I noticed the appearance of a cluster of about 12 red/pink 'stuck' pixels about a fortnight ago. They appeared on all images irrespective of shutter speed used/ISO settings, etc.

Having read speculation on the EOS 5D section of this forum about the issue of stuck/hot pixels, I decided to try a cure suggested for the EOS 5D camera in that forum.

Firstly I removed the battery from my camera for 3 days. Then I put the battery back in and took a 'black' picture with the lens cap on. (You have to set A1 servo mode first, to allow the camera to take a picture without focussing). I did this to see if the 3 days without the battery in had solved the problem.

Then with the lens on the camera and the lens cap on the lens, and the lens pointing to the floor, I activated the 'Sensor Clean' function for about 30 seconds. (Obviously with a lens on, I made no effort to clean the sensor before, after or during this operation!). At the end of the 30 seconds, I switched the camera off to close the shutter and return the mirror. Afterwards, I reset the camera to its default settings and cleared the custom functions (both via the menu setting), just for the sake of enabling a general reset of the camera.

I then took a set of normal pictures to see if this process had made any difference. When I transferred the pictures to the computer to view them, the 'black' shot taken before the sensor clean clearly showed the hot pixel cluster, from which I conclude that the 3 days without a battery in, had made no difference and was just a waste of time - but it proved a point.

In the pictures taken after the sensor clean though, all the stuck/hot pixels had gone and the entire images were free from any hot/stuck pixels. The problem had been completely cured.

I suspect that the return to default settings and resetting the custom functions made no difference actually, but it did no harm.

I am now of the opinion that operating the sensor clean function with a lens on and a lens cap on the lens, causes the camera to either map out hot/stuck pixels, or to reset itself, neutralizing them. Pure speculation of course, but it solved the problem completely in 30 seconds. (N.B. I did not clean the sensor at any point and have never done so.)

EOS 350D camera, standard kit lens used, latest firmware version (1.0.3)