Monday, April 3, 2006
From Exultation to Horror: Defective Nikon D200 Sensor
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 09:00 AM
On Saturday I posted about finally getting my Nikon D200 - to say I was thrilled would be an understatement. So my mood swing was equally strong the opposite way when I was looking through my first batch of photos and I started noticing a bright green pixel in all of them:
I'm not an expert on camera sensors, but I do know that if I see a bright pixel in the same spot on every image I take...then there's something defective with that sensor. :( The bright green pixel on the upper left of the image is the one that keeps showing up in every image, though on lighter exposures it's more white and less green. And for the skeptical, I'm not "pixel peeping" - the pixel is very obvious when viewing images in full-screen mode at 1600 x 1200. I'm not zooming in at 200% and scanning the image looking for problems. It's just too obvious not to notice. And as you can imagine, I'm not going to accept anything less than perfection on a camera costing this much!
This morning I called Henry's and they were both shocked and very sorry to hear that the camera I had waited five weeks for was defective. I was prepared to have to email them photos and prove that the sensor was defective, but thankfully they took my word for it. Given how hard it is to get a D200, I was pleased to hear that they were going to try and source a new one for me ASAP rather than putting me on the bottom of the waiting list again. And they're also allowing me to keep this D200 until the replacement arrives, so I can continue to learn how to use the camera until the next one arrives.
So while I can't say that I'm pleased with Nikon's quality control (you'd think they'd test cameras at this level quite vigorously), I'm very pleased with how Henry's is going to handle this. Let's hope I don't have to wait long!
I'm not an expert on camera sensors, but I do know that if I see a bright pixel in the same spot on every image I take...then there's something defective with that sensor. :( The bright green pixel on the upper left of the image is the one that keeps showing up in every image, though on lighter exposures it's more white and less green. And for the skeptical, I'm not "pixel peeping" - the pixel is very obvious when viewing images in full-screen mode at 1600 x 1200. I'm not zooming in at 200% and scanning the image looking for problems. It's just too obvious not to notice. And as you can imagine, I'm not going to accept anything less than perfection on a camera costing this much!
This morning I called Henry's and they were both shocked and very sorry to hear that the camera I had waited five weeks for was defective. I was prepared to have to email them photos and prove that the sensor was defective, but thankfully they took my word for it. Given how hard it is to get a D200, I was pleased to hear that they were going to try and source a new one for me ASAP rather than putting me on the bottom of the waiting list again. And they're also allowing me to keep this D200 until the replacement arrives, so I can continue to learn how to use the camera until the next one arrives.
So while I can't say that I'm pleased with Nikon's quality control (you'd think they'd test cameras at this level quite vigorously), I'm very pleased with how Henry's is going to handle this. Let's hope I don't have to wait long!
