Hot Pixel

Hot pixels

Photopedia

23 October 2007 12:24

Hot pixels are bright pixels that can appear on your photos usually during long exposures. They look like stars or coloured dots and can appear anywhere in your shots, but are more obvious on dark areas.

They occur because some pixel sites on the camera’s image sensor can accumulate a charge without any light falling on them – exposure to light is normally how a charge is achieved. This charge is then falsely interpreted as light, giving a bright dot.

Most D-SLRs produce very few hot pixels in a 30-second exposure, but longer exposures and warmer conditions will intensify the problem.