Do any of you work for Canon Repair or know anyone who does?

[scottmcleod]

I've got an issue with my 10D that needs to be solved really quickly, and I can't afford the time to send it in to Canon Canada to get it fixed. Do any of you work for a canon repair center that handles DSLR's or know anyone who does?

Thanks!

[Jon]

First off - are you sure it's something that's going to require you to send it in? Second, have you called Canon's help line to see if they have any self-help tips for the problem?

Cameras are sufficiently complex now that even if someone here is a qualified repairman for the 10D, he'd need to work your camera in with his regular work-flow, and his bosss isn't likely to approve of your "jumping the queue".

[scottmcleod]

First off - are you sure it's something that's going to require you to send it in? Second, have you called Canon's help line to see if they have any self-help tips for the problem?

Cameras are sufficiently complex now that even if someone here is a qualified repairman for the 10D, he'd need to work your camera in with his regular work-flow, and his bosss isn't likely to approve of your "jumping the queue".



To answer your questions:
- Yes.
- Yes. No.
- I'm willing to do the work myself, I just need to find out *how* they do the work. It involves a dead pixel, and the composition of the RAW file that comes off of the camera.

Does anyone here understand how a RAW file is put together? (IE: how each pixel is stored, left to right then a row end bit, then the next line?)

Basically, I'm trying to solve dead pixel issues that many of us have, with regard to re-mapping pixels, maybe even after the fact, a program that would run a batch and re-sample the pixels around "known dead pixels" in a profile that you would build for your camera.

Thoughts?

-Scott

[Jon]

That's a different issue altogether. If you're talking about programming a post-processing routine for the Canon RAW data file, the repair center isn't what you want. In the US, I'd go here (http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=SDKHomePageAct&keycode=Sdk_Lic&fcategoryid=314&modelid=10464&id=3464) . Probably very helpful even if you want to try to get into the firmware internals. But a repair center's not going to do that kind of development. They use the tools, not make them.

[scottmcleod]

That's a different issue altogether. If you're talking about programming a post-processing routine for the Canon RAW data file, the repair center isn't what you want. In the US, I'd go here (http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=SDKHomePageAct&keycode=Sdk_Lic&fcategoryid=314&modelid=10464&id=3464) . Probably very helpful even if you want to try to get into the firmware internals. But a repair center's not going to do that kind of development. They use the tools, not make them.

I was hoping to find a rebel repairman who would explain how the re-mapping happens at canon. I have some friends with dev kits and such that might be able to then help me reverse-engineer the process.

[Jon]

Chances are all they'd be able to tell you is what they read, and what they feed into the black box that does the work. If you've got access to the SDK, tear into it that way.

[ron chappel]

If you're talking about programming a post-processing routine for the Canon RAW data file, the repair center isn't what you want.

As far as i understand it,the repair center does exactly that kind of thing.
Mapping dead pixels and putting the info into the cameras' RAW converter (so it can do it by it's self for every shot) is one of the services canon offers.It's something that is done to cameras when they are calibrated at the factory plus when needed in warrantee work

[Jim_T]

Canon has software to program the camera to do the mapping, but they don't release it.. It's better that you attend a service center and pay for the service..

I don't know why they can't include this.. Olympus installs a mapping utility right in the firmware of many of their cameras and the user can map out hot or dead pixels just by using the camera menu.

[Jesper]

Have a look at dcraw (http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/) (it's not only for Linux, as the page may seem to suggest). Scroll down on the page, there are some links to websites where you can download a ready made Windows executable version (here (http://www.insflug.org/raw/software/download/windows.php3) for example).

dcraw is a simple, command line RAW converter but it works well and it has an option to fix dead pixels in the RAW images. You will have to make a file called ".badpixels" in which you put the location of the bad pixels. I don't know if it's documented very well, but it works...

[Jon]

As far as i understand it,the repair center does exactly that kind of thing.
Mapping dead pixels and putting the info into the cameras' RAW converter (so it can do it by it's self for every shot) is one of the services canon offers.It's something that is done to cameras when they are calibrated at the factory plus when needed in warrantee work
I'm not saying that Canon Service Centers don't remap bad pixels. Only that Canon's development staff have written a program which allows the techs to plug in "hot spot" coordinates or supply a sample RAW file as input for that program to write out an updated mapping to the processor. So asking a tech "how he does it" won't be any particular help. You're better off going to the system internals, in this case, as exposed by the SDK.