Horizontal lines on picture

GergoToth

GergoToth

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Gergo Toth
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Hello

I hope this is the right place to ask the question, why I see horizontal lines on my pictures.

Picture: http://oi57.tinypic.com/358cpqx.jpg
Taken with a Nikon D7100. 1/500sec at F/8.0, ISO 640
Nikon 55-300mm F/4.5-5.6)

If you see the bottom right part (it's an arm) horizontal lines on it. ISO wasn't that high and it's not the first time I use this lens. And also I cannot really see on every picture.
Is it something to do with compressed and 12-14bit settings? I had a D3200 before and never saw anything like this before.

Thank you so much
 
It's actually in a large portion of the image, and it's due to the lack of an AA filter. Recording in 14bit will help, and pushing the exposure in post will make it worse.
Also, if processing from raw w/ LR you might want to try the AdobeRBG standard camera profile. Some of the camera specific profiles thay have made can cause color banding.

Do a search for D7100 banding... there's information out there about it.
 
I'm struggling to understand what no AA filter has to do with these horizontal bands.


Has this image you linked to had any exposure recovery, or shadow recovery? Can you upload the raw file somewhere and post a link?


I've read about the "banding" issue, and I think it's another "D810 hot pixel" issue... meaning that this is a result of processing rather than a fault with the camera.

sk66 said:
It's actually in a large portion of the image,
Click to expand...

Only shadow areas though.

I bet the raw file for that image above was under exposed.
 
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Pookeyhead said:
I'm struggling to understand what no AA filter has to do with these horizontal bands.
Click to expand...
It's essentially a demosaicing issue and similar to moire. An AA filter softens an image slightly but also makes the demosaicing task easier. And that's why 14bit can help (more color information to work from).

Increasing the exposure in post will certainly exaggerate the issue; but the image doesn't look like it's been significantly increased to me (lack of random color noise). It seems to be evident in anything mid/below mid and most prominent in blacks (lack of color) and reds (somewhat problematic for most sensors).

It seems to me this has to be a crop as most of these issues are minimized by down sampling (displaying at the same size as an image from a less demanding sensor). Either way, it's not that bad. Certainly not as bad as some Canons exhibit and easily correctable with a bit of color noise reduction.
 
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sk66 said:
It's essentially a demosaicing issue and similar to moire. An AA filter softens an image slightly but also makes the demosaicing task easier. And that's why 14bit can help (more color information to work from).
Click to expand...

That's not what it looks liek to me, as it seems to be exposure dependent. Only the shadow areas have it, and I bet that image has had shadow or exposure recovery, Moiré and other artefacts are not exposure dependent as it's an optical phenomena. This is a noise issue I reckon. This reminds me of how the 5D MkIII behaves when you get silly with shadow recovery.
 
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Usually the recovery banding is in darks, I'm seeing it here even in mids. That would be a silly amount of recovery to cause that.

But, without Gergo responding we won't really know.
 
Hmmm.. you could be right. We'd need a raw file to be sure though.
 
Exposure was spot on.. perhaps quarter stop under is all. Lines are clearly visible in teh darker areas with no shadow recovery (none was needed for this image).

Clearly a problem... glad the firmware fixed it. I'm amazed this hasn't been all over the internet. After the whole D810 noise thing, which wasn't even a fault getting so much attention, this, which is a genuine problem gets nothing. Weird.
 
It's not really a camera issue as such.
Try this, open the NEF in ACR. Go to the camera panel and change the camera profile to camera neutral and the process to 2003... most of the lines will go away. Adjust the Gamma and the rest of the lines go away (at least it does on my computer).
Or open the file in Nikon Capture; I find Nikon's OEM software handles "noisy" images just a bit better by default. (it applies the camera profile set in the camera by default where LR/ACR applies the "Adobe standard" profile). If the firmware "fixed" the issue it was probably some change to the profile applied.

The point is, you never "see" the raw image... you always see "an interpretation" of the raw data. And what you see initially is based upon some presets and choices that have been made for you, and of which you are unaware. Had the image been in 14bit instead of 12bit compressed the "issue" may have been less prevalent (and maybe not). Had the image been recorded as a jpeg the issue would likely have not been evident because the demosaicing/display choices have already been fixed for the image.

You can look at this in one of two ways:
There is no such thing as banding in the raw file... that's just how it's being displayed.
Or:
There is nothing but banding (rows of dots) in the raw file... and that's just how it's being displayed.
 
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I only have these lines on the bottom right corner and sometimes hard to take a picture to see it again. So just find out, it's back again. I had the camera on Adobe not on sRGB but still see it. As I said, right buttom corner :O

Steven I will try your suggestion and will see. To be honest I use Lightroom to process the pictures
 
I see the banding (in the original linked image) in the reds/black across the entire bottom, the men's beards rt side, and black hat left side. So I don't think it's *just* the bottom rt corner...maybe the most pronounced or coincidence. If it *is* most pronounced in the bottom rt corner and settings don't eliminate it, then it *may* be a camera fault.

Some of this is "compression" as well. When I zoom into 100-200% on the raw file almost all of the banding is gone. 14bit may/should help with this. Adobe actually released new (beta) camera profiles for the D810 because their initial profiles were causing a similar issue.

The settings I mentioned are in the LR develop module's "camera calibration" tab. LR *is* just a nicer user interface for ACR when it comes to editing. You might also want to try Nikon's software. I find it sometimes does a little better job with problematic files than LR does.

Either way, I would say don't get too twisted about it; just edit it out (noise reduction) when it becomes problematic. Remember, you're using the highest resolution/smallest pixel/no AA filter DSLR on the market today... that doesn't come free.
 
sk66 said:
It's not really a camera issue as such.
Try this, open the NEF in ACR. Go to the camera panel and change the camera profile to camera neutral and the process to 2003... most of the lines will go away. Adjust the Gamma and the rest of the lines go away (at least it does on my computer).
Or open the file in Nikon Capture; I find Nikon's OEM software handles "noisy" images just a bit better by default. (it applies the camera profile set in the camera by default where LR/ACR applies the "Adobe standard" profile). If the firmware "fixed" the issue it was probably some change to the profile applied.

The point is, you never "see" the raw image... you always see "an interpretation" of the raw data. And what you see initially is based upon some presets and choices that have been made for you, and of which you are unaware. Had the image been in 14bit instead of 12bit compressed the "issue" may have been less prevalent (and maybe not). Had the image been recorded as a jpeg the issue would likely have not been evident because the demosaicing/display choices have already been fixed for the image.

You can look at this in one of two ways:
There is no such thing as banding in the raw file... that's just how it's being displayed.
Or:
There is nothing but banding (rows of dots) in the raw file... and that's just how it's being displayed.
Click to expand...


Still visible here with those settings.

mdlfliv.jpg


I wouldn't mind if this was a result of excessive shadow recovery, but it's visible in areas that are clearly well within the camera's range.. it's there on any dark area. Or was rather if the FW has fixed it.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Still visible here with those settings.
Click to expand...
Sure, but it's much less and the rest can be removed with a BP/Gamma adjustment.
I'm trying to explain that I think the "problem" is due to the interpretation/display of the data and not necessarily due to the data recorded itself. I'm not sure this is something you would want firmware to fix necessarily. That would essentially be some form of noise reduction applied to the raw file (or rather "more" noise reduction). Firmware doesn't change anything about the signal/data collected, it just changes the "digital manipulation" of it.

Most cameras exhibit some form of noise in areas with a lack of data (i.e. solid color, blacks). My cameras always show some noise in blue skies for example. And many cameras show this "banding" characteristic... you just usually don't see it unless you apply recovery.
If the issue is consistent enough to be problematic it would make as much (more?) sense to set LR's default develop settings so that it is automatically removed. That way you could change the settings and get "more" back from images where it is not problematic. Or set the camera to bias the exposure a bit.

My D810 showed significant banding of colors in some images initially, then Adobe released new (beta) profiles for it. I still have significant display (banding) issues when working with deep blacks in LR (black on black images)... part of that is likely my monitor, but I can't fix it with calibration. Is it a camera problem? I don't think so because I can get similar (but different) results w/ other cameras.

I guess the question is "will another D7100 produce the same results?" I don't have a D7100 and I've never used one, but it looks to me like a pretty normal characteristic (although usually unseen).
If the answer is yes, then the issue is only in the display of the data.
If the answer is no, then it may be some unique form of read>write error. And then the question is "is it problematic enough to warrant repair (costs), and is it fixable?"
If the camera is under warranty it may be worth sending it in just to have it checked out. I would probably just take pictures unless the issue is progressive/changing or results in poor final images.
 
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sk66 said:
Sure, but it's much less and the rest can be removed with a BP/Gamma adjustment.
Click to expand...


Call it what you want.. it shouldn't be there.
 
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