How to fix hot pixels for free, DIY

[invisible]

Disclaimer: I found this info on the internet when specifically looking for a way to fix hot pixels in Nikon cameras. Since some Nikons share sensors with Sonys, the tricks might work with them as well... or not. That being said, I can't think of a reason why the tricks should work with certain brands and not with others.

Trick #1:
"This worked for me on a D300 that had 3 hot pixels. I set the menu to give me immediate access to the sensor cleaning, than placed the camera in BULB mode, pushed down the shutter for at least 20 seconds, then as soon as I released the shutter immediately went into sensor cleaning mode twice in a row. Strangely enough this mapped out the dead pixels....they were flat gone and not seen again. It's worth a try."

Trick #2 (this is the one that worked for me with both a D300 and a D700):
"I had two hot pixels on my D300 last week. I did a sensor clean. Then set the camera to 6400 iso and with the lens cap on took three 10sec exposure photos. The hot pixels disappeared!!! Much quicker and cheaper option than sending back to Nikon."

Not all of my hot pixels disappeared, but the vast majority did.

Hope this can stop someone from jumping off a cliff.

Source (where you can read about people's results): D700 Hot Pixels? Help! - FM Forums

 

[Garbz]

Hot pixels are related to sensor temperature, and electronic settings (sensor bias, amp gain etc). Both of those probably worked because you were changing the thermal conditions of the camera as a result of the longer exposures. In either case if you're getting consistent hot pixels at ISO100 at fast shutterspeeds your camera should go back. It shouldn't happen and bandaids don't make things better.

 

[invisible]

Hot pixels are related to sensor temperature, and electronic settings (sensor bias, amp gain etc). Both of those probably worked because you were changing the thermal conditions of the camera as a result of the longer exposures. In either case if you're getting consistent hot pixels at ISO100 at fast shutterspeeds your camera should go back. It shouldn't happen and bandaids don't make things better.

I can't speak for the other people who have solved their hot-pixel problems with either of these tricks. In my case, the hot pixels started being visible in long exposures at ISO 800 and higher. 80-90% of those hot pixels are gone. That's good enough of a band aid for me

 

[480sparky]

........bandaids don't make things better.

Yes they do...... but only if the boo-boo gets kissed first.

 

[unpopular]

Trick #2 (this is the one that worked for me with both a D300 and a D700):
"I had two hot pixels on my D300 last week. I did a sensor clean. Then set the camera to 6400 iso and with the lens cap on took three 10sec exposure photos. The hot pixels disappeared!!! Much quicker and cheaper option than sending back to Nikon."

This is the proceedure you do for the "map hot pixels" feature on my a350.

 

[Rick58]

I wish I could try this, but the 200 doesn't have a sensor cleaning mode.

 

[Garbz]

I could see a downside to this. Assuming that pixel mapping is done as part of cleaning (not all that unlikely) then effectively what you're doing is making the camera think they are stuck and dead as opposed to hot. The difference being a dead pixel is permanent in each picture and a hot pixel is deterministic depending on sensitivity, temperature and exposure duration. I think what your procedure number 1 effectively does is cause the camera to think the hot pixels are actually dead and map them out.

This could have negative effect for what is now assumed as a dead pixel even when it's not hot (i.e. at ISO100 where it was working fine it may now be mapped out). I wonder if this resets next time you go into cleaning mode too?