image subtraction? </p>

<p>What is the best method to assemble pictures together to reduce noise (to make longer star trails) as suggested by Bob Mitchell? </p>

<p>For the method suggested by Scott Ferris would this work if I left a lens on and kept the lens cap on and covered the viewfinder? Some of my things including my body cap have been packed by movers and I may not have access to them for a few weeks.</p>

<p>I have a problem with my Canon 5D Mark II. I was doing some astrophotography and long exposure pictures of star trails. After downloading them I noticed that there were stationary red, blue, green, and white dots. The more noticeable red ones were in the same place no matter where I had the camera pointed in the sky.<br>

I went back and looked at previous pictures I took, including a 5 second exposure portrait of someone sitting in a room with natural light, and when I enlarged the image the red dots were also there in the same place. I ran some tests and the red dots become brighter and more noticeable the longer the exposure and are consistently in the same place. They are even faintly visible at 1/40 to 1/50 of a second. Cleaning the lens had no effect.<br>

What can I do about this and what may have caused it?</p>

<p>Philip,<br>

When you say yes - do you mean that the camera needs servicing? I tried turning it on again and hear the same noise - two squeaking noises - similar to squeaky car brakes. It is not very loud but I hear it. I do not hear a clicking sound.<br>

John</p>

<p>When I turned my camera on and the sensor clean worked I heard two squeaking noises. I do not remember ever hearing that before. When I tried this again a few times the same thing happened. I then left the camera in the case for about 10 minutes and turned it on and did not hear the sound. Is there something wrong or failing with the camera? It is a Canon EOS 5D Mark II about one year old.</p>

<p>Another question - would the new USB 3.0 devices be compatible with older computers?</p>

<p>From what I am hearing having two external seperate hard drives (one used to periodically back up from the other) rather than RAID 1 is better. I have been backing up to DVDs but it takes 30 minutes for one 4.5 GB disk to copy and verify the data. Doing that along with putting in new disks and labeling them is rather time consuming. I would think that the data would be more error free and last longer on a hard drive than a DVD...and faster to retrieve as well.</p>

<p>It was suggested to me through a previous post to get an external casing to put a reliable internal drive in to store my pictures and data. I just returned from a trip and have 40GB of pictures and video from my 5DMII and only 5 GB of free space on my 80 GB hard drive. Copying and then retrieving everything from DVDs will be cumbersome. From the suggestions I got it sounds like getting an external casing from newegg.com for RAID 1 and then buying two Hitachi or maybe seagate 1 TB internal drives will solve my problem. If I need more space all I will need to do is put in another new hard drive in external casing. I saw something that may work - an external casing from Radion that is RAID 1. However when I looked at the price, $229.99 (just for the casing) I have had second thoughts. With what I spend on this and hard drives I would be on my way to getting a new computer system. Any thoughts on this. <br>

If larger capacity hard drives come out would they fit into the enclosure? </p>

<p>Another question. Since this is for a laptop (Dell Inspiron) do I need to order a particular internal drive that is compatible and that will fit into the sleeve I already have?</p>

<p>Thank you for the ideas. You mentioned getting an internal drive. That reminds me - about 10 months after I got my dell computer my internal seagate drive began to fail. Something happened shortly after and I could not access anything. I went to the local computer store and bought a metal casing for connecting a hard drive for about $20 and following thier advice was able to use that to retrieve all my files. <br>

From the above it sounds the best solution is to get a good Hitachi or seagate internal drive and hook this up with my computer as Andrew and Richard mentioned.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I wasn't all that impressed with many of those complete external units like the WD you mention, so I buy a good large Seagate drive at the local computer store, and put it into this external McAlly unit, which works great on both my PC's and Mac using any of it's multiple interface ports: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.macally.com/" target="_blank">G-S350SUAB Hi-Speed eSATA/1394A/1394B/USB2.0 Storage Enclosure for 3.5 SATA HDD</a></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Is it ok to use the metal casing I already have (just an open metal sleeve that the drive slips into or do I need to go and buy an external McAlly unit that Richard mentioned above? I have learned from experience NOT to move the disk while it is running. I feel that my hard drive in my laptop began to fail when I was walking around with my laptop while it was on. I have been very careful to avoid moving my laptop while it is running since getting the replacement drive and it has lasted four years so far.<br>

Is it better to buy the internal drive directly from Dell? Or is it just as safe getting it from amazon.com or another general retailer?</p>

<p>I have a Velbon Victory 250 tripod that has served me well for many years. I decided to pay more for something that would last. I put it in my checked baggage with American Airlines and on the return trip the knob that turns to extend the tripod (raise the height) was broken off (split in two). Also something is damaged where there is periodically some loseness and play in the stabilization for up and down... However when I rotate the shaft this seems to have tightened things up and solved this problem - for now. I called the airline and they said that unless it was in a tripod case they would not be responsible for any damage, even if I had packed it well. But I could still take it to the airport for them to look at it.<br>

Has this happened to anyone else and what was the resolution? I am thinking about trying to get superglue or epoxy cement to repair the knob myself.</p>

<p>The pictures and particulary the video of my 5DMII are taking up a lot of memory and am looking at the possibility of an external hard drive. On my last trip I have about 38 GB of pictures and video to look at and edit. My current computer system, which I will also need to update, only has an 80 GB hard drive so I will need to transfer files to the external hard drive and DVDs so I can work with the current things.<br>

I need to have a realiable, worry free system that is affordable. I noticed that Western Digital has a 1 TB and 1.5 TB USB system that is reasonably priced. However I have read reviews on Amazon.com that their most recent models have had a high failure rate and with USB downloading takes a long time. What recommendations do you have based on your experience or that of others?</p>

<p>Sounds like it would work and I have all the tools I need - but am packing now and don't want to mess with the camera and possibly cause a problem late in the night before I leave. I will deal with it when I return since it does not sound serious. Maybe I can also gently dislodge the smaller spot with air. How can you get an oil spot there? </p>

<p>I am about to leave on a long awaited 10 day trip to Montana and Canada tommorow and was doing a final test of my 5DMII and new f2.8 24-70 zoom lens. I noticed a new contstant fuzzy dark brown/black spot at the 7 0'clock postion when looking through my viewfinder that was not there before. It is not seen on the picture after taking and then reviewing the picture on the back of the camera and not there during the live view mode. But it is very irritating. I also see a smaller one on the upper right around the 3 o'clock position. I took off the lens but did not notice any dust on the mirror. From previous posts I heard it is best to avoid poking around the inside of the camera, even with a camel hair brush. What can I do about it?</p>

<p>I am looking to get a good white or gray card to replace my current method (flattened styrofoam cup) for my 5DMII. Which is better for white balance - a white or gray card? What size works best with a 24-70 and 70-200 zoom lens? I suspect the card sized ones would be too small. I see at B&H an inexpensive porta Brace card, a Digital Image Flow set of white, black, and gray cards, as well as others.</p>

<p>As Johnathon Lui said and Dell confirmed the software to download pictures for the 5DMII will not even start if the screen resolution is not at least 1024X768. Dell did not have netbooks that met this criteria and something close somewhere else was well over $500. I will stick with my current setup and upgrade my current laptop sometime in the future.</p>

<p>The weblink above looks like it will work. I was wondering also if I could transfer the Canon EOS utility program from my larger laptop (with a CD drive) by connecting the two computers with a cable and trying to download from the CD player in my notebook to the netbook. But I need to see if I can get one with the proper screen resolution first.</p>

<p>I want to add this is for my canon 5DMII</p>

<p>I just went to place an order for a netbook to store my pictures and found that they do not have CD drives. Without a CD drive how can I download the Canon EOS Utility? I need to click on and open this every time I download pictures. I went to the canon website to look for downloads and there were only EOS utility updater programs but not the original. Without the ability to download the original utility program I do not think this will work and will not get the netbook.</p>

<p>Rob, I did not think about connecting the camera directly to a television to view video. I should be able to do that in the hotel room when traveling. I will look into the AMD Neo processor.</p>

<p>I think a 10" netbook/laptop with a 2.5 Ghz processor, 4 GB RAM, and 250 GB hard drive that is 3 pounds or less under $400 would work. But doing some checking I do not think this exists. All the netbooks have 1.66 GHz processors and low RAM which may be a problem when playing back video.</p>

<p>I am interested in getting a small light netbook/laptop to take on a trip in a few weeks and would like to know what the minimum computer system requirements are for the 5DMarkII for all features to work properly. A previous person said that if the screen resolution is too low the photodirector program may not work or downloading may be a problem. This is basically for storing and viewing images as well as connecting to the internet when needed. The high resolution video does not play back properly on my old laptop with windows XP so I know that there are some minimum requirements for that.</p>

<p>It looks like a 10 inch netbook/laptop and extra memory card is the way to go.<br>

Will the xray machine at the airport have any effect on my memory cards & data?</p>

<p >When you are on an extended trip what is the best way to store and view images (I will be taking a trip to Montana and Canada for 10 days). I have a 32 GB memory card for my 5DMII and want to be sure I do not run out space. I will be flying so my large laptop would not work and space will be an issue. Would you recommend a small inexpensive laptop or an additional memory card? With an additional memory card I would not be able view a larger image like I could on a laptop.</p>