Speck in photos: dust inside the lens?

[TheToe]

Hi, folks. For a while now, all of my photos on my S40 have had a dot near the center of every shot.

I thought it was a dead pixel, but when I look more closely at what's appearing in the photos, it looks like a small thread or something. I can't see anything in there, but assume it is extremely small. I've tried cleaning the exterior of the lens to no effect. Is this a speck inside my lens? If so, what can I do about it?

Here's what the spot looks like in a picture:
http://users.erols.com/epastore/photos/imac1.jpg

Here's what it looks like when I take a picture of the wall in a lightless room:
http://users.erols.com/epastore/photos/dark1.jpg

And here is that above picture blown up 900% (and not resampled):
http://users.erols.com/epastore/photos/dark900.jpg

I know it's just a tiny speck, but it's right near the center of every photo and kinda ruins them. Any suggestions for what I can do?

Thanks!!

[john_houghton]

Looks like a hot pixel. Expose a shot with the lens covered to confirm. If the camera is still under warranty then you may be able to get the camera replaced or repaired. If you have Photoshop, you could create an action to clone those pixels from the surrounding area to hide the spot. You can then batch process a set of images to correct them.

John

[Longwatcher]

It also looks like a dead or hot pixel to me.
If it were a spot of some kind the image would show a dark spot. In the case of dust or other particle on the lens or sensor light can not get past it so it will appear dark. Since this is light, then you probably have a hot pixel (always providing a reading of maximum light). The additional grey pixels around it are probably caused by the bayer filter correction algorithms. A dead pixel should send a null reading or cause a dark spot.

As mentioned if under warrenty try to get it corrected that way, if not just use PS (or other software) to remove the artifact.

Just my memory and opinion,

[Ikinaa]

Have a got the possibility to store the picture under raw on the s40, so you can see the spot without all the gadgets and jpeg-artefacts.
If it's a hotpixel, in raw there should only be one pixel and not the cloud around.
If it's dust, you'll probably get the same result as now...