Canon 5D mark i banding

[sotos97]

I have been doing some test shots today with my favorite 5D - The faulty 5D mark i. 

I bought this in June and have taken around 6000 shots. In some of the shots I have seen the notorious banding issue. Tried some indoor shots today and it was very apparent, also in cases where I didn't pull shadows. I used the 50mm 1.4 but have seen it happen with the 85mm 1.8 as well. Is there any way to fix this or prevent it from happening? I am not a hopeless romantic, I have a 5D4 but I will not give up my 5D mark i, it renders beautiful images.

[sotos97]

Hey, 

I have not tried the Adobe RGB space yet. I took a closer look to all of my images from day one and saw the same pattern in the noise, there is definitely a striping issue. I plan on buying another one soon where I am definitely only gonna get a later serial number (mine is 24) and in pristine condition. I have been experimenting and saw that by reducing sharpening and setting the color profile to neutral or standard, the banding issue is eliminated in the noise. Also, it seems to sort it self out if shooting jpeg - something that I often do with the 5D due to its unique color rendering. 

Finally I think I am able to let that pass and still enjoy using the 5D. Afterall it is an imperfect camera. Film also had banding issues but no one says anything cause film isn't supposed to be perfect as with digital. I will just compromise. I use my 5D4 for serious stuff more anyway. 

[ebiggs1]

"...it seems to sort it self out if shooting jpeg..."

IMHO, you should never shoot jpg. The sole exception is if you are doing high speed continuous shoots. The very best you can do is Raw.  At the very worse you can set the very same parameters as the 5D renders your jpgs. When you soot in jpg a great deal of the information the sensor got is simply thrown away. Discarded forever.  The camera decides what is needed and what is not. If you are trying to recover some detail in the shadows of a pictuer would you rather have all the data to work with or just 50% of it? That is jpg!

D/L the free Canon DPP4.  It along with Raw is your best go and will most likely eliminate most if not all the banding

[Howardl]

Ernie-

you should have written: "then by all means go for it"

[ebiggs1]

"Ernie-

you should have written: "then by all means go for it"

You are correct, sir.   And, I had an English professor (shhhhh)  at Alabama State University for a parent.  I hope she doesn't read my rather colloquial usage and destruction of the English language.  

[RobertTheFat]

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@Howardl wrote:

Ernie-

you should have written: "then by all means go for it"

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Yeah, sure. But I think you're mistaking a typo for a grammatical error.

[ebiggs1]

I plead guilty.   In spite of extraordinary efforts I resisted any and all attempts to learn the English language. The other parent was a history prof, there I excelled. 

[sotos97]

I shoot a lot of raw and some jpegs. Sometimes I shoot raw plus jpeg L with the 5D and find myself doing minor tweeks in the curves of the jpeg (especially monochrome) with the 5D. It has a very unique rendering, similar to what fuji people say about fuji jpegs. Sometimes all you need is a jpeg imo. But shooting raw along with it never hurts 😊

[RobertTheFat]

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@sotos97 wrote:
I shoot a lot of raw and some jpegs. Sometimes I shoot raw plus jpeg L with the 5D and find myself doing minor tweeks in the curves of the jpeg (especially monochrome) with the 5D. It has a very unique rendering, similar to what fuji people say about fuji jpegs. Sometimes all you need is a jpeg imo. But shooting raw along with it never hurts 😊

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IMO, the only excuse for shooting JPEG is to meet a newspaper deadline. But newspaper reproduction is usually so bad that it doesn't matter whether you started with a RAW file or not.

[sotos97]

Yeah I thought so too, but after trying I realised no one gives a **bleep**. If the photograph is good, it's good. Of course I wouldn't book a job and shoot on jpegs. I would be a hypocrite telling the opposite. Especially with the 5D. But for personal projects I find jpegs can do wonders.

[ebiggs1]

"IMO, the only excuse for shooting JPEG is to meet a newspaper deadline."

Even that is a poor excuse unless it has to go directly from camera to print.  There is no good reason to not shoot Raw.  I will except high speed continuous shooting where the buffer can fill up rapidly.  Even that is not problem for the latest crop of Canon DSLRs.

99% of the time all your shots all go to a computer. DPP4 and LR and PS and others are seamless in their conversion and render a camera settings image. All without input from the user.

" I thought so too, but after trying I realised no one gives a **bleep**."

They do if you are selling your work and expect to make a living. Or, it is your job and it depends on your work.