Hot pixels

[A.M.D.A.]

I searched the forums, but no matter what keywords I use, the results are always 500 matches or 0 matches...?

What causes "hot pixels"/"stuck pixels" and is there a way to avoid them? (Other than painstakingly cloning out in post-processing). My *ist D seems to like inserting bright little red, blue and green dots into every picture...

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

[SmartWombat]

Stuck pixels are, well they're stuck.
Instead of reading how much light hits the pixel, it returns 100%.

You're more likely to see them in night images, with long exposure, than in daytime.

Sometimes it's more visible in jpeg than raw.
The compression and decompression can sometimes take the one faulty pixel and make it appear as if it was larger. I see that with my 1DSmkII.

You can't make it go away, unless you have software to map out the bad pixel and replace it with an average of the ones around it.

[another view]

You should be able to send it in for service and have them fix those spots (not sure if they just tell the camera to "ignore" those pixels or what). I'll get a couple here and there with long exposures and can clone them out quickly - I prefer this over sending it in for service. However, if you have a bunch it might be worth it.

[A.M.D.A.]

Thanks, Paul & another view.

Any idea on how much it would cost to send the camera in for pixel remapping? If it is too much then I may have to stick with cloning.