Canon S1 - easily affected by stucked pixels

[denari]

This is my 2nd unit (i've changed my initial unit when stucked pixels showed up within a week of usage).
My question being, are CCDs so easily affected by stucked pixels?
It only takes me a 1" exposure at ISO200 or ISO400 doing a lens cap shot to produce the blue coloured pixels.
Is it necessary for me to send it back for servicing again, 'cos most probably the next unit is going to get affected by the same problem whenever i do long exposures. Appreciate anyone who can provide some workaround to eliminate the stucked pixel problem.


Thanks for reading.

 

[StreetShooter]

There's a difference between a hot pixel and a dead pixel.

If the blue pixel only happens with your lens cap shots and not in other shots, then it's a hot pixel, in which case I would advise you to accept it because there is NOT ONE CCD out there which will not give you a hot pixel, and you don't normally go around taking pictures with the lens cap on anyway.

If the blue pixel is there in ALL of your shots, then you should change the camera. Alternatively the service centre can do something called "remapping" which basically causes the camera program to ignore the dead pixel when processing the image. Problem solved.

If you want to solve the problem yourself you can always use photoshop to touch up your long exposure shots, or even write an action to correct a particular pixel, so you can run it as a batch action.

 

[denari]

Well i happened when i took some night sky shots during the evening and notice the same blue dots again that happened on my very first unit.
I knew it was the exact same problem, so to verify, i took the 2 lens cap shots and viola... stucked pixels.

Sigh, i'm really disappointed with Canon cuz i thought they were good quality manufacturers. But what i really loathe is to go down everytime to their service centre for something that they could have built into their systems for users to self-rectify. (akin to bringing down the VCR for service whenever the head is dirty)

 

[Russ]

Suggest you post a sample picture with the problem (crop the problem area) so that we all can see for sure what the problem looks like.

How many hot pixels are there?

 

[Russ]

Can't seem to see the photos on my browser
All I see is the Angelfire logo ???

 

[denari]

Opps, sorry about that.

Here, follow these weblinks, it should open up the pictures.
http://www.angelfire.com/droid/denari/S1IS/ISO400_lens_cap.jpg
http://www.angelfire.com/droid/denari/S1IS/ISO200_lens_cap.jpg

*copy shortcut and paste it in a new session*
(angelfire's too anal)

 

[LiOnElLiN]

Sigh, i'm really disappointed with Canon cuz i thought they were good quality manufacturers. But what i really loathe is to go down everytime to their service centre for something that they could have built into their systems for users to self-rectify. (akin to bringing down the VCR for service whenever the head is dirty)

have you tried expressing this to the service centre people?
cause for all you know, those people may believe too strongly in canon's "good quality manufacturing"... thus not bothering to test out the camera before exchanging it with you. give them a good piece of your mind and teach them how to do their jobs properly!

 

[denari]

Yes i did. All they could tell me is that such stucked pixels (or what i believed) are inherent problem with the design of CCDs. And the only way that to the digital photography lifecycle POV is to do post-processing of images to remove the artifacts.

To a consumer's POV, any unanticipated result that isn't documented under the manual, to me, is considered a defect. Furthermore, the set was barely used for a month under normal conditions.

Eventually, the asst. manager of the service centre asked me what I would want him to do in order to resolve the problem.."to at least giving him something to work at".

I told him I want a full refund because I reiterated to him that he's not going to solve the problem if he so chooses to do a replacement yet again.
And so he went to consult his manager about it but he couldn't give me the assurance that a refund is possible, he'll try anyway.

Later in the day, he called with bad news saying that marketing dept has disapproved of his request but have suggested to him that he can approach the distributor Deluxe Camera to let me have a one-to-one exchange of a camera of my choice (irregardless of brand) of same value or higher (subjected to topup). Looks like i don't have much of a choice...

 

[denari]

Here comes the best part.
Given the contact of Deluxe Camera, i proceed to make the call to liaise with the staff for the exchange. The first reply i got after i stating my purpose was the staff denied any arrangement of that sort. That all he knew was that Canon had replaced me a 2nd set but still it too has failed, and he ask me what then?
Serious major miscommunication, and i do not even want to comment about the level of helpfulness, attitude and tone he has towards my call.
I immediately wanted to hung up to call back Canon to find out what went wrong, but he kept saying don't bother, that he would make the call himself. It almost sound like he didn't wanted me to call back to Canon...(what's wrong with that? Has he got something to hide? or was he trying to stay out of trouble?)
20mins later, no call and i decided to call Canon myself. Apparently, the manager got the sales dept to help him make the call to Deluxe Camera and probably somewhere the miscommunication started.