For the last few weeks I have had a problem with my camera, whats the problem you ask? – a nasty looking virtical line across pictures taken at night or with a dark background. I first noticed the problem in late February when I attended and snapped some shots at the 2008 Reggae film Festival and again the same night when there was a beautiful lunar eclipse.

see that ugly line to the lower right of the picture?
I am not to sure what caused or is causing the line but I hate it it! Daytime pictures or pictures with sufficient lighting aren’t affected by this feint (but ugly) line and I have learnt the hard way how fragile photography equipment can be. I am in two minds whether to send back the camera to Sony as it is still under warranty, I have printed up the necessary service documents through their website and all that is needed now is for me to send it off to them, but I am weighting the costs plus time without my camera plus what if the decide it’s not a manufacturers problem. All that has been on my mind lately so I just thought I blurt it out here. Whether I decide to send it or not I am bound to blog about it here.

The line is seen more clearly in this photo.
your camera sensor might be dying otherwise, nice snapshots of your daily life.
It looks like you could have dead pixels, it’s something you wouldn’t normally expect from a new camera, but happens as digital cameras get old. At that time, the problem would be randomly scattered over the image. It looks like a fault in manufacture. I’d certainly send it back.
it’s so expensive to send my camera back and with the long wait I don’t even know if it is worth it. Still undecided
I am experiemcing the EXACT same thing, and I think it’s even in the exact same place – about 3/4 (from thr left) of the way across the image.
To me it appears to be a single line of pixels in the sensor. When you magnify the images way up, you can tell.
At any rate, I don’t think it’s dead pixels, or even a dying sensor. I have had this camera for about 10 months (got it right when it came out), and it has been doing it for a long time. Had I noticed it right away, I would have just exchanged it at the store, but the problem is so sporadic – usually only at night, sometimes very dark photos…and not even all the time then. It seems to be more prevalent when using some of the manual/specialized exposure/scene modes…I have not really seen it when using the automatic (green camera icon) mode.
It is quite frustrating, and has ruined several nice shots, but I agree, the notion of sending off my camera for weeks, is not appealing either.
I was hoping to find some sort of firmware update or solution on the internet, to no avail. Perhaps if we could find many more people with this same problem, Sony could issue some sort of recall/quick exchange.
And for the record, I have tried calling Sony customer support twice regarding this issue, and they were of no help at all – I’m not even sure they understood what I was describing.
If anyone has any suggestions (other than sending it back), I would love to hear them.
Thanks,
John
you problem does sound exactly like mine. I can’t really understand it because there are days when the line is not present at all.
I have had my Sony DSC-H9 for about 15 months and in the past couple of weeks I have noticed the blue verticle line in the left part of the view frame as well as on my pictures. I have called Sony technical service and they were of little help besided advising me to send it in for service at a $185 flat fee. For a camera that cost nearly $500 I expected better quality. Was also advised to call back Mon-Fri to speak with Sony customer relations to see if another solution possible.
I have the same exact problem, but it appears that Sony cameras are the main issue.
Hi everyone, I too have a sony digital with sever vertical lines on images. I am real upset about the fact that I have not done anything wrong with this camera, never dropped it or did any kind of abuse to it. Why is it that Sony ignoring the fact that the cameras they sold to masses has this flaw and nothing they have done about it. This can be called for a law suite. They are not even launching a recall and have not trained their CS with the problem?
My brand new Canon SX10IS (six weeks old) suddenly had the same. I sent it back to Canon (warranty), and now I’m waiting for it to be repaired/replaced and returned. Meanwhile my 4 years old S2IS (that I replaced with the SX10) today had exactly the same white line! I was flabbergasted, as you might understand.
Anyone knows what causes this line?
I’m having the same problem! I have a Canon Rebel xt and i noticed the line about 3 months ago! I have no clue what is causing it! My line is more bluish though, and it is not easy to photoshop it out because mine is RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PICTURE! Please let me know if anyone finds a solution!
Aly
I have a Canon A720 IS and I have a couple of photos taken about 6 weeks ago. At first they appeared fine, but just this week a blue line has appeared on the right side. I took the memory card out and viewed the photos on my PC and sure enough the blue line appeared also. I was wondering if the memory card is on the fritz or if I accidentally did something to create the lines when fooling with the camera settings. One thing I do remember was that I got a low battery warning when I was taking the photos. But the rest of the photos I took that day turned out fine.
I bought a Vivitar 8300S several years ago. Almost within the first month of taking pictures, I noticed a very thin blue vertical line extending down my pictures. Most of the darker shots that I took really made the vertical line more visible. The vertical line was left of center or 1/4 from the left side facing in on my pictures. I am sure the camera came defective from the factory. Vivitar is not known for quality, but this particular camera I liked.
I have still have not figured out what the exact technical problem is. I would like to know if it is actually the sensor or some other electronic anomaly. I own other digital cameras and never had a similar problem.
I just noticed it on my Sony H50 in the EXACTLY THE SAME PLACE. It only seems to show up when I shoot in the ISO mode and it is on EVERY FRAME when I shoot that way. I’ve had my camera for over a year and this is really bugging me. Why no fix?