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M10 Banding in high contrast setting


Viv1857

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With m recently purchased M10, I get green banding across the centre of a photo when shot in high contrast situations. Quite disturbing. Any thoughts on this? Example below - using a summicron 50 shot in good light. Also get the same type of result on my Elmarit 90.

 

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The root cause of this is, massively overexposing the sensor right on the edge of the picture (in this case, the right side). There are pixels/sensels along the edge of the sensor, that are supposedly behind a black frame and protected from light, that are used as "black reference" pixels in the image processing later on (i.e. pixels that tell the Maestro processor, "this is what black looks like.")

 

But enough light blasting onto that shaded edge of the sensor can leak in, and foul up the black measurement on a per-picture and per-row-of-pixels basis. Thus the band that lines up with the hottest part of your overexposed outdoor patio. where your house shadow ends. The greenish tint is also signature for this problem.

 

Partly, (repeat, partly) that would be user error - you shouldn't be nuking the sensor with that much overexposure and not expect problems. Expose for the highlights, "develop" in LR or your preferred post-processing tool for the shadows.

 

That said, it could well be the new M10 sensor, or your sensor specifically, is overly sensitive in this regard, which would be a point to raise with Leica. The original M8 had an actual bug in the physical design of the black masking, that made it really prone to bands of this type.

Edited by adan
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Thanks for the very useful responses.

 

The posted image is straight out of the camera. I have just experimented with Adan's suggestion of exposing for highlights and bringing up exposure in LR. Green banding still occurs. Therefore the solution is to avoid lighting situations with strong light to one side (if this issue is characteristic of M sensors) or perhaps my sensor is over sensitive in this setting.

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That does sound like an unusually bad problem. If it were even slightly common with the M10, we'd have heard more before now, and the beta-testers would have caught it. (And Leica would be recalling cameras already).

 

Return it and get a replacement (since it's only 10-14 days old) - but provide a copy of your bad files and/or prints, so that Leica can look into what went wrong (and if there is a chance of other cameras with the problem - I hope not!).

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... The original M8 had an actual bug in the physical design of the black masking, that made it really prone to bands of this type.

 

I am not sure - and I can't find any examples posted here from the M8 times - though I think the green banding of the M8 ran from the edge where the bright light hit the sensor's edge only to the sensor's center.

 

Here the green band runs through the whole sensor plane - so it could be a different reason - or a different bug.     

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I am not sure - and I can't find any examples posted here from the M8 times - though I think the green banding of the M8 ran from the edge where the bright light hit the sensor's edge only to the sensor's center.

 

Here the green band runs through the whole sensor plane - so it could be a different reason - or a different bug.     

 

Link to examples of M8 banding

 

Doesn't look the same, but could be the same reason as the banding in OPs example also aligns with an overexposed area!?

 

Regards.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Lightwrangler
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I noticed some odd behavior when shooting a backlight subject, unfortunately it looks like I didn't record any off the images. 

I'll try to test this scenario again, but I wonder if there is some internal reflection happening when a bright source enters the lens at a very specific angle. Can you reproduce this or was it a one off image?

 

I recall a very similar issue with a digital cinema camera I owned several years ago and the manufacture recalled the camera to replace the masking around the OLPF which solved the issue. Again, this only occurred in very extreme lighting conditions when a bright light source entered the lens from the side.

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This will be my first digital Leica. I have an M10 on order right now. Seeing that banding is a big concern. We all shoot sunsets. We all shoot into the sun. It is still early and this may be isolated to this one camera but if it is not isolated, this is not cool. In no way should a user be blamed for that banding in that photo. Green reminds me of the Sony a7 sensor with the sometimes green tint. I can give a pass on the Sony a7 because I paid $898 for the body. The green reflections were fixed on all mark ii versions. I don't believe the Sony a7R suffered from it either.

 

My point is we are not purchasing a Sony a7 and I don't feel Leica gets a pass on this because someone didn't expose for the highlights correctly. What if he was bracketing his shots? Will this happen on Sunset panoramic photos? Then I read @digitialfx may have encountered this. I am not freaking out but I am very concerned when I shell out $$$$ for a camera this expensive. It makes it appear as a rush job on the part of Leica.

 

Remaining positive about this, for the moment.

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You are completely overreacting. The example I mentioned is one in a million. I've shot probably a thousand images and so far have not recorded one with the issue I described. While shooting directly into the sun I noticed something. It happened at a moment that most people wouldn't even consider as a photo opportunity as the sun was pointing straight in the lens.

 

A sunset will not recreate this issue.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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After the first 1000 shots with my M10 - also in high contrast, night and significantly underexposed - I couldn't manage to provoke any banding. So I would say no worries but of course the question raised here should be answered by Leica. 

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