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So why the banding


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I have been going through dpreview's good preliminary assesment of the camera

http://www.dpreview.com/previews/leica-q-typ116/6

and was looking at their iso samples showing banding and was wondering why Leica Raw files often seem to suffer from this problem in shadow areas more than others. M9 used to be pretty bad and the M is better but when comapred to what I get out of my Sony A7II the banding is pretty pronounced. Of course I wouldn't expect it to come near to my A7s which is a low light monster but I would expect better at base iso.

So I was wondering if the more technically minded would have some views on this

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The banding seems to occur when they push the files by more than 3 stops.  That doesn't bother me too much as that's an extreme push.  It seems like a test designed to show off Sony sensors, which are really good for pushing shadows that much.  

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I have been going through dpreview's good preliminary assesment of the camera

http://www.dpreview.com/previews/leica-q-typ116/6

and was looking at their iso samples showing banding and was wondering why Leica Raw files often seem to suffer from this problem in shadow areas more than others. M9 used to be pretty bad and the M is better but when comapred to what I get out of my Sony A7II the banding is pretty pronounced. Of course I wouldn't expect it to come near to my A7s which is a low light monster but I would expect better at base iso.

So I was wondering if the more technically minded would have some views on this

This reply is not meant to be derogatory or rude. Banding is caused by the photographer and not the camera. If the image is underexposed you will get banding. A properly exposed image should not. My personal opinion. Every camera, by design, has limits. When you try and get the camera to do something it is not capable of and exceed those limits you get payback.

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This reply is not meant to be derogatory or rude. Banding is caused by the photographer and not the camera. If the image is underexposed you will get banding. A properly exposed image should not. My personal opinion. Every camera, by design, has limits. When you try and get the camera to do something it is not capable of and exceed those limits you get payback.

This is not to do with under exposure it is to do with bringing out the detail in a correctly exposed shot from the deeper shadow area which is often very useful in landscape photography. Of course trying to recover from a badly exposed image that was made by the photographer is not the cameras fault but I am interested in the DR or latitude.

Edited by viramati
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Interestingly I have found that Nik's Dfine 2 does pretty good job of clearing up any banding issue in the test sample from the Dpreview website.

Here are a very quickly done before and after. The Lr setting to get a balanced exposure on their image were +4.00 in exposure and +56 in the shadows slider

 

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After Dfine 2 using the banding tool (detail)

Edited by viramati
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This is not to do with under exposure it is to do with bringing out the detail in a correctly exposed shot from the deeper shadow area which is often very useful in landscape photography. Of course trying to recover from a badly exposed image that was made by the photographer is not the cameras fault but I am interested in the DR or latitude.

Again, with respect, trying to bring up shadows beyond what the camera and lens will allow ant getting banding is a human issue. It is "caused" and not really inherent. There are cameras available that will get you the image you want without the banding.

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Again, with respect, trying to bring up shadows beyond what the camera and lens will allow ant getting banding is a human issue. It is "caused" and not really inherent. There are cameras available that will get you the image you want without the banding.

With respect I know that as I have the Sony A7. I really don't understand why you think this is my fault as if you read my original post a little better you would see that I was just asking anyone with more a more technical background why this is.

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With respect I know that as I have the Sony A7. I really don't understand why you think this is my fault as if you read my original post a little better you would see that I was just asking anyone with more a more technical background why this is.

 

didn't we already state in this thread that the Sony sensor is simply superior when it comes to pushing?

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I'm very impressed by the quality of the cleanup by Dfine.  It has clearly been improved more than a little since I stopped using it years ago.

I agree. it is a programme I don't normally use but have found it very useful in the odd case where I have wanted to clear up banding.

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I have been going through dpreview's good preliminary assesment of the camera and was looking at their iso samples showing banding and was wondering why Leica Raw files often seem to suffer from this problem in shadow areas more than others. M9 used to be pretty bad and the M is better but when compared to what I get out of my Sony A7II the banding is pretty pronounced. Of course I wouldn't expect it to come near to my A7s which is a low light monster but I would expect better at base iso. So I was wondering if the more technically minded would have some views on this.

 

This is not to do with under exposure it is to do with bringing out the detail in a correctly exposed shot from the deeper shadow area which is often very useful in landscape photography. Of course trying to recover from a badly exposed image that was made by the photographer is not the cameras fault but I am interested in the DR or latitude.

 

Interestingly I have found that Nik's Dfine 2 does pretty good job of clearing up any banding issue in the test sample from the Dpreview website.

Interesting because I share your views on extracting shadow detail but I have actually found that banding from my Canons to be far worse than my Leicas.

 

FWIW, and as you have also alluded to, I suspect that some of the problem lies with software as different RAW conversions and PP software seem to vary in how they deal with banding - I find Photoshop good on the M9 but less so on the 5D2. I have no idea about stability of the power supply that jaapv refers to - computer power supply? I use a laptop and large screen so this should be stable if that is the reference?

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No, I meant the power supply in the camera as it is processing and writing the image.

The difference you note between raw developers is due to the different algorithms used by the software.

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No, I meant the power supply in the camera as it is processing and writing the image.

The difference you note between raw developers is due to the different algorithms used by the software.

Interesting because occasionally I get more banding in an M8/9 file than anticipated and I've just had a 7 year old battery finally 'die' (charging won't give it sufficient power for the M9, which might well explain this. New battery time perhaps?

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With respect I know that as I have the Sony A7. I really don't understand why you think this is my fault as if you read my original post a little better you would see that I was just asking anyone with more a more technical background why this is.

Maybe I said it wrong. It is a fault of the camera limitations and once this is known I steer clear of trying to do exposures that have defects or won't work. What I meant was its caused by the photographer going outside of the camera window of limitations. 

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