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Sony A7III posterization banding - blue skies

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English Rich

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Recently I've noticed that many shots taken with my A7III (particularly using the 16-35 F4) contain very severe posterization banding in the sky. I'm shooting with silent shutter disabled, and to uncompressed raw files - the effect is clearly visible in both the raw files and the JPEGs. I initially noticed it in a shot that was underexposed by about a stop, but it's also visible in my daytime shots that are correctly exposed (although less obvious).

Has anybody else seen this? Any help would be much appreciated.

Here's a sample - uncompressed raw files present the same issues. Note the concentric circles in the sky.

https://flic.kr/p/2bV9RvE
 
I have looked very closely at your example. I can see nothing, with the exception of two very, very faint diagonal bands in the upper right corner. There's been a lot of threads lately, in which the automatic vignetting correction has caused similar issues. Maybe try to shoot a couple of shots with and without it to compare them. This could already solve the problem.

If you're seeing more than those two faint bands, the issue is on your PC's side. In this case, my suggestion would be to open your images using a different viewer. Could be a software issue. If this doesn't solve it, you could have a problem with your monitor - either an incorrect or incorrectly configured color profile, a bad calibration (if it is calibrated) or simply a struggling panel which cannot display the gradients correctly.
 
English Rich said:
Recently I've noticed that many shots taken with my A7III (particularly using the 16-35 F4) contain very severe posterization banding in the sky. I'm shooting with silent shutter disabled, and to uncompressed raw files - the effect is clearly visible in both the raw files and the JPEGs. I initially noticed it in a shot that was underexposed by about a stop, but it's also visible in my daytime shots that are correctly exposed (although less obvious).

Has anybody else seen this? Any help would be much appreciated.

Here's a sample - uncompressed raw files present the same issues. Note the concentric circles in the sky.

https://flic.kr/p/2bV9RvE
Click to expand...
Blown up as big as is possible with your reduced-size image, there is no sign of banding in that image on my high grade, high resolution monitor???
 
Are you serious? It's as clear as day to my eyes. Concentric layers of arcs passing through the sky.
 
English Rich said:
Are you serious? It's as clear as day to my eyes. Concentric layers of arcs passing through the sky.
Click to expand...
Give us a full res image. With a clear marking where those lines are. Also try to push them in your RAW editor, so we can see it is not just jpeg artifactcs
 
English Rich said:
Are you serious? It's as clear as day to my eyes. Concentric layers of arcs passing through the sky.
Click to expand...
I'm absolutely serious. There is no trace of the effects you describe.
 
edform said:
English Rich said:
Are you serious? It's as clear as day to my eyes. Concentric layers of arcs passing through the sky.
Click to expand...
I'm absolutely serious. There is no trace of the effects you describe.
Click to expand...
My el-cheapo monitor at work doesn't show any artifacts, either. Just a smooooth transition across the frame.
 
No banding in this picture.
 
First of all - thanks to all of you for the responses. It's much appreciated.

I'm running a Dell IPS monitor that has been calibrated with a Spyder Pro. I've just disabled the calibration profile (to return the monitor to factory defaults) and guess what - the bands have practically disappeared! So much for running with a calibrated monitor.

The strange thing is that the bands were visible even when viewing in monochrome with the calibration profile enabled. With it disabled they've disappeared from colour and monochrome versions.

The only bands that remain are of a different type - they are faint horizontal bands that run just above the horizon (in the orange gradient). It's entirely possible that these are down to the monitor too. There's no way that you could see them in the low res Flickr image.

Thanks again everybody.
 
So, it's clear that my monitor's profile (thanks Spyder) was to blame, at least in part.

What remains after disabling the profile are what I see as faint horizontal lines near the horizon - in the yellow/orange gradient.

I can still see them despite having disabled the profile. Can anybody else?



665b07ac198b42e98eb51358374b7a02.jpg
 
English Rich said:
I've just disabled the calibration profile (to return the monitor to factory defaults) and guess what - the bands have practically disappeared!
Click to expand...
One down.
English Rich said:
The only bands that remain are of a different type - they are faint horizontal bands that run just above the horizon (in the orange gradient). It's entirely possible that these are down to the monitor too.
Click to expand...
They're just cloud layers because everybody sees them:

9d2447a8f2084950be7d93edfb33e1a5.jpg

Two down.
 
I'm not entirely convinced about the cloud layers. They are equidistant, perfectly horizontal, and I'm seeing the same pattern in a number of photos I've taken over the past few months - they progressively become fainter the further they are away from the horizon, but they are visible in raw files.
 
English Rich said:
I'm not entirely convinced about the cloud layers. They are equidistant, perfectly horizontal ...
Click to expand...
The ones in your sample are not perfectly horizontal. Here's a better look:

b97066edada14b8bafb7a4f97880c67a.jpg
English Rich said:
and I'm seeing the same pattern in a number of photos I've taken over the past few months - they progressively become fainter the further they are away from the horizon, but they are visible in raw files.
Click to expand...
That's a perfect description of cloud layers - especially the RAW file part.
 
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It's the equidistant bit that makes me suspect that they aren't clouds. Same spacing, same thickness - spacing between real clouds differs, along with their thickness.

They look like the bands I see when I've forgotten to disable the electronic first curtain shutter when doing high speed sync flash photography.

The next time I shoot a sunset I'll try disabling the EFCS and see if that makes a difference. To be honest it's barely noticeable anyway. I only picked up on it due to what was a very obvious banding issue that was down to my monitor's setup.

I appreciate your input.
 
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English Rich said:
It's the equidistant bit that makes me suspect that they aren't clouds. Same spacing, same thickness - spacing between real clouds differs, along with their thickness.

They look like the bands I see when I've forgotten to disable the electronic first curtain shutter when doing high speed sync flash photography.
Click to expand...
When you have more experience you'll recognize the difference.
English Rich said:
The next time I shoot a sunset I'll try disabling the EFCS and see if that makes a difference.
Click to expand...
All you have to do to prove they are cloud layers is to shoot the sky at sometime other than sunset and/or intentionally orient the camera far from horizontal.
 
Well, I spent a couple of years documenting an island in Okinawa, so I have a fair bit of photography experience (about 15 years in total). That said, this is the closest that I've studied potential banding in sunsets, and I'm open to any reasonable explanation.
 
English Rich said:
I can still see them despite having disabled the profile. Can anybody else?

665b07ac198b42e98eb51358374b7a02.jpg
Click to expand...
I didn't see that magnification level in your other example, the one I copied and enhanced.

This is a bit different ... but I think it's unlikely for EFCS or fully electronic shutter to have that particular effect at a shutter speed of 1/3 second. It could be slightly inconsistent sensor line reading simply as a result of the dim lighting, which can happen even with a mechanical shutter.

Regarding experience, I mean familiarity with various Sony shutter implementations at various speeds and under various lighting situations. Those behaviors are fairly predictable unless there's some kind of malfunction.
 
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So - in other words you think it's nothing to be too concerned about?

This all started with me testing a replacement copy of the Zeiss 16-35 f4 (which incidentally isn't particularly well centred, but it's a lot better than the last copy I received). I never dreamed it would end up in a banding-related investigation!
 
English Rich said:
So - in other words you think it's nothing to be too concerned about?
Click to expand...
Most shutter-caused banding issues I've seen occur in the realm of very fast speeds, not very slow ones.

I think it would be great to test again under similar lighting conditions (low natural light only), with a few different shutter speeds, and the three different shutter options (manual, EFCS, and silent), but without the low lying horizontal clouds that could influence the findings.

If you see banding in such a test, the cause can then be narrowed down pretty well.
 
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