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.

If you set your camera in your bedroom with very dim light, taking a 4 minute exposure @ISO100. Do you get any white dots? If only one or two or ten, you are as good as can expect. If thousands, it needs to be calibrated.

[DimC]

If you set your camera in your bedroom with very dim light, taking a 4 minute exposure @ISO100. Do you get any white dots? If only one or two or ten, you are as good as can expect. If thousands, it needs to be calibrated.

I've got ten's of White Dots during a 1 min exposure @ISO6400.
Ill try this and let you know. Thanks for the tip.

[yurko_yr]

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.

I have same experience with Ricoh Germany. 100% same situation. Still trying to fight with them.
Yuriy

P.S. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! Wish you all great shots and joy from your gear in 2017!

[neotronic]

@Class A

looks like i really did make my conclusion on premises that don't seem that valid now as they did before to me. Thanks for pointing it out.


@MJKOSKI

Sorry for scaring you, now I am not sure if there is a problem with the sensor or not.

[awscreo]

Sorry to resurrect the old thread! Last night I went out to shoot some stars, and found a ton of white dots in the long exposures. I've shot stars previously but haven't noticed more than a handful of white dots in shadows, but that was with auto noise reduction for long exposures (which adds a dark frame). I guess now I see how much it was filtering out. It didn't bother me before, but after turning the dark frame off I did enjoy the much faster process (don't have to wait twice as long, really starts to add up after going towards 2-3 minute exposures and higher), and would much rather have it off. I'm thinking to send my camera to Pentax for a tune up, has anyone here had a successful outcome with Pentax USA? I bought my K-1 exactly a year ago, but I should be covered with my extended warranty I've purchased right away. I was thinking to send my DFA 28-105 in anyway for a tune up (slight decentering), might as well send the camera with it.

Thoughts?

Please see the original size image with raised shadows and slightly bumped exposure, the effect is easily seen at 100% magnification
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4rZgB77xm1XMVdPa215U0U3Zm8/view?usp=sharing

[JBox]

I'm thinking to send my camera to Pentax for a tune up, has anyone here had a successful outcome with Pentax USA?

Yes. See my posts here and here. One of the post-calibration dark-frames from my camera was also used in @MJKoski's comparison image in this tread.

However, looking back in this thread, it seems that your K-1 compared favorably to all others including mine post-calibration. Thus, I am not sure how much improvement you can expect to see. I am not sure how to compare to the image you just posted since it doesn't have the exposure info metadata. I can maybe do a dark-frame with mine if you can provide the exposure info for it. I would need at least ISO and exposure time.

[awscreo]

Yes. See my posts here and here. One of the post-calibration dark-frames from my camera was also used in @MJKoski's comparison image in this tread.

However, looking back in this thread, it seems that your K-1 compared favorably to all others including mine post-calibration. Thus, I am not sure how much improvement you can expect to see. I am not sure how to compare to the image you just posted since it doesn't have the exposure info metadata. I can maybe do a dark-frame with mine if you can provide the exposure info for it. I would need at least ISO and exposure time.

hmm, I thought LR export would include exif, sorry! Was shot at iso 800, 240sec, temp was around 9 degrees Celcius. Shot was forth of fifth out of the sequence, I was trying different settings and Astrotracer on/off, so I guess sensor would be a little warm at least from doing few long exposure settings in a row. Any other details you'd need? I can also upload my raw file if you want to have a look at it. It'd be a bummer if this is the best I can expect from K-1 without the noise reduction enabled

[JBox]

It would also be useful to know if shadow or highlight correction were on for the test image.

If I have time this weekend, I will try to get some similar images to use for comparing.

[awscreo]

It would also be useful to know if shadow or highlight correction were on for the test image.

If I have time this weekend, I will try to get some similar images to use for comparing.

Raw link below.
I've switched off all extra things such as highlight/shadow comp, lens geometry correction etc etc. All noise reduction was off too.
I used astrotracer for the shot previous to the one I've uploaded, hoping to use pin point stars from that frame and combine it with the sharp foreground from the second frame.

Link: TDK13022.DNG - Google Drive

Just curious - is there any way to fix the white dots in LR/PS? Or I'd need the Capture One with the hotpixel module? Wondering if this sequence is salvageable

[jbinpg]

I downloaded your DNG and loaded it into darktable. I turned off default base curve and sharpening then activated the hot pixel removal module with its default settings. It corrected 25 "hot" pixels which also included some cold white ones. I could not detect any after it completed. I think this is well within the usual sensor performance given the length of exposure.

[awscreo]

I downloaded your DNG and loaded it into darktable. I turned off default base curve and sharpening then activated the hot pixel removal module with its default settings. It corrected 25 "hot" pixels which also included some cold white ones. I could not detect any after it completed. I think this is well within the usual sensor performance given the length of exposure.

Hmm. So any exposure over 60 seconds produces hot pixels with this or similar sensors? (I mean with d800, d800e and d810)

Because I see hot pixels in 60s exposures too, same places (shadows).

Also, I see way more than 25 of them in lightroom, maybe dark table automatically removes some of them? I know capture one has a hot pixel suppression module that lightroom still lacks (which sucks). I managed to quite easily remove hot pixels in my shot after trying a "scratch & dust filter - darken" method I found online, so I guess I can work around this issue if sending it to pentax won't do any good.

Just curious, do other ff cameras have similar issues with very long exposures?

[Gimbal]

Rawtherapee will strip out all white dots with the "Impulse Noise Reduction" function, it works very well.

[awscreo]

Rawtherapee will strip out all white dots with the "Impulse Noise Reduction" function, it works very well.

Thanks for the tip! I guess I can work around it, although I am a little annoyed that I have to, seems like a rather large oversight, or a deliberate compromise?

[MJKoski]

I loaded the DNG and tinkered with it for a while. It looks similar to my 1st K-1 before any calibration was done. Dots pop up after ~1EV boost and are visible all around in dark parts of the image. I would send it in for service, dunno how the process works there where you live though. You can mention that these sensor calibration fixes ARE being done in Sweden by authorized Pentax service here in Northern Europe.

[awscreo]

I loaded the DNG and tinkered with it for a while. It looks similar to my 1st K-1 before any calibration was done. Dots pop up after ~1EV boost and are visible all around in dark parts of the image. I would send it in for service, dunno how the process works there where you live though. You can mention that these sensor calibration fixes ARE being done in Sweden by authorized Pentax service here in Northern Europe.

Hmm conflicting info) person above suggesting it's within norm, I've also uploaded my cap on raws few months ago and people seemed to say my unit was one of the better ones. Could my sensor somehow get worse over time? Because right now it seems to produce a ton of hot pixels without the long exposure noise reduction

---------- Post added 09-04-17 at 08:21 AM ----------

I loaded the DNG and tinkered with it for a while. It looks similar to my 1st K-1 before any calibration was done. Dots pop up after ~1EV boost and are visible all around in dark parts of the image. I would send it in for service, dunno how the process works there where you live though. You can mention that these sensor calibration fixes ARE being done in Sweden by authorized Pentax service here in Northern Europe.

Did your unit get a lot better after calibration?