Need Help: Hot Pixels or Dust?

[J-Rand]

Hi everyone. I have been a long time lurker of these forums and have gained a lot of valuable experience! Now i have a question for y'all.

While i was messing with my camera, i noticed some spots while zooming in on the pics. Are the spots in the following pictures "Hot pixels" or dust on the sensor? I think it is dust because it keeps reappearing in the same spot for every picture.

I have a D3000 and i have had it since September. These were taken with the 18-55mm kit. Here are some example pics. The crop was taken on her hair by her shoulder...

1. ISO 100 Regular

2. ISO 100 Cropped

3. ISO 400 Regular

4. ISO 400 Cropped

5. ISO 1600 Regular

6. ISO 1600 Cropped

 

[Overread]

Definatly a Hot pixel. Dust appears as a dark hazy blob and normally only with smaller apertures (large f numbers).
You can solve this in a few ways.
1) If your camera has a sensor cleaning mode check your manual for how to activate it manually and run it. Most will also remap the sensor and thus remove the hotpixel problem. There might be other incamera methods so check the manual first. There might also be other in camera options that I am not aware of to solve this problem

2) The Spot heal tool - use it to remove the spot from your images - a pain though since the pixel will appear in every shot (note dustspots are also removed by this very same method)

3) Warrenty repair

 

[KmH]

If you weren't pixel peeping, you wouldn't even know it was there!