D200 Banding

[57%_Burnt]

Recently I have come to learn that a number of the newly released Nikon D200s have a defectual tendency to create a severe banding effect (highly pixelated lines) in images that contain both very very bright light, and very dark shadows, specifically around the brighter area of the photo. My Aikido sensei is also a wedding/portrait photographer and was the one who informed me of the issue, and said he has already sent his D200 back to Nikon, who seems to be denying the claims. I am a relatively loyal Nikon buyer and was planning on purchasing one of these cameras in the future.

I wanted to ask if anyone here had experienced/heard of an experience relating to the same issue, to get an idea of the frequency of the problem.

Thanks in advance.:thumbup:

 

[Rob]

I looked into the D200 when I bought the 20D, but I didn't hear anything like that. If it can be reproduced and demonstrated easily, I would have thought that the shop you purchased it from would be obliged to issue a refund.

Rob

 

[photobug]

Apparently there are 3 types of banding possible. Most involve very high contrast scenes (shooting a light source in near-total darkness) and grossly overexposing the pic.

There are some instances where banding occurs in what most would consider normal conditions though.

Nikon has apparently acknowleded the issue finally. There's quite a bit of traffic about it on the dpreview forums.

 

[hobbes28]

And they have a fix. Here's some info.

 

[dsp921]

Only problem is that people are claiming a loss of dynamic range after the fix. Not everyone that has a fixed camera is complaining about that, though.
I'm going to buy a D200, but I want to wait a while and see how things shake out. The Nikonians forum is probably the best place to get information on this and pretty much any other Nikon product.