Color banding on the Z6 and Z7

[BruceJ]

I have been told that my photographs of wildlife suffer with color banding and this is normal for the Z series cameras and worse on Nikon Z than Sony or Canon. Can anyone shed light on this, is it true or false and what setting on the Z cameras will lessen this effect?

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[Rassie]

I'm not aware of any banding with the Z cameras, other than banding that may potentially occur when one brightens up the shadows in a severely underexposed image. The Nikon D7100 was prone to this, and it was apparently a feature of that specific Toshiba sensor used in that body. The banding disappeared when a Sony sensor was subsequesntly used in the D7200. I have not seen any banding in any of my Z6 images.

By the way, your image is of an osprey with fish. I don't believe red-tail hawks catch fish, they go for land-based prey.

 

[BruceJ]

I'm not aware of any banding with the Z cameras, other than banding that may potentially occur when one brightens up the shadows in a severely underexposed image. The Nikon D7100 was prone to this, and it was apparently a feature of that specific Toshiba sensor used in that body. The banding disappeared when a Sony sensor was subsequesntly used in the D7200. I have not seen any banding in any of my Z6 images.

By the way, your image is of an osprey with fish. I don't believe red-tail hawks catch fish, they go for land-based prey.

Thank you, you are the first to share this identification with me.

 

[BruceJ]

These raise the issues in color banding.

 

[kimball]

All mirrorless cameras with Phase Detect Auto Focus (PDAF) capabilities built directly into their sensors have the theoretical potential to suffer from either PDAF striping or PDAF banding related to light reflecting off the auto focus circuitry that happens to be right there amongst the sensor pixels.

For an excellent description, see here:

On-sensor PDAF misconceptions - the last word

The new GFX 100 has on-sensor phase detection autofocus (OSPDAF, or, for the rest of this post, since we’re not talking about SLR’s, just PDAF). Bill Claff has already determined that the camera uses 18-row spacing. This link will show you to the evidence of that. The camera is not yet shipping...

blog.kasson.com

Manufacturers, including Nikon, have generally done a good job of eliminating the banding and striping from their mirrorless cameras. While Nikon did take heat in some popular forums for having banding, the reality is one had to pull shadows up by 4-5 stops to see it and even then it wasn't a reproducible phenomenon.

Your example photo does have some interesting horizontal striping in the lower water but IMHO it's way too far apart and too pronounced to be this PDAF banding. It cold be as simple as ripples in the water, but it's very hard to tell what's going on your image because it's so small and highly compressed. Would you be comfortable posting a full resolution JPG to something like dropbox and sharing the link here?

 

[kimball]

These raise the issues in color banding.

This image banding is related to the flickering of fluorescent/CFL/LED lightbulbs being captured by the long read-out time of the electronic shutter. It's definitely ruined a few of my shots and it's incredibly important to know how to recognize and mitigate this problem.

But since OP posted an outdoor BIF shot, I don't think he's talking about this kind of image banding from artificial lights.

 

[BruceJ]

Hope this link works:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g95exvmyoh1864x/AAD6YUuG2Qsa6qGGzmFuMBHNa?dl=0

 

[kimball]

Hope this link works:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g95exvmyoh1864x/AAD6YUuG2Qsa6qGGzmFuMBHNa?dl=0

Thanks! That's still only a 1.6 megapixel image. Is this downsized, or is this a crop from your Z7's full 45 megapixels?

Either way, it would be interesting to see the full resolution NEF or JPG.

 

[BruceJ]

I added the NEF file to the Dropbox.

 

[kimball]

I added the NEF file to the Dropbox.

Got it. Personally I see no PDAF banding. I see a pattern of horizontal water ripples that have some bright reflections on them in an image that has been aggressively cropped, edited, and sharpened, which unfortunately has enhanced and magnified that pattern in the water.

This is what PDAF banding in the shadows on the Z7 actually looks like when zoomed way beyond 100% and when exposure is pushed 5 (FIVE! that's a lot!) stops:

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[BruceJ]

Got it. Personally I see no PDAF banding. I see a pattern of horizontal water ripples that have some bright reflections on them in an image that has been aggressively cropped, edited, and sharpened, which unfortunately has enhanced and magnified that pattern in the water.

This is what PDAF banding in the shadows on the Z7 actually looks like when zoomed way beyond 100% and when exposure is pushed 5 (FIVE! that's a lot!) stops:

View attachment 9802

Ok, I was told by a number of people on UHH that it was banding and that the Z6 and Z7 were noted for it and that the competing camera manufacturers (Canon and Sony) mirroless had less color banding. I did not have enough knowledge to refute their claims, especially since I am shade blind.

 

[kimball]

I can see why they thought that. The ripples don't look natural. The image has been oversharpened and there's some unnatural patterns in the shadows near the top that aren't present in your raw file. There also seems to be a hard vertical line where the sharpening or some other kind of processing has been greatly increased on the right side:

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I hope you don't mind me posting this to demonstrate what I'm talking about. Might be worth revisiting your edits to see if any got accidentally bumped too high, or accidentally placed somewhere where they shouldn't have been placed.

Hope that helps!

 

[BruceJ]

I can see why they thought that. The ripples don't look natural. The image has been oversharpened and there's some unnatural patterns in the shadows near the top that aren't present in your raw file. There also seems to be a hard vertical line where the sharpening or some other kind of processing has been greatly increased on the right side:

View attachment 9804

I hope you don't mind me posting this to demonstrate what I'm talking about. Might be worth revisiting your edits to see if any got accidentally bumped too high, or accidentally placed somewhere where they shouldn't have been placed.

Hope that helps!

I did use Topaz Sharpen AI, however I use it in automatic it might have over-sharpened it. This is another in the same set.

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[kimball]

I did use Topaz Sharpen AI, however I use it in automatic it might have over-sharpened it. This is another in the same set.
View attachment 9805

Much better. At first glance I don't see any weird artifacts.

 

[BruceJ]

Much better. At first glance I don't see any weird artifacts.

All I did was crop it to 40% of the original image (taken with the Z7 and Nikon 500mm PF), increased the detail and let Photoshop 2021 adjust color, contrast and tone since I am shade blind.