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Dead pixel
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A short story.
My Pentax *ist DL2 started putting a bright green spot near centre screen. I’ve had it 3 months and was a bit cheesed that a pixel was already dead. My immediate reaction was something like, “One down, only 5,999,999 left, at this rate my pictures will soon be indecipherable”.
I hesitated before I contacted Jessops about it in case they said something humiliating like, “Away and sh***, we don’t care about your single little dead pixel”. They didn’t though. To their credit they immediately arranged for the camera to be taken away and repaired. The staff in their Derry shop are singularly unhelpful, truculent and unwelcoming, but their online customer service telephone helpline was exemplary. Fair play to them.
So… anyone with a dead pixel and a camera within warranty, you know what you should demand.
Pete,
I’ve been doing a bit more searching on the web for this and it appears to be very common. Seems like all DSLRs have bad pixels straight from the factory but you never see them because they are mapped out or interpolated by the camera. However, should new ones appear then the camera needs to be sent back for them to remap the new bad pixels. You will just get the same camera with the same stuck pixels, you just won’t see them. As your camera is under warranty, it probably makes sense to send it back, if only because it will affect the resale value.
Another interesting fact is that it will probably disappear when shooting in JPG as the processing includes “hot” pixel removal. Many other RAW convertors will also remove hot pixels automatically or allow you to map them yourself. Alternatively you could just manually correct the pixel before printing an enlargement. I think that I would favour this approach.
Andy
Chips are made to a level of tolerance and are graded accordingly, hence the larger the chip and the more perfect the chip is the more expensive, it is a trade off to get a 6mp or higher chip for less money.
In general manufacturers differ in their ‘tolerances’ to faults and quality of chips used.
I need a “haven’t a clue” option, as I only judge the picture on how it looks overall. I can’t be arsed looking for duff pixels, but as my camera is six years old and has been hammered unmercifully I suppose it must have some. I do spend a few seconds in post-pro spotting out sensor crap on the rare occasions I stop the lens down ;)
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