Green lines on long exposure photographs

[saurtan]

Hi I have been taking night shots with a longer exposure and my pics have started showing a greenish line. Please advise if it is something I'm doing wrong or if it's the hardware? Thank you!

 

[Light Machinery]

:what:

Is the problem repeatable? I don't think it is related to your technique more to the hardware issues.

Would you mind to let the CS members know what is your gear & set up?

Happened to me a few time, one long green line horizontally across the middle of the frame. On the camera JPEG output but not on the RAW file. Problem was repeatable & only happened when I shot at continuously high speed.
Updated the camera firmware and never saw the problem again.

 

[edutilos-]

What are the settings here?

If it is persistent problem, could be a sensor problem. Otherwise, these can show up with high ISO settings.

 

[kandinsky]

Yeah, how long was the exposure?

Wonder if it might be blooming/smearing, see:

When shooting a very bright light source such as direct sunlight in the frame, reflections can occur off metal or glass, street lights or car headlights, etc. the source of the light may appear as a bright white sphere with a white vertical line running through the sphere. These phenomenon may appear on digital camera monitors or on the image itself. The bright sphere is known as blooming and the vertical line running through the image as smearing.

Blooming and smearing may appear in images or movies taken in very bright conditions and can occur together on digital cameras that use CCD sensors. When a pixel on a CCD sensor receives an excessive amount of charge there is an overflow into adjacent pixels. Digital cameras with CMOS sensors have a different sensor structure which is not prone to this issue.

Blooming occurs when a CCD sensor is exposed to extremely bright light and excess charge overflows into adjacent pixels. It causes bright portions in the image to appear to bleed. Anti-blooming mechanisms (overflow drain structures) that discharge excess electric charge can be incorporated into CCD sensors to address this issue.

Smearing occurs when photodiodes are continuously illuminated with bright light during electronic charge transfer, and the electronic charge flows into the adjacent vertical transfer CCD pixels. It appears as a bright vertical line centered on highly luminous subjects.

Blooming and smearing can be reduced on digital cameras that use CCD sensors by changing the shooting angle in relation to the subject, using a smaller aperture or by using a Neutral Density (ND) filter to reduce the amount of light. A test shot is recommended where possible and depending on the results the aperture can be reduced further or the shot can be recompose so the bright light source is out of frame.

https://nikoneurope-en.custhelp.com...ing-and-smearing-and-how-can-they-be-reduced?

 

[saurtan]

Hi all thanks so much for your help.

I'm using a D300, was on a Tamron 17-50 lens for the above shot. And yes, the problem has happened again, but noticeably only for longer exposures (about 30 seconds. That was all I could go to as I didn't have my remote on me that day). I tried taking a long exposure photo again this morning and saw the line again (a bit more faint this round) which is why I got worried.

Yeah, how long was the exposure?

Wonder if it might be blooming/smearing, see:

 

[edutilos-]

Is it at high ISO?

Another potential issue is memory card problem (highly unlikely as it surfaces in a different way). One way to check is to change out the memory card if you happen to have spare when it happens, see if it happens again with different MC. If it turns up too often, maybe you can head down to NSC to check if it's a sensor problem. Hopefully it's still under warranty?

 

[Light Machinery]

Well, did it have this problem when you used for long exposures the last time? How about normal exposures? Do you have the same problem? Any changes or settings made to the camera before this?

 

[kandinsky]

Check out this thread:
D300 vertical lines bug?
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2207284

tl;dr

From the OP (around pg 4):

There were several differences, (including a shorter time exposure, and lower ISO than last night) , but the elimination of the vertical lines is apparently due to my having turned OFF High ISO Noise Reduction as well as Long Exposure Noise Reduction.

From another poster who was trying to reproduce the problem:

I was finally successful in getting my camera to produce vertical lines! I took about 20 exposures and tried several combinations (both camera setup and illumination levels in the room). I was able to get 4 frames with vertical lines.

I primarily switched ADL settings (Hi, Normal, and Off) and Auto ISO (On and Off). I left LENR on for all the pix. They were all M mode (10" & f20), ISO 1600 (selected by Auto ISO mode), and AWB. I could not correlate the ADL and A-ISO settings to lines/no lines...

Check your settings, maybe you can try shots with HI-NR and LE-NR set to off, and without using Auto-ISO?

 

[saurtan]

I think I cap my ISO at 400, but let me go back and check. I really really hope it's a minor issue like a memory card problem cos it's definitely not under warranty! Thanks for all your help guys!

Is it at high ISO?

Another potential issue is memory card problem (highly unlikely as it surfaces in a different way). One way to check is to change out the memory card if you happen to have spare when it happens, see if it happens again with different MC. If it turns up too often, maybe you can head down to NSC to check if it's a sensor problem. Hopefully it's still under warranty?