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[D7000] - Problems (Bad Pixels)

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Baba Ganoush

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Drab said:
The crow's out of the freezer, but I won't put it in the oven yet...
Both forms of NR are turned off? You only explicitly mention one...

Yes, both NR options were turned off. When I turn on NR explicitly for long exposures, the saturated pixels in the 30 s exposures are suppressed as expected, so this option works as designed. However, the HIGH ISO NR option does not seem to work (or does not work very well) for the short exposures (~0.3 to 0.8 s), since it does not appear to suppress any of the bright pixels I see in the short exposures. While the NEF images of my short exposures also show all of the same bright pixels that appear in their JPEG counterparts (numbering ~90 over the entire frame), they are thoroughly cleaned of bright pixels by the Adobe DNG converter (as expected), thus leaving me with clean DNG images but dirty JPEG images. That's an acceptable workaround for me if I keep this camera.

What I nevertheless wonder about is whether this peculiar behavior I see is a sign of an inherent design flaw in the electronics of the sensor (i.e., why are the bright pixels in short and long exposures different) and/or in the firmware (i.e., why does the HIGH ISO NR option not suppress the bright pixels in the short exposures). If no one else sees the same problem, presumably it is likely due to sample variation and/or a manufacturing defect.

Posted 2 years ago #
Drab

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It's in the oven...

Baba Ganoush said:
What I nevertheless wonder about is whether this peculiar behavior I see [unsuppressed ISO noise in short exposures] is a sign of an inherent design flaw in the electronics of the sensor (i.e., why are the bright pixels in short and long exposures different) and/or in the firmware (i.e., why does the HIGH ISO NR option not suppress the bright pixels in the short exposures). If no one else sees the same problem, presumably it is likely due to sample variation and/or a manufacturing defect.

Hear me out as I speculate... let me bounce this one off you...
Could it be a conscious decision by Nikon to trade detail for noise in that situation? For the average person in the average case, the shorter the exposure the brighter the scene. The higher key the image the more noise will be "hidden".

If no one else sees the same problem, presumably it is likely due to sample variation and/or a manufacturing defect.

If no one else sees the same problem its as likely due to 50% of the responders not reading the thread and few of the readers being as systematic as you are. ;)

Posted 2 years ago #
Baba Ganoush

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Drab said:
It's in the oven...

Hear me out as I speculate... let me bounce this one off you...
Could it be a conscious decision by Nikon to trade detail for noise in that situation? For the average person in the average case, the shorter the exposure the brighter the scene. The higher key the image the more noise will be "hidden".

If no one else sees the same problem its as likely due to 50% of the responders not reading the thread and few of the readers being as systematic as you are. ;)

LOL!

All it would take is for one or two people with D7000s to repeat my tests with short exposures and to post their findings here. That would take ~15 minutes or less to do, provided someone was curious enough and so inclined.

Posted 2 years ago #
speeddemon229

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+1 to another Best Buy store bought D7000 RETURN. Hot pixels in lower left in video drove me nuts through Thanksgiving and I finally came to terms with myself that anything costing this much shouldn't have excuses made for it. Screw all the " this exists in all dslr's (after visiting a million diffferent sites- uh...no, people CAN have perfect cameras and actually get what they pay for) Why settle for less. Stop kidding yourselves that it doesn't bother you, LOL. In any event I STILL want a NIKON but will look heavily at D300s or D90. Models that are actually in stock and have been tried and tested- that's how i'll do things from now on.

Posted 2 years ago #
FNJ2C

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What we can,t say something bad about nikon

Posted 2 years ago #
ShutterBC

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I just tried some .3 sec - .6 sec exposures in JPEG with both NR options turned off. I see one or two hot pixels every few frames, but nothing major. I may be inclined to say that you have a bad copy, Baba Ganoush.

Test shot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shutterbc/5220034100/

So far with video I've counted as many as 3 hot pixels. I'm keeping an eye on it just in case it gets worse, but for now I can deal with it just fine. I'm interested to see how this thread turns out though!

Posted 2 years ago #
swame_sp

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Hey folks, I'm about to place order for D7000 in few hours. I was wondering if buying online and if there are any bad pixel issue, what do I do?

Return it to Nikon USA or to the seller? How does this warranty work?

Posted 2 years ago #
Baba Ganoush

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ShutterBC said:
I just tried some .3 sec - .6 sec exposures in JPEG with both NR options turned off. I see one or two hot pixels every few frames, but nothing major. I may be inclined to say that you have a bad copy, Baba Ganoush.

Test shot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shutterbc/5220034100/

So far with video I've counted as many as 3 hot pixels. I'm keeping an eye on it just in case it gets worse, but for now I can deal with it just fine. I'm interested to see how this thread turns out though!

The caption to your photo says ISO=800. I don't have a problem at ISO values below 2000. Would you mind repeating the shot at high ISO, say 5000? It's at ISO=2500 and above where I'm seeing the problem and, for that reason, led me to think that it was a simple saturation issue (except for the important fact that the same pixels do NOT show up as saturated bright pixels in 30 s exposures, where you'd expect some of the pixels to become saturated with charge). All the same, thanks very much for the report....

Posted 2 years ago #
FNJ2C

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warranty what a joke i sent back to nikon. $40 UPS They sent it back and said it was within standards.I called nikon and they say that you guys on the forum don't know what you are taking about it is not a pixel problem.So i said fixit i don't care what it is. it is not right.NIKON would not talk to me about fixing it.

Posted 2 years ago #
Mike Gunter

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Hi @ FNJ2C,

At last Nikon weighs in - but not so encouraging...

So the sparkling pixels are a feature? Something we can adorn our videos with? ;-)

That's charming.

My best,

Mike

Posted 2 years ago #
Mike Gunter

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On the Dpreview site in the D90 forum there's a topic called "D7000 Hot pixels: Let's help Nikon", and on the 3'd page, one of the posters _says_ that Nikon support told him to "Exchange it if you can".

Especially in light of FNJ2C's experience with support.

My best to all,

Mike

Posted 2 years ago #
FNJ2C

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Yep i had some words for nikon when i had them on the phone. i don't know why they could not make it right. They had my D7000. Are maybe they can't fix it.

Posted 2 years ago #
Enx

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I've got my d7000 today, 1st December. What can I say? Worst expectations come true. I was so "lucky" to get a whole constellation of hot pixels. There are at least 20 of them(!), mostly white, plus a bunch of red and few very bright purple and green.
And the worst things are:
- these hot pixels appears on still images (photo), NOT only in video-mode
- mostly all of them are clearly seen at ANY ISO (not only at high ISO setting - iso 200 is quite enough to see these guys)
- they are located in the center of image, not in the corners, and they are really well seen. The purple and green ones is really there all the time, you cannot miss them - even by looking at photo in less than 100% size.
:( :( :(
I am really, really frustrated and dissapointed. Was waiting for this camera for so long, and what i've finally got is such a fail...
What you guys can advice? Is there any solution?

Posted 2 years ago #
speeddemon229

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R E T U R N. Bottom line is the first run has QC issues and Nikon isn't owning up to it. Personally, I loved the look feel and controls of the D7000- by far the best on the market today...but damn the pixels so I had to return it. As I mentioned earlier I went to look at the D300s and the D90. Not as great as I expected. Now I want the D7000 back...but I've learned the all important lesson- wait till this is straightened out or shut up and buy sumn else.

Posted 2 years ago #
poster

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Just curious but has anybody sent in their D7000s to Nikon for service? I would like to know what would Nikon do with the issue. Would they just map out the pixels? Would this mapping out also fix the issue of the pixels in video?

I ask because I might just drop off the D7000 if mine happens to have these pixel problems and see if the Nikon service would fix the problem. I think it would be less of a hassle for me since I am 35 minutes of a drive away from the Nikon service, rather than play the switcharoo game with the retailers.

Posted 2 years ago #
Baba Ganoush

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I have just come from the dpreview Nikon D90 forum site, following up on the lead provided by Mike Gunter in his earlier post, and I found the following interesting comment posted there by Marianne Oelund:

"Some users have reported a wide variation in hot-pixel rates from camera to camera, but this can possibly be affected by the types of exposures taken just prior to testing, and is definitely affected by temperature. There aren't any hard numbers you can use for a pass or fail criterion, but just to give you an idea, my own camera shows only about 5-10 bright hot pixels at ISO 6400 for shutter times up to about 1/5sec. The number increases rapidly as shutter time rises past that value, with dozens of readily-visible hot pixels, and hundreds of fainter ones at 1/1.3sec."

The numbers of bright pixels she cites for different exposure times at high ISO are consistent with what I find for my D7000: a half dozen of them at exposure times of around 1/5 s, ~3 dozen at 1/2 s, and ~90 or more at 1/1.3 s (depending on how faint a pixel you want to count). So, I guess this sort of behavior is common and not a sensor artifact or defect in my camera alone. Marianne does not mention whether these bright pixels in short exposures also show up as saturated pixels in much longer exposures or, as I have noticed in testing my camera, an entirely different set of bright pixels shows up in exposures that are several 10s of seconds long.

Posted 2 years ago #
nyg

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I love the D7000, It has such great potential. But this is the most frustrating purchase I have ever made in my life.

I bought my camera at best buy 10 days ago and on my 3rd camera. Each and every one of these damn things has stuck pixels. Not hot pixels that show up at high ISO, but stuck pixels that ALWAYS show up. First one had a couple of blue stuck pixels that showed up in video mode all the time. The second one had so many stuck pixels i couldn't even count all of them. How the hell that thing made it on to a store shelf is beyond me. This last one that i have has a single red stuck pixel that shows up in my photos and video. It actually unstuck itself for a day and i thought I finally had a clean camera. Now it's back to red again.

I don't know what to do at this point. Go for camera number four? Return this for a refund and wait until this mess improves?
I live close to the Melville offices. Maybe I could bring it in for service, but I'm not very confident since others haven't had much luck with service on the D7000. You would think they could at least map the pixel out of my photos until they figure out how to deal with the video problems, if they ever figure that out.

Posted 2 years ago #
Drab

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Baba Ganoush said: So, I guess this sort of behavior is common and not a sensor artifact...

Objectively speaking, how is it not a sensor "artifact"? And how is its commonality proof that it isn't?

Posted 2 years ago #
Mike Gunter

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Hi Baba,

To keep apples with apples and oranges with oranges, (or video pixels with video pixels and still pixels with still pixels), the defective pixels I personally experienced problems with the D7K were in the video mode.

I didn't have my 2 versions of the camera long enough to test the still function fully. The video mode had too many defective pixels to be usable in any way for either camera - it wasn't worth test the stills exhaustively. What few stills I took looked fine, but I didn't take many (I had one camera for less than a day, the other less than 2 hours), and certainly didn't stress their still abilities.

Some folks are talking about still pictures, but generally when talking pixels in they are talking video (I fall into the latter). In video the defective pixels are seen in all video resolutions and show up on diagnostic waveforms as being out of NTSC range - a bad thing for broadcast. In NTSC broadcast, all video must fall with in IRE limits - those dots aren't in that limit.

What seems to me to be a larger problem, if it is true and systemic, is that there might be a focusing problem with this model. I have a fair amount of lenses and used the same type of lenses that comes with the kit, a 18-105mm (mine) for my tests. It seemed to focus okay.

Also at Dpreview forums are folks complaining that their lenses aren't focusing sharply with the camera. They are using the 'fine tuning' adjustment to 'fix' this, but that's not how that is suppose to work, and they are using, in some cases all the headroom for the adjustment to get it right.

One gentleman reported today that Nikon Support is sending him a replacement camera - which I take as very good news. It has a serial number 4000 greater than his original. He's putting some stock into that. I don't know if it means anything, but right now I'm just happy that Nikon is taking any positive steps.

If you have a D7K and it's acting up, I likely would try to get it fixed now than try to wait it out.

Specifications wise, it is a spectacular camera, but it really does seem to have some nitnoids - perhaps some ghosts in the machine - that aren't up to Nikon's usually stellar quality control.

As always, my best to you all,

Mike

Posted 2 years ago #
broxibear

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Don't you think it's odd that there is no mention whatsoever in Dpreview's "in-depth review" of the D7000 regarding hot pixels ?

Posted 2 years ago #
nyg

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broxibear said:
Don't you think it's odd that there is no mention whatsoever in Dpreview's "in-depth review" of the D7000 regarding hot pixels ?

Dpreview had two cameras that were sent directly from Nikon.

Posted 2 years ago #
Baba Ganoush

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Mike Gunter said:
Hi Baba,

Also at Dpreview forums are folks complaining that their lenses aren't focusing sharply with the camera. They are using the 'fine tuning' adjustment to 'fix' this, but that's not how that is suppose to work, and they are using, in some cases all the headroom for the adjustment to get it right.

Mike

Well that's not good news, for me at least, since the main reason I'm switching from Canon to Nikon is my unhappiness with the soft focus of my Canon 450D XSi (with typically the 24-105 mm L series lens attached). The Canon AF system is long in the tooth and, in my opinion, compromises the performance of an optically well designed lens like the 24-105mm. Based on comments I had read about the D700, the Nikon camera I was originally looking at, I was expecting Nikon AF systems to be much more accurate. Not having a Nikon lens, I bought the cheap Nikkor 50 mm f/1.8D lens just to test my new D7000, based on reports by many Amazon reviewers that it was a decently sharp lens despite its low cost. Well, my copy of the lens proved to be a real dog: not sharp and a lot of chromatic aberration. To paraphrase Bill Shakespeare, however, perhaps the fault lies not in the lens but in the camera.

Posted 2 years ago #
broxibear

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Sorry to hear about the issues Baba Ganoush but it definitely isn't a design fault with the 50mm F1.8AFD.
I use one on my D3 and it's stunning, either you have a faulty lens or a faulty camera, and from all the forum noise on the net it's the D7000.
Try your 50mm on a friend's body if he/she has another model, or just go into a store and ask if you can snap a test on a D700 or D3 series body with your lens?

Posted 2 years ago #
nikon4good

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After speaking to Nikon customer support, I got the response that Nikon "doesn't have a solution for hot pixels while using the video feature". and that the issues will be "escalated to higher management". They said that I wouldn't hear back for another week or so.

Damn... my wife was right again, I shouldn't have sold my D90.

Posted 2 years ago #
Baba Ganoush

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broxibear said:
Sorry to hear about the issues Baba Ganoush but it definitely isn't a design fault with the 50mm F1.8AFD.
I use one on my D3 and it's stunning, either you have a faulty lens or a faulty camera, and from all the forum noise on the net it's the D7000.
Try your 50mm on a friend's body if he/she has another model, or just go into a store and ask if you can snap a test on a D700 or D3 series body with your lens?

Took your advice and borrowed a neighbor's camera for a quick test. It was the lens. It's going back and will be replaced. Thank you for the excellent suggestion.

Posted 2 years ago #