Is "Banding" A Real Issue?

I am in the market for a new camera and I am seriously considering the D7100.

As much as I like the looks of the D7200, I cannot justify the additional cost and the lack of RAW support frustrates me.

The only negative (with the D7100) that I have heard rumblings about (other than buffer size) is banding when pulling detail from shadows. Is this a realistic concern?

Just how bad is the issue?

I appreciate your feedback.

Canadia-Nikon said:

I am in the market for a new camera and I am seriously considering the D7100.

As much as I like the looks of the D7200, I cannot justify the additional cost and the lack of RAW support frustrates me.

The only negative (with the D7100) that I have heard rumblings about (other than buffer size) is banding when pulling detail from shadows. Is this a realisitc concern?

Just how bad is the issue?

I appreciate your feedback.

Click to expand...

You'd have to really really underexpose the shot to see banding appear pulling shadows. If the shot has that much dynamic range, I will bracket it or not even bother with it, if it's not that important of a shot.

Never come across it with mine at a guess you would need to underexpose by several stops to see it.

I shoots lot with my D7100 in all sorts of conditions and have never had that problem. Go look at my gallery for examples of the D7100

Not had any problems with my D7100, excellent camera.

Is this the banding issues that you are talking about?


f2.8, 10secs, ISO 400.

This photo stax was the second shoot. I was aiming the other way for the main pass over (ISS) and didn't change any setting when I turned around to get the last of the pass over. The image was really under exposed and this banding between the light polluted part of the sky and the darker sky only appeared when increasing the exposure in post. It occurs only occasionally on my night shoots but this is mainly down to incorrect settings like in this photo. On this occasion if I had to take time to change the settings I would have missed the last of the pass over and missed the shot.

Canadia-Nikon said:

I am in the market for a new camera and I am seriously considering the D7100.

As much as I like the looks of the D7200, I cannot justify the additional cost and the lack of RAW support frustrates me.

The only negative (with the D7100) that I have heard rumblings about (other than buffer size) is banding when pulling detail from shadows. Is this a realistic concern?

Just how bad is the issue?

I appreciate your feedback.

Click to expand...

Responding before I read any of the other posts, so you know you're getting my unbiased opinion as an avid user.

I shoot plenty of low light exposures, even some intentionally underexposed (sunsets, etc.), and haven't had any issues recovering shadows, and only once have I ever run into banding that required a little effort (and I mean very little) to correct. From long exposure to quick snaps... I've been very pleased.

I've yet to run in to this "problem."

BTW, D7200 RAW files are fully supported by Adobe now. There is always a short time lag between the introduction of a camera and RAW software support.

Canadia-Nikon said:

I am in the market for a new camera and I am seriously considering the D7100.

As much as I like the looks of the D7200, I cannot justify the additional cost and the lack of RAW support frustrates me.

The only negative (with the D7100) that I have heard rumblings about (other than buffer size) is banding when pulling detail from shadows. Is this a realistic concern?

Just how bad is the issue?

I appreciate your feedback.

Click to expand...

I've shot with a D7100 for a while and I've never seen this banding "issue" personally. The D7100 has been nothing but pure, unadulterated awesome in my experience.

Also, if you're referring to Adobe's "lack of RAW support" I'll just mention that recent updates have included support for the D7200. Cost of the D7200, vs. the D7100, is another matter entirely of course...
....

I've had my D7100 since they were first released, I didn't know there was a banding issue until now.

I encountered banding on my D7100 a few times with dark blue graduated sky after sunset. But it is only visible, when I increase contrast and saturation aggressively. Even then, I think it only appears in JPEG images, so I think it is a compression artefact.

I use my D7100 a lot ..4000 images inthe last 3 days and no problems.

I'm with everyone else

a) I've never heard of a banding issue before and
b) can't say I've ever noticed it on any of my shots

I don't know about the D7100 but with mine I've had banding issues which were caused by two reasons:

-Shooting in aRGB and displaying in sRGB.

-Bad cam profile.

It's usually one of both and most often using a wider color space than the one it'll be displayed in.

J-see said:

I don't know about the D7100 but with mine I've had banding issues which were caused by two reasons:

-Shooting in aRGB and displaying in sRGB.

-Bad cam profile.

It's usually one of both and most often using a wider color space than the one it'll be displayed in.

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Thats how I shoot and display on the web.

There was problem with banding from under exposed areas,not sure but i think it was mainly early units and with a lot of users it turned out where trying to pull back under exposed Jpegs,in normal daily use with under exposed areas in a lot of my images i have never noticed it.
It just so happens i have a under exposed image caused by a lens problem,according to my calculations it is at least 5 stops under,feel free to download it and bring it,i dont think -5 stops would happen to most folks.

Blacktop said:

Thats how I shoot and display on the web.

Click to expand...

But do you convert them to sRGB when exporting to web?

I had banding issues when I shot aRGB and had the editor display them in sRGB. And I also had funky cam profiles for the D810 which caused banding but the newer editions fixed that.

mikew said:

There was problem with banding from under exposed areas,not sure but i think it was mainly early units and with a lot of users it turned out where trying to pull back under exposed Jpegs,in normal daily use with under exposed areas in a lot of my images i have never noticed it.
It just so happens i have a under exposed image caused by a lens problem,according to my calculations it is at least 5 stops under,feel free to download it and bring it,i dont think -5 stops would happen to most folks.

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Make that minimum 8-9 stops.

I think what you see is purely noise related instead of banding.

J-see said:

Make that minimum 8-9 stops.

I think what you see is purely noise related instead of banding.

Click to expand...

Yes its not the banding people where talking about at the time,i think what ever caused it in the early units was sorted.

J-see said:

But do you convert them to sRGB when exporting to web?

I had banding issues when I shot aRGB and had the editor display them in sRGB. And I also had funky cam profiles for the D810 which caused banding but the newer editions fixed that.

Click to expand...

Yes, I shoot in aRGB then convert them to sRGB for web viewing.