horizontal banding, do you have it too?

[Max Penson]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Shootist's bands are the "usual" dark green bands when a bright light falls right on the edge of the sensor.

 

Max's bands:

 

1) I see them.

 

2) They are the "banding" that Sean Reid reported in his early M8 review before the "bright light banding/blobs/mirror images" issue really blew up in November.

 

3) They are fairly common throughout digital imaging when the light gets low. I got something similar if I tried to "open up" dark Digilux 2 shots, or even in film scans when I tried to suck more tone out of the dense areas of the film (highlights with negs, shadows with slides).

 

My M8 does it pretty much only at 2500, or at 1250 IF I try to suck out extra shadow detail.

 

There may be some digital camera somewhere that will never do this at some level of low-light exposure - but I haven't come across it yet.

 

Adan,

 

I agree you see those bands with other digital cameras, and they do common. But you have to open up the shadows or multiply the data to really see them. With the M8, it is very apparent without any manipulation other than what the camera already does. I also tried this with my D200, at 3200ISO there was no banding with JPEG and Nikon capture files. But with ACR, banding (vertical) was very apparent, as it is probably not designed to remove that. To me, this is not acceptable because this is not one of the things a raw software could easily resolve. This should be coming from leica.

 

Anyway, I have never read what Sean Reid reported, but this might mean leica is aware of this issue and may think of a fix, although I doubt they can do something about it with software. BTW, the easiest fix would be ADDING noise to the image - believe it or not.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Have to agree with Andy also here but I would also try some different raw converters. Some will band more than others. i also noticed that ACR does seem to compress a little the toe and shoulder of the color space. Try a wider gamut like Prophoto and I would also try C1

 

Max what version of firmware are you running here

[cre8ing]

Just a silly question. Can the banding be caused by streak marks left on the sensor after cleaning?

[gravastar]

.......... There may be some digital camera somewhere that will never do this at some level of low-light exposure - but I haven't come across it yet.

So far this aspect of the Canon 1DMkIII looks promising. That's why they're able to offer ISO 6400 although at that speed there is evidence of similar streaking.

 

Bob.

[Max Penson]

Have to agree with Andy also here but I would also try some different raw converters. Some will band more than others. i also noticed that ACR does seem to compress a little the toe and shoulder of the color space. Try a wider gamut like Prophoto and I would also try C1

 

Max what version of firmware are you running here

 

Thanks Guy, I am running the latest firmware, this is a brand new camera, was manufactured this month. Look guys, I've tested just about every single DSLR camera released in the past 3 years, put kodak cameras a side, most cameras in the past one-two yeas haven't had this issue with jpeg (the 400D has very little banding though). If the M8 would have been released two years ago, I'd let it go, but there is no excuse this showing up with a modern camera.

Now, as for raw converters, as of today, no raw converter can produce better image quality than the mainstream cameras (nikon and canon). Nikon and Canon are investing significantly more R&D on their cameras then any raw converter. So, if the jpeg file would be clean and this banding will show up only with Raw converters, i'd be happy. Someone will solve it later, but at least I'll have a good JPEG file.

 

So to sum up this thread, I understand you all have some amount of banding at high ISO images and my unit is just fine... That is kind of nice to know