[PixleFish]

Hey everyone,


I just got my K1 yesterday manufacture date 2016:09:10. which I think is September 10th of this year (I'm in the US where the standard date format is different). I stumbled on this forum after I found about 7 hot pixels and I was looking to see if others had the same issue. After reading this forum I was wondering if someone could tell me how I would test for this issue. Take a picture at 2min with the cap on? Or is it specifically an issue where there is some contrast where I would need to take some night photos?


If anyone is interested in results from my newish camera I can post the results here.


BTW, Running pixel mapping seems to have fixed the hot pixels for now.

[awscreo]

Hey everyone,


I just got my K1 yesterday manufacture date 2016:09:10. which I think is September 10th of this year (I'm in the US where the standard date format is different). I stumbled on this forum after I found about 7 hot pixels and I was looking to see if others had the same issue. After reading this forum I was wondering if someone could tell me how I would test for this issue. Take a picture at 2min with the cap on? Or is it specifically an issue where there is some contrast where I would need to take some night photos?


If anyone is interested in results from my newish camera I can post the results here.


BTW, Running pixel mapping seems to have fixed the hot pixels for now.

I believe small amount of hot pixels is normal (at least from reading this thread for a while).

[MJKoski]

Unit needing calibration in service will push thousands of white dots in long exposures with out-of-camera JPG images (if all noise reduction and dot filtering options are disabled).

[PixleFish]

Unit needing calibration in service will push thousands of white dots in long exposures with out-of-camera JPG images (if all noise reduction and dot filtering options are disabled).

So will a long exposure with the lens cap on suffice to test my K1? Raw images aren't affected?

[fromunderthebridge]

So will a long exposure with the lens cap on suffice to test my K1? Raw images aren't affected?

Yes. Preferably in a closet or other dark place with the viewfinder covered. I think you can find example noise patterns and exposure settings for affected and non-affected cameras.

As far as I know the raw files should also be affected, but I'm not sure as my copy clearly isn't affected.

[tabugman]

So will a long exposure with the lens cap on suffice to test my K1? Raw images aren't affected?

Raw files are affected. Ricoh introduced white dot removal in the latest firmware, but it is only available for in-camera developed JPGs.

[PixleFish]

Unit needing calibration in service will push thousands of white dots in long exposures with out-of-camera JPG images (if all noise reduction and dot filtering options are disabled).

Here are the results from my K1 that was purchased last week. The image below is of two, two-minute exposures with the lens cap on and the viewfinder covered. At first I thought the left image looked pretty good, but when I viewed it on a different monitor at work I noticed lots of white dots.

Is this a "normal" result? Or a reason for me to return / exchange my camera for a different one?

ps. looks like Pentax Forums compresses the photos a bit. Here is the PNG out of photoshop. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/38906547/_IMG0143.png

Attached Images

View Picture EXIF

File Date

 

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Last edited by PixleFish; 12-12-2016 at 07:38 PM.

[MJKoski]

Hm, nothing really wrong with that. 120 seconds is a long time for any camera without NR enabled at ISO3200.

My original uncalibrated unit did this @ ISO3200



That is Pixel Shift image crop, 30 seconds exposure. Uncalibrated units are easy to spot, the dots really explode.

[PixleFish]

Hm, nothing really wrong with that. 120 seconds is a long time for any camera without NR enabled at ISO3200.

My original uncalibrated unit did this @ ISO3200



That is Pixel Shift image crop, 30 seconds exposure. Uncalibrated units are easy to spot, the dots really explode.

Wow! That's really shocking! Photo content included

[MJKoski]

More skeleton stuff here: The Unlucky Skeleton - Part IV (new episodes, ongoing thread) - FM Forums

But that is only a brief introduction to The Other Side Gallery. Book in the works

[awscreo]

More skeleton stuff here: The Unlucky Skeleton - Part IV (new episodes, ongoing thread) - FM Forums

But that is only a brief introduction to The Other Side Gallery. Book in the works

Excellent set! Really liked the B&W conversion, and also the astro with the grim reaper looks awesome)

[PixleFish]

More skeleton stuff here: The Unlucky Skeleton - Part IV (new episodes, ongoing thread) - FM Forums

But that is only a brief introduction to The Other Side Gallery. Book in the works

Wow, that just looks like fun! Great shots. I really like State of Finnish National Railroad Network - Part II.

[blende8]

So basically the situation is this?

- Firmware 1.4 does not fix it
- Pentax is aware of the problem
- Not all cameras are affected
- It is a sensor calibration problem
- It may be that newer cameras are better, but we don't know that.

[DimC]

So basically the situation is this?

- Firmware 1.4 does not fix it
- Pentax is aware of the problem
- Not all cameras are affected
- It is a sensor calibration problem
- It may be that newer cameras are better, but we don't know that.

I've been in touch with Ricoh France Support since 2 weeks.

First of all the support has been pretty quick answering my emails, usually within 24hours I had a reply.
5 different people have been, one after the other, trying to help and they basically asked me the same questions over and over, so there was a lot of wasting time because the new one in charge of my case was asking me the same question the previous one did

The only question was : Did you updated your firmware to 1.40 ?
Each time I replied YES and I wrote that I was not shooting in jpeg, only RAW DNG, and that the fix for white dots in V1.40 only applied to jpeg's, no one seemed aware....sad.
As a customer I was more informed about V1.40 than the Ricoh Technicians

Then they asked me to provide evidence of white dots (I did send 3 jpegs on my first email to them but they seemed to lost them at some point).
I did.
Then they asked me to send UNEDITED RAW FILES as .dng.
I tried...but their support form doesn't accept .dng or .pef, as attached images...only jpegs, png etc...
I gave them a wetransfer link to the files.

2 days later they said that my sensor was in the good calibration margin and doesn't need any fixing, and at the same time they gave me an adress to a repair center (NIKKEN, in Paris) in case I want to bring the camera there.
They did not said anything else, warranty ? how long the repair or sensor fix ? nothing.

I've been investing about 5000€ worth of Pentax gear in November (with proof of purchases) and the answer they are giving me is not satisfying. The customer support is seriously lacking some professionalism.
I've got the feeling that, in France at least, nobody knows about this issue at Ricoh, and that technicians are not aware and dont know how to fix it. So they simply dropped the ball on me.

I've got too much scheduled shootings in January but I might go to the repair center in february and Ill report back to you.

To be honest I've not had any serious problem with White dots and my type of shooting, but one of the reason I bought a K1 was for the astrophotography aspect. I want to learn this technique and I would better have a clean camera to start with.

[MJKoski]

Sending RAW files to them is waste of time if they do not know that 1.4 only has setting for JPG filtering. RAW files will not contain white dots, but fully saturated colored pixels where OOC JPG files contain white dots.

I have not heard anything from Ricoh Japan since they asked the dark frames from various K-1 cameras. No reply either that there are no issues though.