246 Banding - how much is normal?

[blackdot]

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I just bought my first Leica digital today! I’ve been using an M2 and M6ttl for years, but decided to give this newfangled digital thing a shot. I got a used Monochrom 246 today and have been taking boring test shots at home, but the amount of banding in the shadows in contrasty high iso shots is pretty surprising. How much is normal? I took the iso down to 2000 and even there, I need to overexpose and risk the highlights to avoid lines in the image if I want to raise the contrast or bump up the exposure in Capture One. I get that this camera doesn’t do “grain”, but is it normal to get banding this easily? Thanks. 

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[convexferret]

The M246 will start to show visible banding at 12,800 and above, in my experience. Those bands are there at all ISOs (and this is true of all digital sensors that I've tried) but normally we don't boost the exposure enough to see them. If you shoot at 6400 and boost the exposure a stop you'll get more or less the same amount of banding as you would shooting at 12,800. All that means is that you have much less room to adjust the higher the ISO.

[a.noctilux]

Banding is NOT normal.

Two hypothesis :

- the M246 is faulty, in many years of using my M246 has far less banding than my MM1 using to 6400 ISO

- the test situation is stressing that, in your place I'd try out with normal photo taking with variety of situations (sort of normal use of Monochrom or other gear)

 

Blackdot, just to add some ideas:

- did your SD card "new" or used on another device ?

- good idea to format the SD card in M246 at first use (may take some time )

for more infos, have a look in this RFF thread

https://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172710

Edited November 3, 2020 by a.noctilux

[blackdot]

1 hour ago, convexferret said:

The M246 will start to show visible banding at 12,800 and above, in my experience. Those bands are there at all ISOs (and this is true of all digital sensors that I've tried) but normally we don't boost the exposure enough to see them. If you shoot at 6400 and boost the exposure a stop you'll get more or less the same amount of banding as you would shooting at 12,800. All that means is that you have much less room to adjust the higher the ISO.

I'm finding this to be true as well, but with any contrast increase in C1, lines are visible well below 6400. 

1 hour ago, a.noctilux said:

Banding is NOT normal.

Two hypothesis :

- the M246 is faulty, in many years of using my M246 has far less banding than my MM1 using to 6400 ISO

- the test situation is stressing that, in your place I'd try out with normal photo taking with variety of situations (sort of normal use of Monochrom or other gear)

 

Blackdot, just to add some ideas:

- did your SD card "new" or used on another device ?

- good idea to format the SD card in M246 at first use (may take some time )

for more infos, have a look in this RFF thread

https://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172710

I tried three different cards and formatted all of them in the camera. The Sandisk Extreme Pro 32gb was also formatted in SDFormatter, just to be safe. It had been used in another camera prior to that. Is there a magic card/camera combination that substantially improves the banding? When you say it is not normal, do you mean I should be able to shoot at 12500 and be able to raise the shadows without any lines?

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by blackdot

[a.noctilux]

1 hour ago, blackdot said:

I'm finding this to be true as well, but with any contrast increase in C1, lines are visible well below 6400. 

I tried three different cards and formatted all of them in the camera. The Sandisk Extreme Pro 32gb was also formatted in SDFormatter, just to be safe. It had been used in another camera prior to that. Is there a magic card/camera combination that substantially improves the banding? When you say it is not normal, do you mean I should be able to shoot at 12500 and be able to raise the shadows without any lines?

 

Blackdot,

There is no magic SD card to prevent banding, just use the best card available and the best technic.

Your format process is fine.

M246 is not "magic" camera, users can do "magic" if they learn to do with "flaws" of the gear.

Maybe the M246 IS * faulty, if it's prone to bandings.

 

Sorry, I use normally my M246 at max 3200 ISO so when there is banding, I may not see.

Most of my use is 400 ISO, higher iso is used only when I can't do otherwise.

Mostly I don't "raise the shadows", so I can't comment.

😔

I think that our M246 usings are very different.

 

* why not ask Leica ?

Edited November 3, 2020 by a.noctilux

[mike3996]

1 hour ago, blackdot said:

When you say it is not normal, do you mean I should be able to shoot at 12500 and be able to raise the shadows without any lines?

I haven't used M246 so I can only comment on a general level.

If a camera does fine at ISO 6400 but has banding at ISO 12500, it generally means you can't circumvent the problem by shooting ISO 6400 and pushing shadows by one stop. You could shoot ISO 3200 and push by one stop but not two stops.

[blackdot]

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22 minutes ago, a.noctilux said:

Blackdot,

There is no magic SD card to prevent banding, just use the best card available and the best technic.

Your format process is fine.

M246 is not "magic" camera, users can do "magic" if they learn to do with "flaws" of the gear.

Maybe the M246 IS * faulty, if it's prone to bandings.

 

Sorry, I use normally my M246 at max 3200 ISO so when there is banding, I may not see.

Most of my use is 400 ISO, higher iso is used only when I can't do otherwise.

Mostly I don't "raise the shadows", so I can't comment.

😔

I think that our M246 usings are very different.

 

* why not ask Leica ?

I've read that, at least for the older M9M, lower capacity, slower cards can reduce banding, but I do not know if that also applies to the M246. I ordered some class 4 8GB cards to try out, so we'll see.

I tend to shoot a lot at night in cities, so high contrast lighting is pretty normal for me, and necessitates substantial tonal manipulation at high iso. I've been spoiled by the amazing latitude of film, but I'm not sure if the M246 can work like this - or if I just have a bad one. I tried getting Leica on the phone, but no luck. I will try again today.

[mmradman]

In my experience banding can be provoked already at 6400 iso and one has to be careful not to under expose at higher ISO value as it will show up.  Noise is also noticeable at higher ISO even for exposures with sufficient photons.

Example below was shot with M246 at 10000 ISO and 1/60 sec with Summaron M 35mm f2.8 probably max aperture. From memory trying to light up the image would tease bearding out but bigger issue was to mask noticeable noise visible on screen, unless I am mistaking tiny sparkles from the granite for noise. Prints from M246 I made were at lower ISO values, all perfectly fine, so can’t comment what would this look like when printed.

 

 

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Edited November 3, 2020 by mmradman

[blackdot]

5 minutes ago, mmradman said:

In my experience banding can be provoked already at 6400 iso and one has to be careful not to under expose at higher ISO value as it will show up.  Noise is also noticeable at higher ISO even for exposures with sufficient photons.

Example below was shot with M246 at 10000 ISO and 1/60 sec with Summaron M 35mm f2.8 probably max aperture. From memory trying to light up the image would tease bearding out but bigger issue was to mask noticeable noise visible on screen, unless I am mistaking tiny sparkles from the granite for noise. Prints from M246 I made were at lower ISO values, all perfectly fine, so can’t comment what would this look like when printed.

 

 

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Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

It seems like my camera does not like underexposure correction combined with contrast increase. The problem, the highlights tend to blow rather easily in contrasty light, so underexposure can be necessary. I'm continuing to test this out, and waiting for Leica to call back, but I still don't know if this is normal or defective. I'm fine with noise (welcome it, actually), but the lines are not good.

[adan]

13 hours ago, blackdot said:

I’ve been using an M2 and M6ttl for years, but decided to give this newfangled digital thing a shot.

Is this literally your first digital camera (not counting 'phones), or have you shot other digital cameras, but this is just your first Leica M-digital?

I'm asking to find out if you are familiar with concepts like "base ISO" and exactly how digital cameras achieve higher ISOs (and why brightening the image in post-processing is effectively identical to increasing the ISO in the camera in the first place. TANSTAAFL.)

And - since the question hasn't been asked - are you shooting jpeg files, or "raw" .DNG files?

I've only used the color-filtered version of the M246 sensor (i.e. in the M240). It showed faint shadow banding in the red channel by about ISO 2500. Now, given that the color Bayer filters eat at least 1 stop's worth of light, and that there is no discrete "red channel" from the Monochrom sensor, I would not expect to see banding in a 246 Monochrom until ISO 6400 or thereabouts.

[blackdot]

16 minutes ago, adan said:

Is this literally your first digital camera (not counting 'phones), or have you shot other digital cameras, but this is just your first Leica M-digital?

I'm asking to find out if you are familiar with concepts like "base ISO" and exactly how digital cameras achieve higher ISOs (and why brightening the image in post-processing is effectively identical to increasing the ISO in the camera in the first place. TANSTAAFL.)

And - since the question hasn't been asked - are you shooting jpeg files, or "raw" .DNG files?

I've only used the color-filtered version of the M246 sensor (i.e. in the M240). It showed faint shadow banding in the red channel by about ISO 2500. Now, given that the color Bayer filters eat at least 1 stop's worth of light, and that there is no discrete "red channel" from the Monochrom sensor, I would not expect to see banding in a 246 Monochrom until ISO 6400 or thereabouts.

Not my first, but I'm still relatively new to digital. I am shooting DNG with the compression off, and at a variety of ISOs, but I understand that it's just 320 gained up and down. I have seen occasional banding at 25600 on my other cameras,  but on the M246 it is happening at much lower ISOs and more severely and consistently. Everything is fine if I expose for the shadows like with film, but then the highlights blow easily.

I ordered a variety of SD cards to try out, and I have an extra battery I'm charging to see if that makes any difference.

 

[jaapv]

Quote

I ordered a variety of SD cards to try out, and I have an extra battery I'm charging to see if that makes any difference.

That won't make any difference at all.
Mostly banding complaints are caused by people underexposing - and the M exposure measurement is a learning curve for people coming from other brands. The worst culprit is the dialling in of a standard -EV value without considering the subject lighting and contrast out of misplaced fear of highlights. The solution to blown highlight detail is exposing properly and individually per image, best accomplished by going full manual and observing the histogram, which on M cameras unfortunately cannot be done in real time outside the EVF, but in that case we have our little red arrows.  .

After the deed Topaz deNoise AI can save the day - it is pretty good at removing banding.

[blackdot]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

That won't make any difference at all.
Mostly banding complaints are caused by people underexposing - and the M exposure measurement is a learning curve for people coming from other brands. The worst culprit is the dialling in of a standard -EV value without considering the subject lighting and contrast out of misplaced fear of highlights. The solution to blown highlight detail is exposing properly and individually per image, best accomplished by going full manual and observing the histogram, which on M cameras unfortunately cannot be done in real time outside the EVF, but in that case we have our little red arrows.  .

After the deed Topaz deNoise AI can save the day - it is pretty good at removing banding.

Thanks. Does Topaz let you selectively remove banding but leave the grainy noise? That could be useful.

I agree I need to find the right sweet spot for exposure, but I don't see myself looking at histograms out on the street. Do you think that the A mode, after getting used to it, is not reliable? I set mine to center and use the shutter half-press lock, since that's what I'm used to. Is the multi mode more reliable?

[jaapv]

Most reliable is manual and scanning the scene using the arrows. Don’t forget that especially wide angle lenses can be easily fooled into under exposure by specular highlights. 

[blackdot]

46 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Most reliable is manual and scanning the scene using the arrows. Don’t forget that especially wide angle lenses can be easily fooled into under exposure by specular highlights. 

Just like film, except I can't ignore the meter if I'm in a hurry or overexpose everything for a safety factor. I'm really going to miss b/w film's overexposure latitude. I'll be keeping my M6TTL in case I need to return to the carefree ways.

 

[blackdot]

I've been doing some reading and think I understand how noise works a little more now. Please correct me if I am misunderstanding anything.

- Lines in the image are caused by digitally gaining up an underexposed area.

- Some cameras are fully iso-invariant, and some are invariant after a certain iso. Up to that iso, analog gain is applied, which does NOT introduce lines, but may introduce some grain-like noise (the fun kind).

- The 246 is iso-invariant after 800-1600 (let's call it 1250), according to some forum members over at dpreview. So changing the iso up to about 1250 will not introduce lines, provided no further digital gain is applied in the raw converter.

 

Is there a chart somewhere (preferably official, if that exists) that shows the values at which each Leica camera becomes invariant? I poked around the photonstophotons site and found some information, but it is not complete. I'm looking at buying a color body with this newfound wisdom. Unless it is wrong.

 

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by blackdot

[RMF]

Here is an iso-invariant chart that includes number of cameras including the 246 and M10 Mono.

https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_e.htm#Leica M10 MONOCHROM_14

Edited February 19, 2021 by RMF

[blackdot]

13 hours ago, RMF said:

Here is an iso-invariant chart that includes number of cameras including the 246 and M10 Mono.

https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_e.htm#Leica M10 MONOCHROM_14

 

Thanks. I wasn't sure how to read this (shouldn't the noise be going up instead of down?) or what "input-referred" means, but I'm guessing a sharp change in slope indicates the invariant speed?

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