Michael Seika , May 26, 2009; 11:17 p.m.
I have had my D700 for about eight months now and I have not noticed this problem until last week when I was in Paris trying to take, for the first time, handheld night photos of the city. I was using ISO 6400 and I noticed serious banding on the photos, as shown in the attached typical example. Is this normal for this $3000 camera or is there a problem with the camera? Thank you.
Michael Seika , May 26, 2009; 11:22 p.m.
Michael Seika , May 26, 2009; 11:24 p.m.
...and another one. Thanks.
Brian Duffy , May 26, 2009; 11:25 p.m.
I wouldn't say that is normal. I would say it might need to take a trip to Nikon to get fixed. You might go ahead and download the latest version of firmware 1.01 and see if it helps, if you haven't already done it.
Michael Seika , May 26, 2009; 11:29 p.m.
The banding appears only in cases having high contrast like these ones.
Andrew Fedon , May 26, 2009; 11:36 p.m.
What on earth are you both talking about ? What banding ? I see no banding in any of the examples, only some variation of light from the spotlights.
Nick Sanyal , May 26, 2009; 11:59 p.m.
"What on earth are you both talking about ? What banding ? I see no banding in any of the examples, only some variation of light from the spotlights."
I agree.
Mark Sirota 
, May 27, 2009; 12:05 a.m.
I can see it. (I'm using a color-managed browser on a calibrated screen; that may help.) It's pretty subtle. The bands go vertically on the vertical shots, and horizontal on the horizontal shots. There are maybe 20 of them across the width of the first frame (I didn't actually count), approximately evenly spaced.
I think they're not actually evenly spaced -- they're located where the blown highlights are located.
I haven't noticed this from my D700, but I'm not sure I've taken any ISO 6400 images of a dark sky like this. You could certainly send the files to Nikon and ask...
Vojislav Miletić , May 27, 2009; 12:11 a.m.
Banding is very obvious in the 1st picture. Less so in the other 2 pictures, but if you do a slight shadow/highlight adjustment in PS it becomes visible.
You're not the first person to report this on the net, and there have been lengthy discussions about this. High ISO, high contrast - your shots are just about the ideal condition to produce this effect.
Nina Myers , May 27, 2009; 12:55 a.m.
I'm also using a calibrated everything, and can clearly see them in all three photos.
Maybe you should send Nikon these photos and see what they say.
I've done it before and they respond very quickly.
