I didn’t mention anti-flicker as it’s generally to reduce inconsistency in the exposure of the entire frame. So without it you could have bright and dark images alternating with one another, but while using anti flicker the shutter will align with the brightest output of the light each time to give you more consistent exposure. It rarely has much effect on banding artifacts (in my personal experience at least). In terrible LED lighting situations the best I found it did was make the banding more consistent 😂 (on the a7iii specifically).
Hello Wes, thank you. Can you confirm if the postrrization issue (michael the maven talked about) is fixed with the latest firmware? As well as all other artifacts in e-shitter mode? And, Is it (the A9) is a good go in 2020 or R6 is better now with it's tracking accuracy and DR? Thank you for your good review
It can still get lots of posterization in high dynamic range circumstances when shooting in compressed raw. If you want to avoid that you need to switch to uncompressed, unfortunately. Most of the time it happens so infrequently and you have to look so closely that it's really not that much of an issue, though.
i repeat sir i am getting problem in still photography and also without flash . flicker banding and other problem comes in ntsc or pal and in still when your shutter speed not match with flash shutter speed or not sync properly . but my problem is in day light without flash
Oh my gosh!!! You are the first person I have found that actually explained the 3ed situation!! I have been having so many problems indoors with this banding. Thank you so much
Thank you. Not enough people talk about this issue. It's cropped up a few times with me. One particular time I was doing a shoot for a friend in an old church cafeteria. We had shot in the church first and everything was fine, but when we moved over to the cafeteria and did some impromptu group shots, I got back and everything from the cafeteria had the banding. Very frustrating and a hard lesson.
Wow, thank you for explaining all of this! I shot a wedding over the weekend and had an issue with the lighting and banding and had no idea what was happening! I thought I was going to have to send my camera to get repaired.
You also have problem in still images or in video? My still image is banding or flicker . Video is good . I am from India and i use PAL not NTSC... in Pal i dont get flicker or banding. but in still photography i have problem and this problem sometime occurs and some time vanish. I am totally fade up with all this .
Great advice! I have one venue that has the most terrible banding lights I've ever seen. I was wondering why they are so much worse, but now that makes sense!
thank you, I suddenly got banding on my Z5 - then you mentioned that one cause is the "silent shutter" feature. I changed it and it disappeared. You rock
Did know about this, and did read about it briefly, as an amateur photographer (no money coming in, more a hobby photogist) I have never run in to the problem with any of my Sony bodies, and I did watch your set up of the menus and have e front curtain and silent shutter in the "My Menu 1" slot on the camera. E front curtain is always on, but easy to turn off in needed, and silent shutter is there as well if I need to be ultra quiet. As I say a hobbyist photog and my main interests are getting out in the sun, walking around seeing & photographing different and interesting/beautiful landscapes, so not so much a problem for me. Good kick up the bum reminder though, I'd forgotten all about it, had to check my menu to see where they were in "My Menu" tab ! As always, Well done that man...
I've found setting my shutter speed to 1/100s on a7iii really helps banding when I shoot in silent mode ( I'm in UK, just in case lights have different frequencies in other countries ). Basically, if you shoot in silent mode, see what shutter speed helps.
@@WesPerry guess so, and defo worth a try. It's not perfect, as I've found some lights work differently, but for the most part, changing the shutter speed helps
I didn’t recommend doing this in the video as I have always found this Reduces the amount of banding, but hardly ever eliminates it, at best leaving dark bands at the top and bottom. Hard to see, BUT I CAN SEE THEM. Haha
@@aFLYER1980 in video I can understand flicker or banded images and also in still photography with flash light . but in day light we are facing image flicker or banded image ....its create nuisance
I am shooting concerts in chamber hall, and various type of silent concerts, so I am using silent shutter, and dimmed lights means TROUBLE! So solution is shooting from monopod and really slow shutter speed ( 1/5;1/20 .. ) so lots of photos is just blury, because artists are moving, also d850 AF isnt that great for shooting silent, but DX mode is great for 70-200.
@@WesPerry Sometimes they're using led at decent power, so this isn't a problem, but it's really rare occasion, because moody lighting is a must 😁 Worst case scenario is using led not only for background, but also for lighting musicians.
I considered doing that in the video, but it's in a slightly different place in all my Sony bodies (a7ii, a6000, a7iii, a9), so I didn't want to add any confusion. I guess I could be somewhat general about it...
When getting banding with full mechanical shutter and LED venue lights, faster speeds seem worse. Sometimes, 1/60s or 1/30s solves it, but then subject motion is a problem. Can you elaborate on the effect of shutter speed with mechanical, EFCS and silent shutter? I have a rough intuitive grasp, but not a clear enough understanding to actually know what to do. Thanks!
If I shoot with a Z9 in back button focus mode will I get banding? In other words, I “machine focus” and then go back to manual focus for the actual exposure.
It’s too cold outside to have to make that decision just yet. I’ll let you know when it happens, though 😏 (The size of the K&F makes it trickier to pack and go on the lens. I might actually switch entirely over to Freewell because of the convenience factor! (Haven’t tested their variables yet tho)).
Flicker detection might also help with light banding on bodies that support it (5D4, XT3, A7R3, etc). Stage lights in some venues I shoot in are particularly bad. It's really noticeable on my 5D3 shooting dance at >=1/1000.
I didn’t mention anti-flicker as it’s generally to reduce inconsistency in the exposure of the entire frame. So without it you could have bright and dark images alternating with one another, but while using anti flicker the shutter will align with the brightest output of the light each time to give you more consistent exposure. It rarely has much effect on banding artifacts (in my personal experience at least). In terrible LED lighting situations the best I found it did was make the banding more consistent 😂 (on the a7iii specifically).
Great explanation thank you. I may dream in color here, but is there a way to fix the picture once taken 😢 i ruined a whole set a photos without noticing it. If there's a fix in post I'll be glad to have it. Thanks again ❤
Depends which issue specifically. I once methodically created a dodge and burn mask to paste over a few images that had artificial light banding. Took some time, but worked reasonably well.
Hi! Thank you so much for this video but do you know how to remove the light banding from photos in Lightroom or photoshop? I have had it come up on my client's wedding photos and really need a solution but can't seem to find one anywhere. Thank you very much in advance!
Where it's not glare, one essence is the blinking of lights, but that does not explain typical banding. The real essence is that your camera has time parallax. This is as old as slit or curtain shutters and visible in film photos of race cars before WW2. With film you lose time parallax by using a leaf shutter. That doesn't work with digital because the camera scans photovoltaic cells in the sensor. It may run parallel scans in expensive high MP cameras or have one scan that turns the entire image into a single band.
Instructive video. It's indeed worth adding "ECFS" to "My Menu". About the last problem, maybe it's possible to fix it in post by shooting a lot of photos even with the silent shutter, and then "smart" merging them? The problem is that "smart" part, but in theory, such a program could be made and fix photos automatically.
That would likely be possible with static subjects. But for people moving around you’re kindof stuck. I fixed one once just by making exposure masks the size of the dark bands and upping the exposure. It was a bit tedious but it mostly worked.
Hi Wes, great video ! I need to take pictures of a one-man show and it's all in the front of a big screen. I get sometime a banding. How do i get rid of this in-camera, can you help me ? 🙂I use a Canon 6d mkII and a 5ds. Thank you !
Oh man, that's a tough one. It depends a LOT on what kind of projector it is. Different projectors not only have different refresh rates, but different technologies can give you grief. Like some DLP projectors, though they theoretically have a 60Hz refresh rate, will actually be showing Red then Green then Blue consecutively during that 60Hz, so it's actually a rainbow of 20Hz refreshes, which is a Nightmare. Essentially the easiest thing to do is to put your camera in mirror lockup mode (because you're on dslrs) and cycle through shutter speeds until you stop seeing the background strobing/banding/rainbowing. 1/125 and 1/60 are the most likely speeds to work. But the problem obviously is the 1/60 is almost useless for taking pics of people. But as I said, every projector is different, so you'll have to get there early and do some testing to see which shutter speed works best. I had a wedding in front of some awful DLP projectors, and I could only get it all in at 1/20s, which totally didn't work, so I created a moveable layer with colour corrections that I could slide over the images I took, with bands of blue correction, red correction, green correction, and then deleted the areas of the layer where people were in front of the screen and the stage, and shot at 1/125s. All I can say about that is UGH. haha.
@@WesPerry Wow thank you for your great answer !! You know your topic ! I guess it'll be a nightmare but i will do some test before the show and see what is going on ;-) Thank you Wes !😉
Thank you again. I would like to know more how Rotolight (and similar) differ from say AD200 when it comes to banding? I understand constant light but not sure how flash on AD200 differs from LED on Rotolight. Thank you Wes! Always a joy getting a video from you!
In HSS a regular flash (like the AD200) emits several quick pulses to cover the time the shutter moves across the sensor. An LED flash, though, just turns on the LED brighter for a long enough period of time to cover the shutter traversing the sensor. No pulsing, just holding. Both methods cause the flash to dim in HSS due to the increased power consumption.
hello. I have a6300. Can you tell me how ro assign el. shutter priority on/off to a shortcut ? I would like to assign it to the right button but it is not on the list.
Unfortunately it can’t be assigned to a button, which is super annoying. On the newer Sony cameras it can be assigned to the favourites menu, but you can’t even do that with the a6300. Have to just know where to find it quickly in the big camera menu 🤦🏻♂️
Recently switched to the a9 for my main camera. Thank you for providing the link to show how the a9 did with different lighting. I mainly try to shot at 1/160 in theater light no flash allowed situations so this looks promising for trying to keep quiet. Also, good to know about the 85. Sounds like for those rare situations I'm probably better off using the 70-200 GM.
I think one of the reasons the 70-200GM does better is that the flare needs to have a warm tone to cause the issue, while the 70-200GM flares a bit greenish.
I just love it when banding is slowly moving up and down the video when you cant see it on your viewfinder. Its so frustrating! More so under florescent lights. Grrrr!
I've been there and I second the motion your finding. Very well said. However, irrespective of a chosen camera brand and format, we just have to put up with the limitation of the technology at the moment. Thought about global shutter? Anyways, like the rest of the photographers here, I can relate and emphatise with this dilemma of shooting in silent mode as per required by the client and venue. Keep up the good work buddy.
Global shutter typically results in reduced dynamic range (or massive cost to get both), so we have to live with what we have ;) The new a1 and Z9 show you can get Very close to a global shutter without actually needing one, though.
i have it with the z9 for event photograpy it is terrible due to led light. reduce the shutterspeed is an option but you get blurred images . HSS sync flash Forget it. I have to go back to the d850 what a shame
I also found I had no issues at all with HSS flash sync using the godox products I had on hand (AD200, 300 Pro, 600 Pro). Sorry you’ve had such bad luck!
So, when I’m recording, I’m using electronic shutter yeah? So in camera’s settings, it doesn’t matter to put on or off on e-front curtain shutter, right?
A7riii shooter here and I get crazy banding on manual mode and sometimes on aperture mode. It really sucks having to worry about banding when I try and do street photography at night. There's no second chances and lighting is always an issue. If anyone has any advice please let me know.
One question. If I use the Ar7 ii with a lightning trigger (for lightning photography) do you thing that I will get banding? I'm thinking about using f10 exp 1/10 iso 100. With the efcs (because it has the lowest shutter lag).
I doubt it. Generally you only get issues with EFCS when you’re at shutter speeds above 1/250s, or with bad artificial lighting. This is neither of those.
@@WesPerry On second thought lightning happens extremely fast and efcs isnt nearly as fast as a mechanical shutter. So i think that there is still a little bit of danger getting some sort of rolling effect on the photos. What do you think?
There would only be a rolling effect if your shutter speed was faster than 1/250s. Beyond that, your shutter doesn’t truly open all the way but just sweeps. But at 1/10s, the whole thing hangs open. I suppose there’s a very small chance if the lightning were to happen at the first fraction of an instant of your exposure, maybe, when the sensor was still being reset electronically?
Not so much due to its sensitivity. Bigger sensors generally speaking create more banding because they’re scan times are longer than on smaller sensors. It takes more time to read them from top to bottom. The exception to this would be the a9, which reads much faster than other sensors in its class due to its high speed stacked design, and anything with a global sensor, like a RED cinema camera. What issue specifically are you having with your ZV1?
@@WesPerry Under certain light situations while recording I get to horizontal branding bars that slowly move up the screen and then repeat starting from the bottom and slowly move to the top. they completely go away if I put the camera to 1/125 or lower. It occurs the worst in my room which has super bright ceiling lights. do you think I should swap out my camera or is this normal
Hmm. That likely has more to do with your shutter speed mixing with the refresh rate of your lights. A lot of LED lights cycle at 60 or 120Hz (although they can be many other speeds , and if your shutter speed syncs with it, the black bars appear (the dark you don’t see in between the cycles of your lights). It’s fairly normal to have to adjust shutter speed (also referred to as shutter angle in this instance) to have to compensate for this. It doesn’t affect smartphones so much because they tend to record at pretty low shutter speeds (1/15 to 1/30 at most) in video, and also tend to do frame combining for HDR, which also tends to cancel out such artifacts.
I will send you sample images too...plz share your email or contact number...it's a very different problem ..I also never saw such a problem in my carrier
Which kind? The big flash banding can sometimes be removed meticulously by creating brightening layers over the dark bands. The pdaf striping used to be manageable with a free online tool, but it hasn’t been updated in ages and doesn’t work for newer cameras and somehow even doesn’t work great for the older ones anymore either.
Oh that’s even harder because that tends to have colour shifts. But ultimately yeah the best you can do is play with layers for both light and colour adjustments. It’s rough.
Not really no. Anti flicker is more for making the frame to frame exposure consistent. So each shot is while the lights are their brightest. It doesn’t have much of an effect on banding artifacts, as anti flicker doesn’t work with silent shutter, or have any impact on flash work, and lights that are bad enough to give mechanical shutters trouble will be too bad for anti flicker to correct anyway.
Can not seem to find my problem anywhere, i had a photoshoot in a hotel room with goldenhour, not shooting directly in de sun, but from the side, 1/1000, and the wall on the background of the model was full of banding, in every picture! I am using the sony a7iii, but i have never heard about different shutters till now, but again, can not seem te find my problem anywhere because i was not shooting directly into the sun or used a flash.
@@WesPerry no there was only sun hitting her left side, and no flash! And the banding was really bad. Could there be something wrong with the camera? Outside photos i dont see the problem coming up
Flash banding, you can get this with any brand, I’m afraid. Pretty much all mirrorless cameras, and many DSLR’s when in mirror lockup mode. Artificial light banding from any brand or camera type, depending on the light source. Silent shutter banding the Sony a9 is more resistant than any other full frame camera.
Rolling shutter / warping images in silent shutter mode (full electronic) on the a7iv is Wayyyy worse than on the Fx3 and Siii, but none of them are Amazing for that. Just have to not pan quickly when in electronic shutter mode to avoid it.
It can certainly be an issue for both. Because of the scan speed of the sensor in electronic shutter, you can get it at any shutter speed all the way to 1/8000s
Hi Wes, so basically, is it okay to use EFCS-ON when i shoot off camera flash in 1/250 setup right? because it seems EFCS-ON help the camera reduce the shutter shocks.