Nikon D810 thermal noise issues affecting some users

Nikon has released a product advisory in order to confirm that the new D810 DSLR camera has a thermal noise issue causing white dots to appear in long-exposure photos.

Having only recently released the D810, Nikon has just confirmed that some early units of the DSLR are affected by a thermal noise issue.

The problems have been reported by multiple users. However, Nasim Mansurov from Photography Life was the first to report the story.

The good thing is that the company has quickly acknowledged the problem, has identified it, and has provided a way to fix it, courtesy of a product advisory.

Some Nikon D810 units are affected by a thermal noise issue. The company has announced that it will fix affected cameras for free. When a camera is fixed, a black dot will be spotted in the tripod mount.

What is the Nikon D810 thermal noise problem?

This issue can only be replicated during long exposures. White dots will appear in photos and they could be considered “grain”, albeit a very annoying one.

The problem is caused by very hot pixels and can be fixed by turning on the “Long Exposure Noise Reduction (NR)” feature in the settings menu. However, some users might want to preserve battery life and time, so they would prefer to have this feature turned off.

For example, when Long Exposure NR is turned off in the D800E, the DSLR will not display visible grain. Unfortunately, the problems are more serious in the D810, as the pixels are getting too hot and too many white dots will appear in your shots, sometimes rendering them unusable.

Who is affected by the “white dots” issues?

The good thing is that Nikon has caught up the problems soon after D810’s  launch. Only early adopters are reportedly affected by the thermal pixel issues and the company has identified the serial numbers of the DSLRs.

Users can check to see if a D810 unit is affected by checking its serial number at Nikon’s website.

Usually, this issue appears at exposures longer than 20 seconds. If you do not plan to get into long-exposure photography, then you should ignore these problems.

What happens if a D810 is affected by thermal noise?

If a camera is troubled by thermal noise, then owners will be instructed to go to the nearest Nikon service, where the company’s engineers will modify some sensor settings and will update your D810’s firmware.

All adjustments and repairs will be made free of charge.

How to check if your unit has been fixed?

In order to check whether your DSLR has been fixed or not, take a look at the tripod socket. If your unit has a black dot in the tripod socket (just like in the photo posted in our article), then your D810 has been repaired.

As stated above, only some early Nikon D810 units are affected by these problems and they can be fixed easily for free. Let us know if you have a D810 and whether it is suffering from the “white dots” syndrome or not.