Help! D7000 Red band high ISO (Long Exposure)

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Help! D7000 Red band high ISO (Long Exposure)

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pricery

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I pre-ordered my D7000 and have been very happy with it, Great Camera! Until Now. I mostly shoot landscape and have started doing some night photography with long exposure and high ISO with results being great. I have not done any shots in the bulb setting, so the longest exposure I have done is 30 seconds. Last night I decided to shoot the milkyway at 6400 and was presented with a large red band on the right side of the image. I have since shot a few shots with the cap on and can really see it:

It starts to appear at about 1600 ISO. I have had great results in the past with long exposure, high ISO, such as this shot at 6400 ISO, 30 sec exposure:

Also I updated the firmware a couple months ago to the 1.02

So, is my sensor fried, is it repairable, what caused this, is it under warranty, what should I do?

any suggestions/advice appreciated.

Thanks

Posted 1 year ago #
adamz

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for me it looks like some street lights, especially on the milky way photo, can You tell us Your location - was it close to city center? lights? etc?

Posted 1 year ago #
TaoTeJared

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Looks like normal heat from the camera getting to the sensor view-able when you leave the cap on. With the current heat wave in much of the US I'm not surprised to see this. My D80 always did this especially in warm weather when the camera has a harder time cooling down.

Do you have your long exposure NR on?
Raw or Jpeg?
Color settings?
Adamz point on the closest city - usually around here I see more of a yellow-orange banding.

Not that there could be an issue, but 30sec are really long exposures and a lot of heat is created keeping the shutter open that long on a hot day.

Posted 1 year ago #
jerl

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Yeah, this is quite normal, almost. On most cameras, long exposures will result in some parts of the sensor to have differing levels of sensitivity due to temperature and other factors. You would get rid of that by using long exposure NR on.

The reason I say almost is that I wouldn't expect to see this with a 30 second exposure on the D7000. I wouldn't expect to see any such artifacts for at least a few minutes, but there is always some variation in sensors.

Posted 1 year ago #
pricery

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The last photo in my first post is a 30 second exposure a couple weeks ago and shows no red whatsoever, it was shot in raw. I tried to do a similar shot last night of the milky way and saw the red tint. The other 2 pics were shot with lens cap on just to show the effect.

As others commented above I have done long exposure with light in the area and it is usually yellow or blown out.

This is new and has only happened in the last couple days, I have never had any problem in the past with high ISO and have been very happy with the D7000 high ISO performance. I have seen the affect of "sensor heat" on my old D80 and I usually only saw that from using bulb at several minute exposures

These 2 pics were just taken at 20sec. F3.5, 6400 and 4000 ISO. The red band on the right side has not shown up in the past, Taken in my backyard, no lights visible:

This was taken a couple weeks ago:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pricery/5807248425/in/photostream
f4, 20 sec, 6400 ISO.
Looks decent and no red tint.

Since the two pics were just taken at night and current temp 70° I don't think its heat related. I tried turning the NR setting on and off for both long exposure and high ISO and it doesn't seem to change much.

I guess its possible I may have had my camera in the car during a hot day and it got too hot. Would that cause this. Would it be covered under warranty? I generally try to take really good care of my equipment, I put my D80 through some rough times and its still works great. Anyway, I hope this can be fixed or minimized.

Thanks for comments and suggestions

Posted 1 year ago #
TaoTeJared

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Hot car probably didn't do anything. What we are talking about is when the shutter is open and the circuitry heats up.

You might look at your EXIF of your image from 2 weeks ago and use all of those settings.

Some of those look like light pollution (street lights) bouncing off some haze as well. The problem is that there are 10,000 variables that could give the result you are showing. Ok so maybe 1,000 - No, really, I'm not joking on that number. Some nights I have had to just give up due to pollution even though the closest city is 50 miles away. I think most of us here would believe it is one of those way before we thought something would be wrong with the sensor.

It would be covered by a warranty and if you think something is really wrong, I would return it or send it in. If you contact Nikon they are really good about helping you. It may take a couple of days for them to return a message, but it is usually very good and not just the BS some companies reply with.

Posted 1 year ago #
rbid

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BTW, the long exposure can be replaced by stacking a large number of shorter exposures and get the same (or similar, or better) result without the heated camera problem. There are few programs that will help you in stacking star photographs.. Google for "RegiStax" or "DeepSkyStacker" (Links may be removed from the forum). Search also for Astro-Photography.

Posted 1 year ago #
NikoDoby

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rbid said:
(Links may be removed from the forum).

Commercial links are removed from the forum.

Posted 1 year ago #
jerl

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I'd say to send it in as well, especially if it bothers you enough to post on it in here. If you insist, you can live with it, and just turn long exposure NR on all the time (which is a pretty good practice to begin with) but what you are showing is a bit more than what I would expect from the D7000.

Posted 1 year ago #
pricery

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Thanks for everyone's replies. So, after more testing it seems that it only happens with my 18-200 lens. So apparently the lens has a problem or light leak. I am surprised that a light leak would show up red like that and only on the right side of the sensor. Anyway it is somewhat a sigh of relief to know that its only the lens, not a cheap lens, but still better than a sensor. If anyone has any ideas on fixing the lens that would be interesting. Thanks

Posted 1 year ago #
TaoTeJared

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Lens huh? I wouldn't have expected that but more I think about it I'm not surprised. You may just need to put a dark cloth/paper around the extension as that would be where the light would come in. That would probably do it.

Posted 1 year ago #
DutchNikon

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pricery said:
Thanks for everyone's replies. So, after more testing it seems that it only happens with my 18-200 lens. So apparently the lens has a problem or light leak. I am surprised that a light leak would show up red like that and only on the right side of the sensor. Anyway it is somewhat a sigh of relief to know that its only the lens, not a cheap lens, but still better than a sensor. If anyone has any ideas on fixing the lens that would be interesting. Thanks

So what happens if you wrap the 18-200 lens in some light isolating cloth ? if its a lens leak the effect should not be there then...

Posted 1 year ago #
pricery

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So, I have done a few tests with the 18-200 lens. First I wrapped it with a black cloth on my D7000 with the same red band on the right side of the image, no change.

I also just tested the lens on a friends D90, 25 sec exposure f3.5 at ISO 4000 and 5000 with the same red band on the right side of the image. So, it is definitely the lens. Seems like it must be some electronic problem in the lens.

I haven't talked to anyone at Nikon yet but not sure if they would do anything since I've had the lens for a couple years.

Thanks for all the info and suggestions.

Posted 1 year ago #
TaoTeJared

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25sec is not long enough for anything in the lens to heat up hot enough to get a hue off of it. To check, turn it to manual, vr off and turn the camera to manual AF as well.

I'm guessing that somehow you are getting some internal reflection inside the lens that has a red tint to it. Off of an inner element, barrel, or filter attached. Probably so little that only long exposures show it. I have heard of it before with long exposures, but have never seen it myself.

Posted 1 year ago #
agiyo

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My D7000 exhibits this same problem with different lenses and has since new. I have seen posts by others who also experience the red band in D7000s; it seems very likely that some of our cameras are faulty, but the band is so easily cropped off and my experience with Nikon repairs in the 43 years I've used them has been so spotty, I plan to keep using my D7000 as is.

Posted 1 year ago #
kyoshinikon

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Are you storing it in the heat?

Posted 1 year ago #
TaoTeJared

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agiyo said:
My D7000 exhibits this same problem with different lenses and has since new. I have seen posts by others who also experience the red band in D7000s; it seems very likely that some of our cameras are faulty, but the band is so easily cropped off and my experience with Nikon repairs in the 43 years I've used them has been so spotty, I plan to keep using my D7000 as is.

If you read the whole thread and answer the same questions you may find your answer.

If you are looking for help with a solution - we need more information than you have given us. There are 1000's of variables that can create a hot spot on a sensor.

It seems to be the lens is the issue not the camera. There easily could be more than one lens that exhibits the same problem.

Posted 1 year ago #