I bought a D90 kit online from Adorama Camera last month. First off, the manual bag was torn. It looked like it wasnt packed right, OR it was repackaged after use. I was living with it.. until the next day when I removed the LCD plastic cover to clean the LCD with a brush, and it was *scratched*!!!
Now I was sure I needed to return it. So I got in touch with Ms. Helen Oster (their cust svc ambassador), who was very polite and agreed to have it returned. I returned that one, and bought a second one from them for the same price since I didnt want to wait for a 10 day exchange cycle.
Guess what: the second one arrived clean, with the manual bag only partly damaged (still not intact), BUT with one bright green hot pixel in lower left corner visible even at ISO 200 and fast shutter speeds!!! I contacted Adorama again, and even this time Helen offered to exchange it. And while we were discussing that, a new one developed.. within 2 days of purchase!!
I also talked with Nikon Cust Support and they are asking to look at it under warranty, BUT I will have to pay the forward shipping. WHY????
I am pissed. I know it is pixel peeping, AND I love the camera otherwise, AND I can use a software (Capture NX2 or Lightroom OR Photoshop) to auto map them out, but why cant Nikon have better quality control and reject sensors that show hot pixels even at ISO 200 in bright conditions? Why must we have to pay extra for software fixes for hardware faults?
I agree hot pixels may develop with time and use and environmental conditions. But right off the box?? How bad is their testing?
If I didnt love the camera otherwise, I would return it for a full refund.
Good luck guys!
P.S. I must commend Ms Helen Oster for being courteous through this whole episode and for suggesting alternatives. However now its like a lottery game.. no one knows if the 2nd replacement will be better or worse.. only NIKON knows. Funnily enough, in the Rebel XSi I owned before, I never noticed any hot pixels.. not even at 1600 ISO. And with the D90, I could see the hot pixel right there in a normal day light shot.
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I will not get into the details of my D90 hot pixel experience since it is not much different than yours and several others I have read about. My 90s is currently showing 80+ very noticeable hot pixels at ISO200 a 10 seconds. I thought my D80 was bad with 4 or 5.
ReplyDeleteI too am extremely upset. This will be my 3rd D90 returned.
Never thought I'm lucky to have just a single green one near the center. It's just one pixel though, but it appears at any ISO and at any shutter speed. Not a problem if i process the RAW or select a small JPEG quality on the camera. Mine looks more like this one: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/hot-pixels/index.htm
ReplyDeleteHow is your replacement turned out ? I returned a perfect d5000 to get a d90. This was lastweek , abot 50 pics later I see hot pixels in at iso 200 for 1/30sec exposures.
ReplyDeleteAnd I was assuming that nikon may have fixed the hot pixel issue given that it has been around for a long time.
I gave up and sent my D90 to Nikon to have them mapped out. I maxed out at buying 8 D90s and returning 7 for one reason or another including most for hot pixels. After having them mapped out on the latest purchase, I was extremely happy. Since then a couple of them have cropped up during extended use. I look at so many night images on the net and many of them have any signs of hot pixels.
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