I took this shot handheld at 1600 iso specifically to highlight the fact that I have not experienced any VPN (Vertical Pattern Noise) I wanted extreme highlights next to extreme shadows to illustrate this point. Converted from RAW to JPEG Medium resolution for upload purposes using Native ACR color settings in Photoshop "ProPhoto RGB" as my color space. I see absolutely no banding what so ever and was quite impressed with how clean the image was at 1600 iso "Correctly Exposed".