Nikon D3 hard banding issue

Sitkus

New member
Hello people,

So I just bought Nikon D3 a few days back, sadly I didn't thiught it will be so defected! First of all it has only 25k actuations, but the body and rubbers are some in rough some in decent shape, kind'a weird for 25k shutter count... Anyway the sensor or something is causing high issie, very hard banding, almost like a notebook linear stuff or something! Last day I did upgrade firmware of it to 2.03 and then formatted my cards and the lines were gone for a day, I did like 200 photos and all was great, then I went to sleep, woke up and thought I'll test it again and woah it shows the lines again! I have no idea what happened through night, I checked everything what I could to check on my own hands and nothing seems to fix the problem anymore... I hope to get some help here, maybe somebody encountered such problem? I'll add a picture of how the linear pattern looks (zoom on it and You'll see)

https://ibb.co/b7V5oa
 

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
Welcome to the forum,first thing is you need a sensor clean,this is 25% of the image with levels adjusted to make it clear what your talking about,are you sure it went away and it wasn't just you taking different subjects,i know nothing about the D3 sensor so i will just put this on for others to see.

I had to do extreme adj to get this

IMG_0847.jpg
 

Sitkus

New member
Welcome to the forum,first thing is you need a sensor clean,this is 25% of the image with levels adjusted to make it clear what your talking about,are you sure it went away and it wasn't just you taking different subjects,i know nothing about the D3 sensor so i will just put this on for others to see.

I had to do extreme adj to get this

View attachment 267614

Hey Mike,

Thanks! Also yeah I know I need a clean hehe, however I took it today to a local photography gear repair service, they said first they look for this problem and if they can fix it only then they would clean the sensor, otherwise it's pointless to clean if I won't be able to get this camera fixed...

Yes I'm 200% sure the issue was gone for one day, I took pictures of sky ant white boards as well, to make sure it was true, I was very happy that I fixed it, but not for long... And before I fixed it I was getting those 'lines' only at high F numbers, on F 2.8 or something there was none, after the issue re-appeared I'm getting same lines at no matter what F number I'm shooting, and this is even more weird...

Thanks for the adjusted picture, I think it is even better seen now, also You took up the dusts, so thanks for that too!

I'm writing here in hope to get some help from people who had same issue or who thinks they know what it could be, so I could warn the repair-guy on what might be possibly solution. So thanks a lot for any help!! :)
 

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
Welcome aboard. Enjoy the ride.
We look forward to seeing more posts and samples of your work.

At this point, one has to ask, any chance of returning the camera for a refund? Despite only having a 25K shutter count it looks and sounds like this camera has led a rough life.
 

Sitkus

New member
Hey Mike!
Thanks for the help as always, however those issues written there seems not like mine, those are made out of noise I guess and mine is presenting always, no matter shadiw areas or bright areas, it's like adding a pattern of lines in photoshop with low opacity hah...

Hey Bikerbrent,
Thanks fella! Currently I can't post any because my camera is at the local repair shop and will be in queue for 3 weeks... However I still have some photos on computer from before, mostly it's clouds or blank areas, but I have some with people from the day when the issue was gone, and I have also some pictures from the buying time when I was testing it, later I zoomed on them on pc and noticed that lines were there as well, but there only in the shadows, so seems like after few days the problem once was gone and then got back but worser than it was? Really damn weird...

Yeah it looks a bit rough for 25k seriously, my local repair shop said that it can't be 25k because after 25k the rubbers and overall camera doesn't look like that and I agree because I had D700 with 25k and it was in prestine shape. But how can shutter be reset? Is it even possible? I think that the camera might been used for photo journalism and was abused roughly?

No, the guy who sold it to me doesn't reply to me anymore, so I bet he knew about it, it's weird because the guy was like 60+ years old and seemed very nice, didnt seem to hide anything, however he mentioned that a friend gave this camera for him as a 'debt payment'. He wanted 770 euro and I said 620, but he said 670 and I aggreed. I checked it for like 20mins, but didn't saw anything bad, only later that night I noticed a banding at f/32
 

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
Not good news. Hopefully the seller wasn't a complete slim-ball who not only knew of the problem, but also knew that the camera was either beyond repair or too expensive to repair. Not knowing where you live, not sure of what legal options you might have, but you might want to look into them. Where did you meet the seller for purchase and testing. Hopefully you met at his house so you where to get a hold of him. If you met in some public place and you paid cash, you may be out of luck since he probably didn't even use his real name.
 

Sitkus

New member
Yeah kind'a wasn't lucky day for me, but if the repair would cost 200-300 euro then whatever I would agree to repair it, because through that 1 day of use I really loved it, the weight, the bulkyness, the quick shutter and the sound wow I just felt in love with it immediately, however if it would cost more than that or if they won't find what's wrong, then I will sell it as defected with auction on ebay probably, I still should get around 600-700, because yesterday one auction ended for Nikon D3 which is not working, doesn't take photos because "ERR" message is displayed and probably needs a shutter or sensor change, also it had 155k actuations and it was sold for 300 eur, so for mine I still should get something close to what I paid I believe, because everything is working perfectly, only that one thing - the lines defect...

However I really hope they will find a solution and it won't cost like 1k or something.

I can't do anything to that person since we met in restaurant, and I drove 100km to his city, also I don't even know his last name, all I have is name and number...
 
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