I am using a 5D Mark II and I am getting a series of three curved lines on the photos that are under

[JSewell]

I am using a 5D Mark II and I am getting a series of three curved lines on the photos that are under exposed only.  Can anyone help me figure out why it is doing this?

[cale_kat]

It isn't that uncommon to have banding in scenes which have high contrast content, difficult lighting (such as shooting into the sun), the degree of enlargement, and/or the shooting environment. The circlular shapes points to a lens derived effect.

[JSewell]

Thanks for the response.  What about this example..?  More subtle, but the effect is popping up seemingly randomly (commonly on underexposed photos) and on various lenses. 

[cale_kat]

A damaged sensor, struck by a laser reflection that left a pattern? I'm grasping at straws. Sorry. 

[Mykolas]

JSewell,

1. Does this happen when you shoot indoors out of the sunlight?
2. Do you have any filters attached to your lenses?

[JSewell]

1. I am almost always using a filter (in these examples I know was)

2.  I never use filters attached to my lenses.

[ebiggs1]

Stray light.

Are you using your lens' hood's?  You should always use the hood unless you have a direct reason to not.

[RobertTheFat]

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@JSewell wrote:

Thanks for the response.  What about this example..?  More subtle, but the effect is popping up seemingly randomly (commonly on underexposed photos) and on various lenses. 

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That picture is certainly not underexposed. It's not obvious that the phenomenon, whatever it is, is exposure-dependent. It could be that the lines, being fairly bright, are simply more prominent against a darker image.

[cale_kat]

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@RobertTheFat wrote:

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@JSewell wrote:

Thanks for the response.  What about this example..?  More subtle, but the effect is popping up seemingly randomly (commonly on underexposed photos) and on various lenses. 

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That picture is certainly not underexposed. It's not obvious that the phenomenon, whatever it is, is exposure-dependent. It could be that the lines, being fairly bright, are simply more prominent against a darker image.

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I think the degree to which it is noticeable is exposure dependent but it appears, at least from the two samples shown, that it never goes away.

[TCampbell]

Everything on the sensor is going to be organized in rows and columns. You can get a bad pixel or a column of bad pixels... or perhaps even a block ... but not a curve. If you're seeing a curve then certainly there must be something else causing this.

The camera does have two internal filters in front of the sensor, but those are flat and would probably not be the source of a curved reflection.

If you are confident this happens with more than one lens, then I might remove the lens and use the menu system to put the camera into manual "sensor cleaning" mode. This really just causes the mirror to swing clear (to the roof the chamber) and also causes the shutter door to open and expose the sensor (although the sensor is actually powered down when in "cleaning" mode). This would allow you to visually check to make sure nothing is hanging in the light path.

I would normally suspect the problem is caused either by the lens or possibly by a filter mounted on the front of the lens (do you use any type of UV filter or other filter when this happens?) The lens itself is curved glass... but since a "filter" would be flat glass in front of the curved glass, a reflection off the curved glass can bounce back off the filter and into the camera. Many "ghosting" problems are caused by the use of filters (and these can be eliminated by removing the filter or reduced by using filters with anti-reflective coatings.)

Hopefully you can the solution -- but I would probably be looking at the optics as I suspect this is not related to the camera body.