Black Lines on Photos?

Hello! This is my first post here, and hopefully not my last

I bought my D3300 factory refurbished on BuyDig.com. I noticed there was a very big smudge spot on the sensor so I sent it in to Nikon for cleaning. Upon getting my camera back, I noticed these strange "black lines" running throughout all of my photos, most visible against smooth and dark backgrounds. Here's my best description of these black lines:

• All black lines are exactly 1 pixel in width, and between about 1-100 pixels in length.
• Most prominent against darker areas of the photo.
• When shot in landscape orientation, lines run vertically. When shot in portrait orientation, lines run horizontally.
• Lines are perfectly straight, at 90 degrees when vertical and 180 degrees when horizontal.
• Noticeable at 50% zoom, obvious at 100% zoom, extremely obvious at 200% zoom.

I sent a complaint to Nikon support and talked with 4 different techs. 1 tech says he sees them as obviously as I do. 3 of them say they don't see what I'm talking about. Unfortunately my last correspondence was a supervisor and he says that while he does see them, they are "perfectly normal" and merely compression artifacts. So I am reaching out to the community to help me verify if these are indeed merely compression artifacts.

I've done my own research on this subject and downloaded some sample RAW photos taken with the D3300, and none of those photos exhibit the same black lines that I see in my photos. So I'm inclined to believe that the Nikon techs are pulling their answers out of their asses.

Keep in mind that I see these black lines on both RAW and JPG pictures. They are clear and easy to spot in RAW, a little muddy in JPG but still visible.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Eppt2fJu47bjVhZUV0WEJOYlE/view?usp=sharing (Look against the clouds)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Eppt2fJu47azU5TFhXeVRFTmc/view?usp=sharing (Most pronounced near the left and right edges of photo)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Eppt2fJu47cjRkOGJkalM2d0k/view?usp=sharing (Most pronounced near the left and right edges, where it's darker)

Your examples are difficult to make any obvious opinions.

Wouldn't dark lines be "most prominent" against a light background?

There's a lot of noise and normal artifacts. And the photos are out of focus.

What was your shooting info?

ISO?
WB?
Any post processing?
Are these crops or full size photos?

Take some photos in good light outdoors. Shoot the sky.

The photos you have as examples are hard to judge for any defects. The lighting is very poor. Black lines would be the least of my concerns in the overall quality of the photos.

Here's a side-by-side comparison between the RAW photo the Nikon tech took, and the RAW photo I took. His is on the left, mine on the right. They are cropped at zoomed in to 200%. I've marked with red arrows the black lines that appear in mine.

Why are you concerned with a 200% crop? What is your purpose? Again, you're shooting in very poor lighting, with poor focusing, and at 200% crop?

You still didn't answer what ISO you were shooting.

I don't know what you're expecting from your camera, but you're obviously not going to ever get it.

Send it back.

TedG954 said:

Wouldn't dark lines be "most prominent" against a light background?
...
Take some photos in good light outdoors. Shoot the sky.

Click to expand...

I chose these photos because it's where the black lines are most obvious. Also, as mentioned, they only appear against dark backgrounds so you will not see them when taken against the bright sky.

Not a good example to shoot in near darkness. No shot is going to be good. Shoot some real world shooting examples and maybe we can help. But the shots you use are never going to be good no matter what camera you use.

TedG954 said:

Why are you concerned with a 200% crop? What is your purpose? Again, you're shooting in very poor lighting, with poor focusing, and at 200% crop? I don't know what you're expecting from your camera, but you're obviously not going to ever get it.

Send it back.

Click to expand...

I zoomed in to 200% to make it easier for the viewer to find. However, they are already visible at 50% zoom.
I plan to do a lot of night exposure shots so poor lighting is something that will be ever present. Can you imagine these black lines polluting all my astrophotography shots?
Also, sometimes I have a need to crop images. If there is a dark area, say a person's face that is underexposed, and I want to brighten it up in PP, those black lines become very pronounced. Imagine a group shot with 20 faces, all with dark black lines running across their faces. I don't think anyone would be happy about that.

I've been looking at the shots in PS at pixel size and I seriously don't see what concerns you. I see noise at that level but nothing that looks like a pattern pointing to damage.

If there is any damage or dirt on the sensor, it should be visible no matter what you shoot.

No body views photos at 200%. If the problem shows up at 50%, why wouldn't you post those? If you have to "hunt" for defects, there probably aren't any to be concerned with.

This is the shot at 300% when opening it in PS. I didn't change anything, just cut, scaled and saved.



No dots or lines on my screen.

Alright, here's a "real-world" example (even though my night exposure shot is also a real-world example). This is a RAW image taken of my cat with bright white blinds in the foreground. Since there is such a wide dynamic range between the white blinds and the cat + interior, you'll see that the picture had to be under-exposed and taken in RAW in order to bring out the details in PP.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Eppt2fJu47N2RBOEs1VHN3TjQ/view?usp=sharing

Below is a JPG I've uploaded of the same picture with red arrows showing the black lines. In this case, since the picture was taken in portrait orientation, the lines run horizontal. I've also only zoomed in to 100% for the sake of argument.

http://i.imgur.com/KTxAtMK.jpg

EDIT: it appears as if attaching images on this forum reduces the size and quality, it's best to view on the imgur site.

J-see said:

This is the shot at 300% when opening it in PS. I didn't change anything, just cut, scaled and saved.

View attachment 126514

No dots or lines on my screen.

Click to expand...

Thanks for looking into this J-see. Did you download the NEF file? Seems like Google drive also resizes the images when viewed on the site.
Here's a quick JPG comparison I've uploaded to imgur. Looks like this forum downsizes the image files so it will be hard to see.

http://i.imgur.com/QHNkLTe.jpg

I see the lines there but to me that's just noise. It's not only where you point, it's everywhere in the darker parts.

nehcney said:

Thanks for looking into this J-see. Did you download the NEF file? Seems like Google drive also resizes the images when viewed on the site.
Here's a quick JPG comparison I've uploaded to imgur. Looks like this forum downsizes the image files so it will be hard to see.

http://i.imgur.com/QHNkLTe.jpg

Click to expand...

I didn't realize there was a NEF. I have used the JPEG but am downloading the Cat NEF now.

Yes it is everywhere, I just pointed out a few with red arrows because people keep missing them.
Why do you think that's regular noise pattern? I've never seen noise like this before. Noise should be random, this is not random. Noise also doesn't present itself as clearly defined and perfectly black vertical lines. If someone is able to provide just 1 example of these black lines in their photo, I will be happy.

Ok, that took some but we're there.

This is the shot enlarged to 200 some:



It doesn't look like normal noise and even when I maxed out noise reduction, the lines are still somewhat visible:



I don't know what causes it since damage would show in all shot.

Here's a shot I took with the D3300 an hour ago:



Same magnification.

YES!! THANK YOU!! I was beginning to think I was going crazy!

That is exactly the issue I have, I am unable to remove the black lines using noise reduction even when maxed out in lightroom. I understand there are limitations with this sensor and I'm perfectly fine dealing with standard noise patterns but this definitely does not look normal. The black lines appear to be getting worse with each consecutive shot so I'm worried that the problem may eventually magnify to such huge proportions that my camera will essentially be useless.

Now, if only the Nikon techs were able to see the black lines

J-see said:

Here's a shot I took with the D3300 an hour ago:

View attachment 126519

Same magnification.

Click to expand...

Looks nice and smooth. Low light noise is evident as randomly dispersed pixels. And no black lines!

First eliminate as much as you can. Shoot with another lens and check. Format your card or use another and check again.

If it gets worse every shot, it'll become overly obvious pretty fast but it's still strange it only appears in darker parts. All I can think of is the automatic noise reduction the cam does. Maybe there's something wrong there but that isn't hardware as far as I know. I'd find it strange if it was the sensor but it would only mess up in darker parts.