Andythaler wrote:
Ed,
that sure sounds interesting!
Do you have further information (e.g. sources or testimonials from users who had it done) on this how it is technically done and where at Canon I could send my camera?
Best regards,
Andy
Well,
I had it done to my 10D in June. With SLR camera I have purchased since about 1978 or so, just before the camera goes out of warranty I send it in for cleaning/adjustment, etc. Since th 10D was my first DSLR, I requested that the camera also be checked for dead/hot pixels and that they remapped them. IIRC, the service record came back indicating that the remapping had been done, and I know that I checked for the one bad pixel I had noticed and it appeared to be gone.
As for technically, I've read somewhere that the software in the camera keeps a table of known bad pixel locations. It then substitutes an average of the actual data from the surrounding pixels for those locations. I've been a professional graphics programmer for over 30 years, and this seems like the obvious approach, so when I read this, it made total sense. My guess is that they use a weighted average of the surrounding pixels, giving the more weight the the axially aligned adjacent pixels than the diagonally adjacent pixels, but that is pure specualtion. That's how I would do it though.
Just send the camera into any Canon Service Center (I sent mine into the Irvine, CA center) with a letter indicating the service you wish performed, and, if appropriate, the receipt indicating that the camera is still under warranty. You might as well ask them to do a general tune-up, sensor cleaning, etc. while it is there.
= Ed =