Nikon D300 , Hot pixel on sensor !!!

Hi all , After 13391 photos I got HOT PIXEL on the sensor !! I send my camera

D300 for repair . Question , is this normal ? Thanks .

 

Shams

Is this normal? Yes. It happens on almost all sensors. They're not going to actually replace your sensor - they're going to "map it out" so that it doesn't show up like that. Oddly, some of these hot pixels actually become un-hot over time. I had two on my D200 that showed up for about 3 months (when using higher ISO settings). I've done nothing to the camera, and the problem is no longer evident. It's trivial to heal those pixels out of images where they might matter, but you're unlikely to get a sensor with over ten million photosites on it, and never have this show up once in a while. Wish it weren't so!

I have 3 on my D2X, I can only see them when I do night photography of the sky which is pretty rare so I could really care less. I actually went looking for them in ordinary photos and I couldn't find them. I think they only get "hot" on long exposures.

That shot was taken at ISO 3200 according to the EXIF. You're going to get hot pixels at ISO 3200 unless you're in cold weather or something.

normal;, no pixels die and I've even seen them get better. Unless it's dead center of the frame, it usually falls into the composition and i never see them. Worst case scenario, i need to clone 1 pixel, big deal.

I have 3 DSLRs and a high-ish-end P&S, I've never seen it. I'm also a little skeptical about the responses others here have given that it's common or happens all the time, because these things are solid state devices, and, like the transistors and other components in computer memory and microprocessors, if component failures were that common we'd be junking our computers left and right. I'm an engineer with a good general science background so I'd be interested to hear anyone's explanation of what would cause such failures that frequently. (and even more so, why they would sometimes "heal" later, as one poster suggested)

 

I HAVE, however, noticed hot pixels during my incoming qual tests. As many people here know, I test the bejeezus out of camera gear I buy and return defective units immediately for refund or replacement. I always carefully test digital cameras for hot pixels, doing long-ish exposures at high ISO's and blowing them up to 400% on my PC to look carefully. I then repeat the test with a short exposure and defocussed white surface looking for dead pixels.

 

I've had to return two cameras within hours of purchase for hot pixels. But I've never had hot pixels "appear" later. Most people don't test as fanatically as I do, so MY theory is that people don't NOTICE them until later when they happen to do a shot (dark background, high ISO, or long exposure) that reveals it. (your EXIF data says this is ISO 3200, which is certainly asking for trouble).

 

BTW, I've saved all my original test images so I can compare them to images taken later to see if any pixels change.

Thank you all for answers .

David , it's show up with ISO 250 too !.

 

Shams

Peter, I am positive I have had several hot pixels appear on a older D100. There is no way I am missing them the older shots. The camera was over four years old before the first problem appeared. These are visible in daylight shots at short exposure times (1/500th). Always in the same spot. Luckily the Adobe raw processor will filter them out.

 

I have no explanation of why sensor chips have this sort of failure.

Peter: what can I say... I use a D200 which I thoroughly tested at birth, making long manual exposures of dark scenes at high ISO. Just the expected noise. Whether by coincidence or not, immediately after touching down after a cross-country flight, some shots at mid-to-high ISOs were showing two red, and one blue hot ones. Some comments refer to x-ray gear at airports, or flying at 35,000 feet and having less atmosphere protecting the sensor from the same radiation/particles that give pilots a higher rate of cancer.

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Never the less, those three hot pixels were a source of some mild irritation through about the next 2000 exposures. Now only one remains a problem, and only intermittently at ISOs over 800. In practice, it's of no consequence anyway. But I assure you, I've been a careful observer of that chain of events. I'm not speaking to the physics of the underlying cause, just the visible symptoms/behavior.

It comes and goes. Don't bother much about that HOT PIX. I had one in my D300 and three in D200. After some time it had disappeared.

In computers it called error correction.

 

Ken Rockwell has a good explaination and there are many others if you google it: http://kenrockwell.com/tech/hot-pixels/index.htm

 

My D80 developed hot pixels after about six months that I was manually removing when I was doing my edits in PS. I haven't seen one recently though. So, I guess that proves to me they can come and go. It may be due to the weather - it was last summer/fall that I noticed them and I didn't have any though the winter. I see this weekend if they come back - supposed to be 32C with high humidity.

After 3 1/2 years, my D70 developed many hot pixels. No problem at ISO200 or 400, but they were bad at 800 & faster at shutter speeds 1/15 & slower. I sent it back to Nikon, hoping they could "map out" the bad ones. They wound up replacing the sensor!

many sensors have them from day one.

the manufacturer maps them out before you get them.

Hence them being familiar enough to quickly map out new ones sent in for repair later.

It's funny when I found my first hot pixel I was worried that my sensor was going south, so I did an web search and did all the reading I could find. The hot pixel is a fact of digital photography. Now if I see it in a photo I just use PS it out.

 

As a side note---don't you just love guys like Peter fixates on nothing spends hours finding the inevitable and returning the camera which now Nikon can't sell as new, so the sell as refurbished, which is good for the person buying it. But the rub I have is it drives up the costs because Nikon has to factor in the bozo factor and recover there costs, same with the retailer.

 

You know the first thing they do to engineers in school?? Remove their common sense----my father in an engineer he loves that joke.

<p>For integrated circuits you will unavoidably get defects especially when they are as big as a FX sensor or DX for that matter. If there wasn't the "map-out" process, yield rates per waffer would be so low a sensor would cost you 100x if not more to buy. Temperature, usage and, age will all affect the operation of those photodiodes.</p>