The issue

At first, I thought it was dust. Dust on the sensor or on the lens. Then, after watching every single video I shot since I got the camera, I saw something worst than the black dot problem: hot pixels! And to make things worst, there are 2 of them!

I did not notice them at first because most of my shots were done in bright light but last weekend I had to shoot some video for the CD launch of my friend Jon Davis (f1.4 ISO3200, hence the noise…) and the white dots on the dark background cant be missed.

This is a rare but not unknown issue.Bbut it seems like there is some confusion between people having serious noise issues while taking long low light pictures (a problem I am not having) and the problem I am having with videos. My problem is not noise, it really is white (hot) pixels. Take a look at the screen capture:

Click to enlarge

You can see a 100% crop of the problematic area here:

While it is not very noticeable on still images, as soon as the camera starts panning it jumps off the screen and destroy the whole scene. You can see it in the home made clip I did last week too.

What I have tried so far

First, I used the manual auto-cleaning feature about 10 times in a row to see if it could “unstuck” the pixel without success. Then I updated the firmware to 1.07 and they are still there.

My last resort was to call the store. They were very helpful. I will have to bring my camera back Friday and they will see if they can trade mine for a new one straight or, at worst, send it for repair (urck!). If they send it for repair I will try to get an “equivalent” camera until I have my replacement. By equivalent I am of course thinking about these Hasselblad that no body ever rents!

I will report back on this Friday.

Photography Bay released an interesting comparison between the 5D and the D700. The goal of the test was to see how each body performed in low light at high ISO. 

While I am happy the 5D came on top, it had to be expected since it is a more recent model and images were down-sampled to the lower denominator. As it is pointed out in the review, there are no totally objective way to make these reviews since so many parameters come into play.

That being said, I disagree with his conclusion stating that Canon should have kept the pixel count lower to have a better ISO performance.

First, down-sampling the pictures shows the 5D already has great performance at the 12 megapixel EPD (Equivalent Pixel Density, just made that up). So, as long as you dont need the full image resolution (when is the last time you printed a A2 anyways?), you know you are going to have a lower noise image.  

The other reason is flexibility. I rather have the choice between noise and resolution than no choice at all. 

People tend to forget that high resolution is required for:

• Straighten crooked pictures (if you zoom out a bit when taking the shots)
• Photoshop manipulations

My conclusion after looking at the review? Another test must be done against the D3 just to fuel some brand war, and as luck would have it, I have access to a D3. Stay tuned!