Opinions on dead pixels???
So I thought I FINALLY had my EDC pocket cam.
I've been bouncing from digicam to digicam trying to find the compact for me- and kept running into unadvertised problems with the cams and wound up sending them back.
Eventually decided on a model to stick with, the Canon Powershot S95
I saved up and waited til I got what I thought was a good deal. Everything seeeeeeemed great.
Til I shot in low light.
So on the cam has relatively unobtrusive dead pixels on the LCD, but worse is that there are a handful of dead pixels on the CCD. Consistently has several red pixels and a couple white ones. They're not TERRIBLE, but considering how much these cameras go for these days I can't help but be disappointed.
My question, before I send this bad boy back and continue wandering the wastes of eBay- how prevalent are dead pixels on CCDs? Are they an inevitability? And if so, how much should we tolerate them when buying these older cams?
I suppose my biggest concern is that I continue my search but end up regretting my return of this cam with a handful of dead pixies. Am I just being picky picky?
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I will note that the dead pixels are much less noticeable when they're not in dark dark low light. Still there, but less bad in bright light at low iso.
Either way- I'll be hunting for an S95 if I do return this one and continue my search. I am unbelievably impressed with this little cameras performance in the hour I've been playing with it.
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Hello and welcome to the forum.
Dead or hot pixels are quite normal. Fortunately there are ways in post processing to cope with that, especially with RAW files.
Eg. ART and RawTherapee can handle dead and hot pixels in the "Preprocessing" section and in darktable there is at least a "hot pixels" module. Probably every "serious" RAW converter software has a similar feature.
Perhaps that could be good enough for your camera.
E.
Thanks for clarifying Cory. Maybe my wording is not correct- perhaps these are stuck pixels. They're red, not black. The red ones are less glaring and red when shooting in good light. There is a white pixel as well that's always pretty much just white. So I guess these are stuck? Regardless I have looked it up and there doesn't appear to be any fixing this issue other than- sending it back and trying again, or fixing in post. And as easy as fixing in post is, I can't be bothered lol. This being my pocket cam I don't want to go crazy editing every photo out of it. though I'm not sure these pixels are so bad as to warrant editing in most shots either. Damn this thing can shoot though! I'm big time in love with the S95. And they seem more expensive by the day haha.
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Ya know EckyH, I hadn't considered that maybe the programs are smart enough these days to hide the pixels FOR me lol. If that's the case and I'm not going into photoshop for every shot you may be right. Because my biggest concern would be returning this camera, and then getting a worse one. And then another one, and another, and another. I'm already feeling the eBay fatigue, ya know?
thanks for the suggestion
So I'm thinking Lightroom has to be doing something automatically, because when I bring the photos into Lightroom the pixels are all great. I have checked shot after shot in camera as well as in the photo browser on my desktop. But I bring it into Lightroom and the pixels are fine..... So I took another shot but in JPG so I could upload here. It's getting a bit dark out now so the shot is pretty noisy, but on the upper right hand side of the shot you should see a red pixel there- that's in every shot I take to some extent. In brighter shots it's hardly noticeable, like it's not completely red. It's trying to be the right color. But once things get dark it's bright bright red, same few spots each time. Should be easy to spot in this pic. Conveniently the jpg crops out the other bad pixels though lol
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I'm not sure my plan yet. I'm still on the "I don't like paying for Lightroom" train. But I'm sure any alternative will be just as effective at getting rid of bad pixels. My wife insists I'm picky cause I need to zoom in to see the pixels. Idk hahaha maybe she's right. The camera handles like a boss. The ocd crazy part of me will always think about those damn little pixels tho
Quote from BoringPhoto on July 7, 2023, 3:54 amThe ocd crazy part of me will always think about those damn little pixels tho
You have no idea how good I can comprehend that.
The problem is: every common camera will get dead, stuck or hot pixels over time. So we have to live with that. As far as I can see it on your night owl image there are only a handful of problematic pixels. In my opinion this isn't that bad.
If the camera is in overall good or better condition I'd keep it and avoid the possible hassle and squabble with sellers on ebay or so.
E.
I'm a bit scared to check my other cameras hahaha. I'm sure my main shooter compensates for pixels in-camera when it does a sensor clean. I'm thinking a lot of older digicams didnt have that capability. I really appreciate the advice! I'm leaning towards just keeping it. Gonna bring it out with me today- test run it for real. Just the initial shock of finding bad pixels hit hard yesterday haha
Does anyone here have any experience with CHDK?
It occurred to me that if my modern Canon can correct for bad pixels, perhaps custom firmware could do the same for an older Canon.
I did a quick Google search and it appears that there is some kind of pixel correction for DNGs coming out of CHDK. But I am not entirely sure, and I haven't looked into it much yet.
