DEAD HOT PIXELS!

This is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. Products like TVs and LCD screens are covered in millions of pixels and as they are not all guaranteed to work by the manufacturer, sometimes you just have to live with a dead one or two on your massive TV screen. The same is true for camera sensors but somehow seeing bright spots in photos that I know should be completely black irks me a lot more.

Try it with your camera. Take the lens off and put the body cap on then take a photo on a manual setting at 100 ISO for a couple of seconds. The whole image should be black. If you have any pixels on your sensor that are misbehaving you will see a bright white or red/green/blue spot. I was originally looking for ways to fix dust on photos taken before using the "Dust Delete Data" tool on my Canon, but glad I stumbled on this youtube video for beating hot pixels - How To Fix A Hot or Dead Pixel (Canon 7D & 5D & others).

After following the tip in the vid and taking another photo the same way as before and checking on my camera's screen, all of the hot pixels appear to be gone! So try it out if you have been plagued by any stuck pixels on your camera too.

Modern technology

I've been using old film cameras for a while. They are generally heavy, made of cast iron and could be used as air raid protection for your pet mouse if necessary. At the very least, if you drop one, you expect more damage to be done to the floor than the camera. Luckily, I haven't dropped any cameras yet (touch wood! And thanks to the after market straps I use from Amazon).

This morning I was using my Nexus 7 tablet in bed and dropped it. It slid off me and onto the floor, falling only about 30cm. When I picked it up the screen was black and lifeless. It's a horrible feeling when you know you may not see your photos or unrecoverable data again and face being cut off from the outside world. Sure, I have a PC but it takes 15 minutes to start up and nobody has that kind of time to wait any more.

Incidentally, the Nexus is great for transferring photos via WiFi from my Canon 6D. Especially as Canon have finally fixed it so that I can download full size images within seconds. It takes much much longer using my PC so I only like to use it for making back ups to my hard drive.

Luckily, I had bought my now lifeless Nexus within a year and expected I could get a free repair from the German electrical goods store (Saturn) I bought it from. However, two clerks refused to take my receipt and instead said that a chip on the corner (that had been there for ages) meant that they would not take it and I would have to pay for it to be seen at a minimum cost of 150 Euros (not including parts). They said it would be cheaper to buy a new one and gave it me back.

I was on the brink of sending it straight to ASUS but stopped when I got to a clause that said ASUS repairmen are allowed to delete all data in order to fix an issue. I really wanted to keep my data so didn't want to risk losing it all over a screen issue. So instead I turned to YouTube. After watching this video for 3 minutes, I already had what I needed to check my tablet out myself. 

It took me only a couple of minutes to pop the back off and find a cable that had become unconnected. It just popped right back in place and then I just repeated everything in the video in reverse and squeezed the back on before being overwhelmed by relief at my tablet turning on normally and that caveman making fire with told feeling of triumph. Luckily, I didn't even need to replace the screen but I found you can buy them on Amazon for around 50 Euros which is much less than the fee I was quoted and about as risky concerning whether you will ever see your data again or not.

So next time your German shop won't honour it's guarantee, why not try fixing the problem yourself too? Best of luck! As for fixing old cameras, it is something I need to do in the near future. My Mamiya 645 Pro became stuck recently and needs repairing. They are generally built to last unlike modern throw away technology, but when they do go it can be hard to get replacement parts. Perhaps modern technology can help with 3d printing new parts. It's something I will research and might give an old camera a new lease of life!