Dead pixel

[jzw]

I know you are supposed to black balance your camera often but after using many cameras for years I never black balanced and I never knew the difference. Well I had an important shoot for a client last night with the FS100 and the footage looked great on the camera play back. I bring it back home and watch it big on my computer and notice there is a small pink dot on the top left corner of over 90 minutes of footage. You can see the example in the attached photo. (For some reason the posted image is too compressed and you can' see it in the thread.

I black balanced the camera now and the dead pixel went away. Is my camera defective? Also is there any easy way to get rid of a dead pixel in post?

Thank you!

 

[Searcher]

You black balanced and the dead pixel went away. Perfectly normal. The manual says to black balance every time you change the lens. As for the dead pixel fix maybe ask that question in the sub forum for the edit station you use or google it: "fix dead pixel fcp7".

 

[jzw]

Is it perfectly normal for a bright pink pixel to not be noticeable while looking through the viewfinder and than magically it appears when you look at it on your monitor? This is completely unacceptable. And I am going to return my camera.

 

[Dermot]

Is it perfectly normal for a bright pink pixel to not be noticeable while looking through the viewfinder and than magically it appears when you look at it on your monitor? This is completely unacceptable. And I am going to return my camera.

jzw;

my day gig is working as a colorist, today i'm gradeing another movie of the week, last week i was was on commericalas for a German car, next week i'm on a US national food commerical, and then a feature for film out

On my desk i have a QC report for a Movie of the Week, this show is for primetime US network - there is 173 faults for dead pixels in this QC report - the show was shot on RED MX's, union crew, great DP, first class DiT and station

They didn't see them, this is typical really...


I see thousands of dead pixels on my gradeing screen in a week, Alexa, F3, RED, F35, F23... all of them.. world class crews with DiT stations with 24" screens can't see them.. why would you think you could on a 4" screen...

And it's dead easy to fix with modern tools, takes seconds...

I think you might be returning alot of camera's...

d

 

[eheath]

Is it perfectly normal for a bright pink pixel to not be noticeable while looking through the viewfinder and than magically it appears when you look at it on your monitor?

Yes. The LCD has so many less pixels than your monitor, really?

 

[Gary W]

If it's dead easy to fix, maybe you could help him out by giving him an example of how to fix it.

jzw;

my day gig is working as a colorist, today i'm gradeing another movie of the week, last week i was was on commericalas for a German car, next week i'm on a US national food commerical, and then a feature for film out

On my desk i have a QC report for a Movie of the Week, this show is for primetime US network - there is 173 faults for dead pixels in this QC report - the show was shot on RED MX's, union crew, great DP, first class DiT and station

They didn't see them, this is typical really...


I see thousands of dead pixels on my gradeing screen in a week, Alexa, F3, RED, F35, F23... all of them.. world class crews with DiT stations with 24" screens can't see them.. why would you think you could on a 4" screen...

And it's dead easy to fix with modern tools, takes seconds...

I think you might be returning alot of camera's...

d

 

[Dermot]

I use Avid DS finishing systems as our main toolset, and it has a very good (probbaly the best) paint system, i apply a preset i made that takes the 4 pixels to the side/top/bottom, and averages them, then fills the dead pixel.. advantage to this is that it's realtime, no render needed, and we have a 16' screen in one suite and a 30' screen in the other suite to see if it's working really really big - or if we need to do the fix with a clone brush... a big advantage over working off a 24" LCD

The foundry's Furance plug-in for Nuke is what i would turn to if i didn't have a pair of DS's handy (i know most folks don't);
F_SmartFill - an intelligent texture tool designed to automatically fill a missing region in an image. It can be used to repair damaged pixels or paint over unwanted objects to create clean plates. The algorithm takes textures from nearby areas whilst trying to keep structures and patterns intact. It's a spatial algorithm so will only work on single frames. Don't expect miracles and don't throw away your paint and clone brushes just yet, but it's a great tool and should get you most of the way in a fraction of the time.

And if i didn't have Nuke & Furnace then i would roll my own with the same idea, much like wire removal, set the Q, and the width of the area to use for fill, but only fill one pixel. I noticed that BorisFX's BCC v6 has a "Pixel Fixer" they are pretty good plugs usualy, i don't really use them much (just to conform effects from Media Composer), but when i do they work well.. so worth a try...

d

ps.. when i'm not swamped with gradeing work, i shoot indie films, hence the purchase of the FS

 

[moldcad]

I guess the worst part of it is that you do not always actually see a dead pixel while shooting - otherwise black balancing before the shot would be the obvious solutution.

FWIW, I never saw a dead pixel on my FS100 until I bought the Zacuto EVF Pro with a 3.0x magnification - one of its pluses is that even with only 800x480 resolution, the magnification is strong enough to reveal dead pixels (I had one so far). Some people complain this magnification ration is actually too high, and makes the image ugly (pixelated) - maybe, but the ability to discover a dead pixel once it occurs is IMHO worth it (apart from the fact that if you normally need strong glasses for reading, the 2.5x version is simply unable to properly focus).