Dear all, when I had to buy a compact digital camera, I looked at the cameras in the range of 7 megapixels like Olympus C7000, Canon G6 and S70 and of course -since I am a Pentaxist (MX, MZ-5n and various K lenses)- the Pentax Optio 750Z. I decided to go for the Pentax only because I was convinced by the image quality, compared to the other cameras. I compared many samples shoots on the review sites (like DPReview, Steve's Digicams etc.). To many the Optio 750Z pictures looked to be too "noisy", in my opinion they are more "true". Even compared to other 6-8 megapixels SRL like Canon 350D, they are better, more real and less flat. May be because the "noise" look similar to the film, in my perspective. But even our eyes have the noise. If you look at a blue sky, the blue is not so flat as from some digital cameras.
Ok, that's the point: I changed three Optio 750Z, and all three have had some problem. The first one was giving images with a soft corner, exactly the same issue showed in the DP Review, but in another corner! (look at the bottom of this page: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentax750z/page15.asp) I gave it back, the shop changed it with another one that instead showed some hot pixels, actually two 2x2 pixels zone were stuck and one was near the middle. It is not nice to have 4 pixels always white near the middle of the image, even at ISO 200 at 1/40s. I gave it back again, but this time they refunded me without changing it anymore. I again insisted (!) to have my 750Z from another shop, so I bought my third one, believing that that time luck would be from my side... in facts the third Optio 750Z was perfect: no soft corners, no dead nor hot pixels. But after some 1500 shoots, even the third one become to show some 2x2 pixels areas hot and stuck. Actually at ISO 100 at 1s there are three/four 2x2 areas with white/pink pixels when shooted in complete dark. I am so frustrated, because I really love this camera, plenty of features, even with some "pro" features, I love the image quality and the lens performance. But I am also disappointed from Pentax because 3 out of 3 cameras esperienced problems. Now I am afraid even to ask reparation under guarantee because I am afraid they could change the camera with a refurbished one with the "soft corner" issue. Some say that to repair the stuck pixels they re-map the sensor in order to interpolate the hot/dead pixels. Is it true? Some of you experienced some dead/hot/stuck pixels with other Pentax cameras? Thanks, marco -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
