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I recently bought an Olympus OM-D on holiday and took around 2000 photographs in the 2 week period on holiday. On day 12 it developed some white/pink pixels on the sensor.

I've emailed Olympus custom support and they've told me to run the embedded pixel mapping function on the camera.

Is it normal for a camera sensor to develop these faults so soon? Or should I be pushing back and asking for a replacement camera on warranty?

Running the pixel mapper got rid of all the hot pixels, should the condition of the camera worsen again I'll post an update to the question.

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This is completely normal. Unlike many makers, though, Olympus includes the hot-pixel mapping function on all their cameras, so you can just use that.

Remember, a full resolution JPEG from this camera has 15,925,248 pixels. If, say, a dozen of them are defective, that will have a 0.000075% impact on your final results. It's really a non-issue, and not something to worry about.

I know it doesn't feel nice to discover scratches on your brand new car. But fortunately, this paint job is self-healing.

Now, if after running the mapping, you're still getting hot pixels, or new ones crop up regularly, or if we're talking thousands, I'd get an exchange. (Even though, really, a thousand is still a drop in the bucket in terms of overall effect.)

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  • Thanks, that puts it into perspective much better than the customer services rep did. Seeing as I've still got 50 weeks left on the warranty I'll give the pixel mapping a bash. If the camera keeps degrading over time then I'll go back to Olympus at a later date. Many thanks! – Neil Sep 25 '12 at 14:43
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Generally I would say yes - if a component is going to fail due to manufacturing deficiencies, it will often do so in the first day/week/month if use (depending on usage of course)

What you describe (depending on the number of defective pixels) sounds like it is degrading with use - if it is effecting image quality, I would call it a "DOA", so should be swapped ASAP.

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  • Do you think it's worth trying the pixel mapping and then if it develops more dodgy pixels then go back to Olympus? Or just push back immediately and say the quality isn't up to scratch. – Neil Sep 25 '12 at 11:53
  • It really depends on the severity... it it carries on getting worse after pixel mapping and starts effecting image quality then yes take it back. but id give it a month or so to be sure. – Digital Lightcraft Sep 25 '12 at 16:03

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