How to check for banding in 20d

[steve_bright1]

I've been a user of a 10D for a couple of years and have been really

pleased with it. For me, the only weaknesses have been the noise at

higher ISO's and the fact that the 6MP resolution doesn't give me

much headroom for cropping with large prints.

 

I had intended to skip a generation and go for the 30D, or whatever

the next one is. However, my 10D sustained some damage recently and

is in for repair for a few weeks. This has really highlighted the

vulnerability of having only one digital body, so I've ordered a 20D

and hopefully I'll get it today. I'm off on holiday on Friday, so

I'll have about 24 hours to check out the camera to verify it's ok.

 

I've seen quite a few comments about noise banding with the 20D, even

with the latest firmware. Can someone let me know how to carry out a

simple test at home so I can see if my 20D suffers from the banding,

and if it does if I find it unacceptable. Obviously I'll check the

firmware is up to date first.

 

Thanks

[dave_trayers]

I'd be interested to know as well... I went from a 10D to a 20D last month. I upgraded because I knew I had an upcoming dance performance I was doing the photography for and I knew from past experience I'd need ISO 1600 and the 10D wouldn't cut it.

 

I did the shoot last weekend and took over 900 frames, most of which at ISO1600.

 

I'm in the process of converting them and have printed several already. Without any noise reduction except that provided by C1-LE, 8x10 prints are clean of noise and I don't see any banding on the monitor or in the prints. I'm very impressed by what Canon has done with this camera. If there is banding, I can't see it.

[goulden]

i often get banding shooting at 1600 or 3200 in really dark venues and then if i end up having to push the curves to brighten the image you see the bands. it's rare to see the banding without doing some brightening work on the shot in photoshop

 

in the shot attached i've pushed the curves right up to emphasise the banding. it was shot using settings: 1/30 f2.8 iso 3200

[goulden]

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3258172-lg.jpg">

[david_kusner]

I can frequently see banding in the darkest shadows at low ISO, even on well-exposed photos. I almost never find it to be a problem I can't deal with, but if I want to find it it's not often difficult. The easiest way is to use levels, curves, or shadow/highlight to dramatically boost the brightness in your darkest shadows. Of course you're going to see noise when you do this, but it's the presence of patterned noise that disturbs many people.

 

The problem is far more pronounced starting at about ISO800. Below this you sometimes really have to hunt, but it's there (it's also effectively invisible for any practical purpose). At 800 it can be very visible.

 

I'm not knocking the camera, I've used it for over a month (about 1200 photos) and am very happy with it, but I don't normally shoot high ISO. In low-light shots I normally use tripod, with noise reduction for long exposures. I've only had one photo that I've considered to be ruined by banding, and it was about a stop underexposed at ISO 800 and wasn't really a good photo anyway. If it were, I could have dealt with it in PhotoShop. By 'ruined' I mean that the banding drew attention to itself and was not easily removed by a simple one-step process.

 

Some people have suggested that any 'extra' that draws current from your camera may exagerrate the effect. By extra I mean internal flash, IS, and auto-focus, for example. The one shot of mine that I considered ruined used IS and auto-focus.

 

I don't feel like contributing to the paranoia about this issue any more, so I'm not going to post samples or discuss it further. My suspicion is that the issue affects every 20D, but that it is completely overblown for the vast majority of users. Most people who haven't seen it haven't really looked, but if they don't need to, why should they?

[cfimages]

I haven't used the higher ISOs too much, but on the occasions that I have, I haven't noticed any banding.

 

<p>The following shot was taken at ISO1600 hand held, in Av. I can't remember the aperture and shutter speed, and I'm too lazy to open Photoshop to find out. I ran this through Neat Image to get rid of some noise, although there was remarkably little of that.

 

<p>Anyway, here's the shot.

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3058757-lg.jpg">

[jury_nel]

I upgraded from the 10D to the 20D as well, and I find that noise is a bigger concern than banding. At high ISO noise will increase, but considering all else, it's acceptable - especially on the 20D.

[chiswick_john]

Use Capture 1 pro as you raw processor and all your banding problems are solved. Alternativley set the contrast parameter to minimum and expose as far as possible to the right. Banding is only a problem if you underexpose or try to push dark areas.

[andrew_carlson]

I'm going to agree that I think this "issue" has been blown out of proportion. I've been shooting my 20D since November and never noticed it until I read about someone's panic about it here. I wasn't looking for it and didn't notice until someone said to zoom in to 400% and blow out the brightness. To me that means that everything is faulty so long as you look hard enough for something to fault. I'm not printing at 400% zoom with blown out highlights just to see the noise.

 

I've shot ice hockey at 1600 ISO and found the noise levels acceptable but barely so. A tool like noise ninja or some other noise reduction would be nice but I'm too cheap so I shoot ice hockey at ISO 800 and just try harder at exposure compensation.

 

For the record I never upgraded my camera firmware to the latest and am still on 1.0.5 or whatever it shipped with. Haven't needed to. IS hasn't affected anything either as I use the 70-200 f/2.8L IS lens and just don't see issues between the two. Guess I'm on the correct side of the bell curve there - or just take all these "issues" in stride. I'd rather be taking pictures than griping about my equipment shortcomings. Its usually NOT the camera thats at fault but me but thats too hard for some to admit so finding fault with equipment is where we are at I guess.

[drfl]

I am in agreement with the issue being blown out of proporation for color images. When I use the Black & White settings at high ISOs though, I notice it all the time. It is especially distracting there as it becomes lines of contrast that are not right. I am not, however, throwing away the camera just yet, it's still an exceptional piece of electronics.

[drfl]

An example of a black and white photograph that suffers from banding:

 

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/3027113">http://www.photo.net/photo/3027113</a>

[andrew_carlson]

Nice shot

[steve_bright1]

Many thanks for all your comments and photos. I've now got the 20d and I've taken a few test shots at high ISO's and haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary with regard to banding.

 

I did a sensor dust check on my fifth shot and sure enough, just like another poster a couple of days ago, there is dust present right out of the box. I'll rearrange the dust later.

 

I ran a dead pixel test (www.starzen.com) and it seems fine. Amazing: the noise reduction dark exposure works really well.

 

The camera all seems fine - only a couple of minor things where I felt the 10D is better - the LCD screen and the shutter noise, but I'll get used to them. The 10D is the quietest SLR I've ever owned.

 

Despite all that, the camera's still going back for a replacement though: the LCD screen is not aligned with the body correctly. The image looks as if it's rotated slightly anticlockwise. Wierd.

 

Looks like my 10D will have been at least 5 weeks in the service department. I feel this is a major weakness with the massive popularity of digital cameras - the manufacturers (not just Canon) need to expand their service departments as they just can't keep up, but that's for another topic.

 

Thanks again.