Stupid mistake or bad luck with D7100 ?

Is your firmware up to date? There was a Nikon firmware fix if I remember correctly

Mihai Simionescu said:

Hallo everybody ! I recently purchased a SH Nikon D7100 camera, serial 4531918. In spite of the much discussed banding problems I still hoped to be able using -3 underxposed files and recovering the details in the shadows in post, as explained in many notes thankfully published on dpreview.com forum. Actually, for me at least, this was the main and only reason to shift from the Canon system that gave me full satisfaction otherwise. Unfortunately I found that, on the mentioned camera, recovering of -1,5 underxposed files is the best I can hope. Bellow -2 steps banding is awful. Am I doing something wrong or is it simply bad luck with #4531918 camera ? Thanks for help !

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I have been using a D7100 for 9 years and never run into a banding issue unless I intentionally tried to create it. Even in wide dynamic range scenes with deep shadows. But if I run into this I usually use a flash for fill.

Are you shooting raw or jpeg.

I have never seen banding in a shot where the shadows were 3 or 4 stops underexposed unless using Active D Lighting (ADL) in a high contrast situation. And I very rarely use ADL anyway.

But if you are underexposing by 3 stops the non shadow areas (not sure why you would do this), and then trying to bring up shadow areas that could 5, 6, 7, 8, etc, stops underexposed, I could see where you would get see the banding, especially if the detail in the shadow is itself darker than middle gray.

Anyway older versions of Topaz Labs DeNoise had a Banding Noise tool that could help but I don't know if the current Topaz Labs DeNoise AI supports this, or if it does this through other means.

SoCalAngler said:

Mihai Simionescu said:

Hallo everybody ! I recently purchased a SH Nikon D7100 camera, serial 4531918. In spite of the much discussed banding problems I still hoped to be able using -3 underxposed files and recovering the details in the shadows in post, as explained in many notes thankfully published on dpreview.com forum. Actually, for me at least, this was the main and only reason to shift from the Canon system that gave me full satisfaction otherwise. Unfortunately I found that, on the mentioned camera, recovering of -1,5 underxposed files is the best I can hope. Bellow -2 steps banding is awful. Am I doing something wrong or is it simply bad luck with #4531918 camera ? Thanks for help !

Click to expand...

I have been using a D7100 for 9 years and never run into a banding issue unless I intentionally tried to create it. Even in wide dynamic range scenes with deep shadows. But if I run into this I usually use a flash for fill.

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The D7100 did exhibit more mild banding than previous bodies but it wasn't too bad and one would normally see the slight banding if you used Active D-Lighting in strong contrast situations. Issues was fixed with the D7200 but I think it was Horshack or Bill that pointed to an adjustment in the cameras black point calculations that "fixed" it. D5200 showed the same issue and it was tied to the Toshiba sensors of the line by Hogan. It really wasn't to bad and nothing like the Canon banding in that period. There really are lots of examples of the issue out there...but easy to avoid it if one needed to. IMO, not a big deal and most would never run into it in normal shooting

Mako2011 said:

The D7100 did exhibit more mild banding than previous bodies but it wasn't too bad and one would normally see the slight banding if you used Active D-Lighting in strong contrast situations. Issues was fixed with the D7200 but I think it was Horshack or Bill that pointed to an adjustment in the cameras black point calculations that "fixed" it. D5200 showed the same issue and it was tied to the Toshiba sensors of the line by Hogan. It really wasn't to bad and nothing like the Canon banding in that period. There really are lots of examples of the issue out there...but easy to avoid it if one needed to. IMO, not a big deal and most would never run into it in normal shooting

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Yep, that's what I recall.

And I dont use ADL. And of course, really work at avoiding underexposing the main scene.

I read a lot of stuff about it here and elsewhere before purchasing the body. Out of curiosity I made some shots that showed it, but they weren't representative anything I thought I would encounter.

Never ran into it day to day shooting. Havent thought about it in years.

SoCalAngler said:

Mako2011 said:

The D7100 did exhibit more mild banding than previous bodies but it wasn't too bad and one would normally see the slight banding if you used Active D-Lighting in strong contrast situations. Issues was fixed with the D7200 but I think it was Horshack or Bill that pointed to an adjustment in the cameras black point calculations that "fixed" it. D5200 showed the same issue and it was tied to the Toshiba sensors of the line by Hogan. It really wasn't to bad and nothing like the Canon banding in that period. There really are lots of examples of the issue out there...but easy to avoid it if one needed to. IMO, not a big deal and most would never run into it in normal shooting

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Yep, that's what I recall.

Never ran into it day to day shooting. Havent thought about it in years.

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Many did run it to it...but I think it was because the D7000 spoiled some. You could push the D7K way more than was practical with no banding...so folks thought the Toshiba sensor should be the same. Reality can be a finicky girlfriend

Well, I wouldn't call it bad luck. Perhaps a mistake, due to not understanding how the machine works.

If you brighten shadows that are within 3EV of underexposure, you will se no banding (you will however see noise, this is normal).

If you brighten shadows that are darker than 3EV of underexposure, you will see pretty bad banding, and well before applying 3EV of compensation.

I made a quick test shot to show what I am saying.




This is the photo as shot by the camera. No correction applied.




This is the same photo with +3EV correction applied









This is a 100% detail of the above photo after correction. You can see that the left part of the photo, which was around 3 stops underexposed, shows no visible banding, while the right part, which is more than 3 stops underexposed, shows quite a nasty banding.

Problem is, when the shadows are so badly underexposed, it will take less than 3 stops of correction to show the banding. Here is a 100% detail of the same photo with +1EV correction applied:





Banding in the deeper shadows is already visible.

So, the thing is: you can lift up to 3 stops shadows that are up to 3 stops underexposed. Shadows that are 4, 5 or 6 stops underexposed are better left as shadows.

Why would you first underexpose 3 stops and then try to bring up the shadows??

That is asking for trouble with any camera.

iljitsch said:

Why would you first underexpose 3 stops and then try to bring up the shadows??

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To protect highlight detail that might otherwise be lost. An example would be shooting in a low light cathedral where the main subject is the alter but exposing for that would mean all the detail in the stain class windows lit by light outside might be lost...and you want it included in the final shot. A case of underexposure to maximize detail

Don't forget that in raw you have about two stops of highlight recovery capability with Nikon cameras. (But the problem is that you can't know if your highlights were still good despite seeming to clip in-camera until you look at the raw files on the computer.)

In these cases I would definitely do exposure bracketing so you have some choices in post processing.

A camera that won't be celebrating its 10-year anniversary soon might also help in more challenging situations.

(Not that I don't still love my D7100.)

iljitsch said:

Don't forget that in raw you have about two stops of highlight recovery capability with Nikon cameras. (But the problem is that you can't know if your highlights were still good despite seeming to clip in-camera until you look at the raw files on the computer.)

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Unless you shoot Uni-WB or have a camera calibrated profile for the scene.

iljitsch said:

In these cases I would definitely do exposure bracketing so you have some choices in post processing.

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One good as well

iljitsch said:

A camera that won't be celebrating its 10-year anniversary soon might also help in more challenging situations.

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True that!!

Mako, thank you for taking your time to rescue me. The firmware installed on my battered Nikon D7100 is 2.005. I`ll check the Nikon site to see whether there is a more recent version.

Of course I shoot RAW underxposing 2-3 stops then tried to recover the shadow details when converting to JPG. Thanks anyway !

A worse dynamic range than the "spoiler" D7000 ? Funny !.... This makes me remember the D600 story... It took the D7200 as it took D610 to repair things.

Mihai Simionescu said:

A worse dynamic range than the "spoiler" D7000 ?

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The D7100 and D7K had near same dynamic range (13.9 vs 13.7), The Sony sensor just didn't band so you could really push it. Not so with the Toshiba...but the rez was nice

iljitsch said:

Why would you first underexpose 3 stops and then try to bring up the shadows??

That is asking for trouble with any camera.

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That's what I thought also.

I sold my D7100 because of the banding issue. Never had the problem previously with my D90. Haven't had it since.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/brev00

Out of curiosity I tried to use the latest DXO Deep Prime XD noise reduction.

It does quite a decent job at mitigating the banding tendency of the D7100.

Here is the proof. Same shot as the previous post, this time with a +4EV correction.


Without Deep Prime XD


With Deep Prime XD

I find it quite impressive, especially thinking that the original photo was shot at ISO 320, which, if I am not mistaken, corrected by +4EV should give roughly the same noise as ISO 5000.

Well, my D7100 is banding earlier.... Areas underexposed by 2,5 stops cannot be recovered without visible banding. So I`ll try to avoid < -2 underxposure. Thanks anyway ! M.

Well, the moderator kindly answered already. I`d only ad that sometimes there`s not enough light to expose correctly without getting into high ISOs or using flash that might well be disturbing. Then it`s nice to know that you can still use ISO 100...200, underexpose by 3 or 4 steps and recover the images in post. Another answer would be a question:- Why would Sony bother to make sensors that allow larger underexposure without banding ? There should be a reason....