V1.02
Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D300
Page 80
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Stuck pixels
—some people have started to refer to
permanent hot pixels as stuck pixels. If you have a bright
pixel that never goes away, no matter what the
temperature of the camera or what the shutter speed,
you’ve got a stuck pixel. These generally need to be
mapped out.
I’ve mentioned “mapping out” pixels several times now.
Nikon does this at the factory, and can do it at any of their
authorized service centers. If you’re in the “don’t fix it if it
isn’t really broke” category, you can also use software to
analyze and correct your images after you take them. The
most commonly mentioned product in this category is the
donation-ware Pixel Fixer, unfortunately only available for
Windows:
http://www.pixelfixer.org
.
Sensor Longevity
Another question about sensors that gets asked a lot is “how
long will this sensor (and thus digital camera) last?” From the
reliability and mechanical standpoint, the answer is as long as
a film camera. But the Bayer and IR filtration may come into
play here. After examining a number of patents and technical
materials on the filtration methods, most appear to be resistant
to fading with exposure to light.
The good news is that, even if you take tens of thousands of
shots, the sensor is being subjected to light for only fractions
of a second at a time. In short, the overall light accumulation
for even a heavily used D300 is going to be minimal, and
your shutter is likely to give up the ghost long before you’ve
let in enough light to start impacting the filtration methods
used in the camera.
Consumer cameras such as the Coolpix expose their sensors
(and thus filtration) to light almost constantly, and we’ve yet
to see any significant fading problems with units that are more
than a decade old. Thus, I don’t expect filter fading to be an
issue at all with a D300, even after years of use.
Still, I’ve
added a caveat to my cleaning instructions later in this book
