A Hot Pixel?

Jack Lynt

Jack Lynt

Hey guys. Could you take a look at this brief video clip? See the orange spec near the upper left corner? Would you say that's a hot pixel? Something else? It shows up in all my low-light (wedding reception) video. I tried the sensor remapping function a number of times, but it didn't do a thing to eliminate it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGBcyne-ri4&feature=youtu.be

Thanks!
 
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It could be a spec of dust on the lens or sensor thats visible when you crank exposure? Either way you can just shift something from the left of the footage next to the spec to patch over the top of it. This will remove it.
 
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Update*********


Because I had bought the protection plan from Best Buy, I took it to the Geek Squad and they sent it to their "Professional Repair Department." The PRD sent it back with a work order saying that they had inspected and cleaned the camera inside and out. I'm sure they didn't even bother to look for or at the problem I brought it in for.

So I took it back to Best Buy a second time and they sent it back to the PRD again. This time, at least, the Geek Squad guy looked at the video sample I brought in and saw it for himself. He also said he would email those samples to the PRD.

So, the PRD sent it back with a report saying that they had cleaned the camera (again?).

This time, though, they sent this letter explaining how what I am seeing is actually noise.

picture.php


So, is "noise" an accurate description of that "hot" orange spot in all the low light videos I shoot?

Googling has taken me to posts by other people describing their similar experiences with hot pixel problems in the video they shoot. Those people did not say it was just ordinary noise that they just have to live with. They write about sending it in to Canon who either tried to remap the sensor or replaced the sensor.

Unfortunately, the manufacturer's warranty is long over.

But...

I had bought the protection plan from Best Buy on this camera. The Best Buy guy talked me into it because he assured me that if the camera turned out to be defective, were broken, or even, he said, if it were dropped in a local lake (he named the lake, though, for dramatic effect), then it would be replaced, no problem. They're real good about that, he told me. So I bought it. The cost of the protection plan was a large sum of money for me on top of an already expensive camera, significantly larger than my typical paycheck...all on the promise that it would be replaced.

So when it turned out to have this defect, did Best Buy replace the camera after they found they couldn't fix it? No. I guess they've even denied that there is a problem or a defect. I'm still thinking it is a defect, and not an insignificant one. It doesn't seem to me that I'm being frivolous. Or am I? That hot pixel, or whatever it is, is going to be in every moment of video I shoot in low ambient light, like at wedding receptions, which may be the most important video to me personally and to my family that I ever shoot. And whatever else.

I mean, okay, it's just me. I'm not a professional. I'm just another customer. The video I shoot, so far, will only be important to me and to my family and friends. But, what if I did shoot things like weddings professionally or semi-professionally? That could be a hell of a lot of video to fix that spot out in post...and it would concern other people/clients and their money, not to mention their keepsake memories.

Or am I mistaken? Are the PRD and Best Buy correct? Is it only normal noise that all videographers must simply live with? Or are they reneging on their obligation to fulfill the promise of the protection plan they sold to me?

As far as I can tell, at this point, my advice is to think twice about buying a protection plan from Best Buy on a camera.

I suppose another moral of the story, maybe the more important moral of the story, is: try to find these defects while the manufacturer's warranty is still good. At least Canon, or whatever company, might actually fix the problem. Don't count on a protection plan from a store, not one from Best Buy, anyway. That is to say, I don't really want to tell anyone not to buy a protection plan. But for myself, I can't really see buying one from them again on a camera. I think I've been had.

Or again. Am I mistaken? Please do correct me if I am, and please explain why, if you could spare the time.

=)

Guess I'll just have to learn how to heal it in post. Not sure my brain's up to the task though, even if the software is.

Another sample, one that I showed Best Buy, is below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xlg8qjz3t4

It's the same with all three of my lenses. I'd like to post video of the reception I shot to show better how annoying and intrusive it is. It's especially conspicuous during pans. Once you see it you cannot un-see it. But the subjects of the videos might not appreciate that, and also for the sake of privacy. =P

Gosh, that turned into a large post. If you took the time to look this over, thank you and bless you. :)
 
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It's not noise. They're just proving that they scammed you with that optional BS insurance. I'm sure it's a common thing. Sell you insurance, then tell you, "It's not covered." as it's not broken, it's due to the sun being closer to the planet than when you bought the item or some other lame BS excuse. In the mean time, they're giving you the super run around hoping you'll give up.

I'd be super upset if I were you.
 
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Remapping is not going to help that. That's generally just useful with still images.

That hot pixel, or whatever it is, is going to be in every moment of video I shoot in low ambient light
Click to expand...

Nope, it's going to be in every frame you shoot, regardless of lighting. It may blend it better, under certain conditions, but it's there.

I wouldn't say that they are reneging on their extended warranty, by the look of that form letter they sent. They certainly have no clue about your particular issue, though.

So how good's that extended warranty? The cleaning team reckons there's no issue. What happens if you accidentally trip and drop that camera into the lake (as mentioned), or maybe onto the pavement, and there's real damage-damage? Feel confident enough for that? :hmm:

Maybe consider renting a camera in the future. Sure, you need to accomodate the cost of the rental into the quote, but you can get a replacement camera (assuming you run a pre-check before the gig) if there's an issue with the kit.
 
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For me it looks like a pixel that I have on my Nikon D60 photo camera. On my camera it's only visible when I use longer expositions, the longer the exposition, the brighter the pixel becomes. When I use regular or fast exposition times it isn't there. I believe that this is to be expected for all digital cameras (and monitors). I think that some manufacturers will replace a monitor but only when a certain number of pixels have a problem.

I would expect this type if problem for low end cameras but if I bought a camera over a few thousand dollars I would expect a better quality sensor without problem pixels and wouldn't hesitate to contact the manufacturer over such a problem (unless it only appears in low light). The solution would probably to make a mask with a few pixels around the problem pixel and add a blur filter to that region. It should help aleviate the problem.
 
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It looks like it's either a stuck pixel or a hot pixel.

Pretty much every camera is going to give you a couple of hot pixels when you have the ISO cranked up or are doing long exposures. I get 2-3 hot pixels every time I do star timelapses and am using 20 second exposures. This is quite normal and these hot pixels should disappear when you are doing your normal exposures with your ISO below 800.

If it is a stuck pixel, then it is going to appear in the same spot every time irrespective of the exposure settings. Stuck pixels are basically constantly "onn" but can disappear over time.

With this information, do a couple of tests and see which one of these is the issue. Neither are an issue when taking photographs and hot pixels are less of a problem when doing video compared to stuck pixels which can be problematic.

If you're sensor starts getting littered with either of these or you start getting dead pixels, then it's a real problem.
 
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Thanks, guys, a lot for reading that and for your responses. Now I know I'm not crazy or out of line being disgruntled.

Sfoster, thanks for your compassion. I'm not sure; I haven't tested it out that much. That example up there, I'm pretty sure, is all the way up to 6400. I took a number of videos at 3200 and 6400 in my darkened living room so it would be hard for the Best Buy people to miss. I don't recall the highest I went to when shooting that wedding recently, but I'm sure not that high because it still looks pretty nice noise-wise, to me anyway. But the spot is there! I should test it. Though I'm sure Steve is absolutely right that it's always there. Anyway, it's probably just mercifully difficult to see in those kinds of exposures. Is there a way for me to tell what the exposure settings I used on video I already shot? Is that data embedded in it somewhere?

Oh heck, I will post one of those wedding videos. Clint Eastwood wouldn't (get that reference? :P), so I think I'll take it down soon. Please forgive me for that in advance. But, if I had to guess, I'd guess that I only had to go as high as 3200. Yeah, it has quiet a bit of noise. But I was still pretty happy with it considering such low ambient light at a live event...until I noticed that little devil of a spot. Watch it move, move, move. And please don't judge me too hard for my poor and inexperienced focus pulling and panning (and other things I did wrong). This is pretty much my first video shoot. =P

- - - - -

But I think that goes to show it's a real problem in a real world shoot, not just something that shows up in my creepily dark living room with the ISO cranked up so the techs can't miss it.

Sweetie, thank you for your compassion. :) I think you're right. I should be pissed. But mostly, I just feel let down. I think it's one of those things beyond my control, and what do you do... ? I have thought about fighting it, being a better "patient advocate," so to speak. But I don't think I really have that in me. I really don't like conflict. And it's not how it was supposed to be. I mean, truly, the clerk who talked me into the protection plan painted such a different picture. And I know Best Buy has had trouble etc etc etc. Which isn't an excuse, but...

Thank you very much, Steve. That has crossed my mind. But I think they "played it right," if their agenda was to avoid fulfilling the protection plan's promise. I bought three years of protection, and it ended on the 10th. Maybe if I'd discovered the problem earlier... And I really couldn't bear it. I love the camera, otherwise. And I've taken excellent care of it (and, unfortunately, barely used it, really). It's pristine and like-new, except for the flawed sensor.

I don't know. But I think they knew as well as I knew that the protection plan was soon to expire. The second Geek Squad guy looked at the video and saw the flaw. He said he would send it on to the PRD. Taking him on his word, if he did send it to them, then I have to conclude that either they ignored the email and video, altogether, or, if they did look at it, then I have to believe there's no way they could have missed it, in which case they decided to just blow smoke up my... And now the three years are up.

Yeah, the prospect of renting does have undeniable appeal, given this kind of trouble. I suppose if you rent a camera for an important event or shoot, it might also turn out to have such a problem. But at least you wouldn't have bought the damn thing.

Thank you for the great advice, Ben3D. Yeah, I think I have no choice but to try to learn how to do that, and hope for the best. I didn't spend 3k+ on the camera. Well, not for the body alone. It's a 5DII. I bought it just after the MkIII came out, and the price had dropped to 2200 on the MKII. But with taxes, the protection plan, and accessories, you could say it's a 3k+ camera --at the time. So it was too late for them to replace it with another MKII. (When I bought the camera, I thought I was buying it to be a still camera, not a video camera. But then I later realized that I was fooling myself and really wanted to shoot moving pictures. But of course it was always in the back of mind that I could ultimately use it for video.)

But what should have happened, I believe, is they should have honored their word and replaced it with a comparable camera, which seems like that would be the 6D, which is currently priced significantly less than I paid for the MkII at the time.

Thank you very much for reading and responding, Ernest. Great information. Then I wonder which it is. If it's a stuck pixel, then I'll try to take comfort in the fact that it might disappear over time. I would send it in to Canon, but if the only fix would be to change the sensor, well, I couldn't afford that, I'm sure. And it wouldn't be worth the expense for an older camera, I would think.

And now I can't sell it in good conscience. Which means I can't sell it. Not at a decent price, anyway.

In retrospect, I should not have bothered buying the protection plan. Or maybe I could have bought, maybe, one year of protection plan, which might have been good at least for things like the camera being dropped in the lake. Then, I should have put the camera through it's video paces and hopefully discovered the flaw early. Then, if the protection plan turned out to be useless, at least the camera would have been under warranty and maybe Canon would have fixed it for me. :weird:
 
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richy said:
Thanks, guys, a lot for reading that and for your responses. Now I know I'm not crazy or out of line being disgruntled.

Sfoster, thanks for your compassion. I'm not sure; I haven't tested it out that much. That example up there, I'm pretty sure, is all the way up to 6400. I took a number of videos at 3200 and 6400 in my darkened living room so it would be hard for the Best Buy people to miss. I don't recall the highest I went to when shooting that wedding recently, but I'm sure not that high because it still looks pretty nice noise-wise, to me anyway. But the spot is there! I should test it. Though I'm sure Steve is absolutely right that it's always there. Anyway, it's probably just mercifully difficult to see in those kinds of exposures. Is there a way for me to tell what the exposure settings I used on video I already shot? Is that data embedded in it somewhere?

Oh heck, I will post one of those wedding videos. Clint Eastwood wouldn't (get that reference? :P), so I think I'll take it down soon. Please forgive me for that in advance. But, if I had to guess, I'd guess that I only had to go as high as 3200. Yeah, it has quiet a bit of noise. But I was still pretty happy with it considering such low ambient light at a live event...until I noticed that little devil of a spot. Watch it move, move, move. And please don't judge me too hard for my poor and inexperienced focus pulling and panning (and other things I did wrong). This is pretty much my first video shoot. =P

But I think that goes to show it's a real problem in a real world shoot, not just something that shows up in my creepily dark living room with the ISO cranked up so the techs can't miss it.

Sweetie, thank you for your compassion. :) I think you're right. I should be pissed. But mostly, I just feel let down. I think it's one of those things beyond my control, and what do you do... ? I have thought about fighting it, being a better "patient advocate," so to speak. But I don't think I really have that in me. I really don't like conflict. And it's not how it was supposed to be. I mean, truly, the clerk who talked me into the protection plan painted such a different picture. And I know Best Buy has had trouble etc etc etc. Which isn't an excuse, but...

Thank you very much, Steve. That has crossed my mind. But I think they "played it right," if their agenda was to avoid fulfilling the protection plan's promise. I bought three years of protection, and it ended on the 10th. Maybe if I'd discovered the problem earlier... And I really couldn't bear it. I love the camera, otherwise. And I've taken excellent care of it (and, unfortunately, barely used it, really). It's pristine and like-new, except for the flawed sensor.

I don't know. But I think they knew as well as I knew that the protection plan was soon to expire. The second Geek Squad guy looked at the video and saw the flaw. He said he would send it on to the PRD. Taking him on his word, if he did send it to them, then I have to conclude that either they ignored the email and video, altogether, or, if they did look at it, then I have to believe there's no way they could have missed it, in which case they decided to just blow smoke up my... And now the three years are up.

Yeah, the prospect of renting does have undeniable appeal, given this kind of trouble. I suppose if you rent a camera for an important event or shoot, it might also turn out to have such a problem. But at least you wouldn't have bought the damn thing.

Thank you for the great advice, Ben3D. Yeah, I think I have no choice but to try to learn how to do that, and hope for the best. I didn't spend 3k+ on the camera. Well, not for the body alone. It's a 5DII. I bought it just after the MkIII came out, and the price had dropped to 2200 on the MKII. But with taxes, the protection plan, and accessories, you could say it's a 3k+ camera --at the time. So it was too late for them to replace it with another MKII. (When I bought the camera, I thought I was buying it to be a still camera, not a video camera. But then I later realized that I was fooling myself and really wanted to shoot moving pictures. But of course it was always in the back of mind that I could ultimately use it for video.)

But what should have happened, I believe, is they should have honored their word and replaced it with a comparable camera, which seems like that would be the 6D, which is currently priced significantly less than I paid for the MkII at the time.

Thank you very much for reading and responding, Ernest. Great information. Then I wonder which it is. If it's a stuck pixel, then I'll try to take comfort in the fact that it might disappear over time. I would send it in to Canon, but if the only fix would be to change the sensor, well, I couldn't afford that, I'm sure. And it wouldn't be worth the expense for an older camera, I would think.

And now I can't sell it in good conscience. Which means I can't sell it. Not at a decent price, anyway.

In retrospect, I should not have bothered buying the protection plan. Or maybe I could have bought, maybe, one year of protection plan, which might have been good at least for things like the camera being dropped in the lake. Then, I should have put the camera through it's video paces and hopefully discovered the flaw early. Then, if the protection plan turned out to be useless, at least the camera would have been under warranty and maybe Canon would have fixed it for me. :weird:
Click to expand...



@richy & all other IT members: Can we vote this the best response to a query?
 
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Richy do not give up!!!!! You still have one play left.

Find what color background this appears on most easily, get it at the lowest ISO you can where it's still visible. Get it with a short exposure.

If it still appears, this contradicts their explanation - and you have in writing that this problem existed and was given to them while the protection plan was still in effect.

Talk to the manager pleasantly about how you're such a loyal customer and you always buy the protection plans from best buy.

If they refuse to honor it threaten to complain to the better business bureau and give them the managers name. And then follow through.
 
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Thank you, Sfoster. You're right. I probably should do that. :(

Thank you for the tip, Ben3D. I will try it.

Thanks for sharing that, Stef. I don't want to have to buy After Effects on my budget. But that wire remover tool looks like the most handy way to deal with it that I've seen so far.
 
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Well, after reading around some more it sounds like these pixel problems are entirely normal and inevitable with all DSLRs. And I'm guessing that's true for all MILCs as well.

So I should say I (we?) can't hold stores like Best Buy responsible for them. Since it's just a shortcoming of the technology and all units sold, it wouldn't be reasonable to expect sellers to fix or replace cameras just because of these pixels.

Best Buy can continue to be one of my favorite stores, and I guess shooters just have to learn to accept problem pixels in their footage, work around them somehow, or fix them in post. :/
 
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richy said:
Well, after reading around some more it sounds like these pixel problems are entirely normal and inevitable with all DSLRs. And I'm guessing that's true for all MILCs as well.

So I should say I (we?) can't hold stores like Best Buy responsible for them. Since it's just a shortcoming of the technology and all units sold, it wouldn't be reasonable to expect sellers to fix or replace cameras just because of these pixels.
Click to expand...

It depends how many, and where, for the manufacturer to consider a replacement.

From memory, I think iphones require 6 or more stuck or hot pixels to be replaced as a bad screen, except if it's in the center of the screen.

As I said earlier, though, camera firmware can sometimes fix it (through interpolation) internally.

Edit: doh, just saw the date of your post.
 
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