# Firmware v1.2.0 seems to have solved a banding issue that was present in the Canon EOS R



## Canon Rumors Guy (May 1, 2019)

> When Canon releases a new firmware version, there is the usual list of fixes and feature enhancements, but there are also fixes that aren’t for public consumption and won’t be mentioned in the firmware documentation and it appears at least one such issue was fixed quietly in the Canon EOS R with firmware v1.2.0.
> Michael The Maven has posted a comparison of two EOS R cameras, one with firmware v1.1.0 which experienced banding issues and the brand new firmware v1.2.0 which seems to have corrected the issue.
> 
> *From Michael the Maven:*
> Ladies and Gentlemen! WE HAVE DONE IT!! Thank you so much to the many of you who gave feedback, shared my videos, posted in forums and relayed the information you received from Canon, I can confirm that...



Continue reading...


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## bgoyette (May 1, 2019)

Technically, the problem he’s seeing is CMOS smear, and it affects all cmos sensors to some degree, although canon sensors have been leading culprits as they try to eek out every last drop of DR from their aging sensors. That maven man is running a crazily overexposed chart, and then lifting the shadows to illustrate the issue isn’t helpful, as, even in worst case landscape scenarios, it’s unlikely that he would overexposed the sun by 7 stops AND still be lifting his shadows by X number of stops. But it’s nice that canon has found a solution - perhaps they can port it to the c300 II which also exhibits cmos smear (to a much greater degree).


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## bgoyette (May 1, 2019)

I just hate it when folks use charts badly to prove problems that don’t exist. That Stouffer chart he’s using has a Dmax of 4.05, thus covers 13..5 stops of DR (which depending on your core philosophy, is a near match for the R sensor’s DR, or exceeds it by a stop or two. Either way, The opaque area around the chart well exceeds the DR of the camera by a good margin. By overexposing the chart by 5-7 stops as he has, that opaque area (in theory, if he’s doing it right, which I doubt  doesn’t change value except for flare caused by the overexposure. So he’s increasing DR by an additional # of stops beyond what the sensor is rated for, and claiming a problem. As canon responded, his test exceeds the sensor’s capabilities, by a good margin, and in all the hdr sunsets I’ve seen posted from this sensor in the last few years, I’ve never noticed anything like what he’s showing us. Canon, in its fix, _has simply masked an issue that is happening below the noise floor_ on this camera, so we can all sleep well again.


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## docsmith (May 1, 2019)

Glad to hear the banding issue is gone, but "Couldn't use the 5DIV or EOS-R for serious landscape...." because of banding?



I like to understand the equipment I am using and have done several tests. About twice I have seen banding in some test shots where I was pushing/pulling my 5DIV. A bit odd, but I did not always see it, but a couple of times, sure. If I recall, this occurred fairly specifically, extremely underexposed image, longer shutter speeds, pushed ~4-5 stops in post. But I have never had this impact an actual image, landscape or otherwise. 

But, if you need to push an image 4-5 stops for your photography, ok, Canon may not be for you.


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## pppoe (May 1, 2019)

Great news... Canon should also fix the IS-always-on issue. For me it is the only problem with the R. My 300L II is unusable with this body.


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## unfocused (May 1, 2019)

Is this the same guy that used to troll this site with posts whose sole purpose were clickbait for his You Tube Channel? If so, I hate to see Canon Rumors Guy rewarding that behavior.


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## mb66energy (May 1, 2019)

docsmith said:


> Glad to hear the banding issue is gone, but "Couldn't use the 5DIV or EOS-R for serious landscape...." because of banding?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



He said landscape work with the sun in the image - in that case you would like to have 16-20 stops of DR. And IMO he is right.


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## mb66energy (May 1, 2019)

pppoe said:


> Great news... Canon should also fix the IS-always-on issue. For me it is the only problem with the R. My 300L II is unusable with this body.


Oh, I thought it would be a M50-only issue - in my case with the 70-200 f/4 IS lens. Really annoying in my opinion especially because of the higher power draw of ML cameras.


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## privatebydesign (May 1, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> He said landscape work with the sun in the image - in that case you would like to have 16-20 stops of DR. And IMO he is right.


Yes because it is impossible to take an image with a Canon camera with the sun in the frame and retain any kind of DR or shadow detail.

Or is it......


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## Dantana (May 1, 2019)

privatebydesign said:


> Yes because it is impossible to take an image with a Canon camera with the sun in the frame and retain any kind of DR or shadow detail.
> 
> Or is it......
> View attachment 184194


Great shot Private!


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## dtaylor (May 1, 2019)

privatebydesign said:


> Yes because it is impossible to take an image with a Canon camera with the sun in the frame and retain any kind of DR or shadow detail.
> 
> Or is it......



Great shot! I don't expect to see anything comparable from the DRoners.


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## mb66energy (May 1, 2019)

privatebydesign said:


> Yes because it is impossible to take an image with a Canon camera with the sun in the frame and retain any kind of DR or shadow detail.
> 
> Or is it....



It's a very good shot but I think the necessary DR isn't that vast because the gray surface has around 20% reflection (looks like a Kodak gray card) and the sun is blown out. Do you have used a mask to make the person brighter?

The sun in the frame in a deep forest is impossible right now with available photographic cameras so I would like to have 16 stops or more but I know very well that it will not always help if you try to compress that dynamics into a 6 or 8 stop wide print.


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## ChrisPVille (May 1, 2019)

pppoe said:


> Great news... Canon should also fix the IS-always-on issue. For me it is the only problem with the R. My 300L II is unusable with this body.



I've used the 300 IS ii on the R, and I wouldn't remotely call it unusable. Mode 3 works almost exactly the same as before. I agree, it would be better if IS stops whenever the metering stops to save power (much like the DSLRs), but I haven't noticed a dramatic power hit beyond the usual living in live view. I have noticed that whenever I shoot with the main display disabled, after the viewfinder turns itself off upon removal of my face, IS seems to stop regardless of power savings settings.

Presumably they want to keep the image stabilized for all the face and object tracking algorithms, but it would be nice to customize the operation. Still, I'm not worried about it.


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## unfocused (May 1, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> ...and the sun is blown out...



Under what circumstances would the sun not be blown out?


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## neuroanatomist (May 1, 2019)

unfocused said:


> Under what circumstances would the sun not be blown out?


When it's on the other side of the earth?


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## mb66energy (May 1, 2019)

unfocused said:


> Under what circumstances would the sun not be blown out?


If you do not saturate the photosites of your sensor. With enough DR you could map the tones to that result - or if you have the right display medium. OLED might be one step in the right direction if the OS of your computer delivers precise data to represent the brightness levels ... or micro LEDs (sub-mm anorganic LEDs) which are non-organic and burn-in-proof but expensive (now). They are state-of-the-art in cinema displays.

A LEDs photon flux can be changed between 10 photons per second up to 10^12 photons per second should be possible resulting in a DR of roughly ridculous 25 stops ... theoretically.
EDIT: 10^12 = 1 000 000 000 000 is a rough estimate


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## mb66energy (May 1, 2019)

neuroanatomist said:


> When it's on the other side of the earth?


So no sun is not blown out ...


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## Canon Rumors Guy (May 1, 2019)

unfocused said:


> Is this the same guy that used to troll this site with posts whose sole purpose were clickbait for his You Tube Channel? If so, I hate to see Canon Rumors Guy rewarding that behavior.



I don't remember him on these forums, but there is folks that write in to me about DR and banding and I thought the content was relevant to those people.

I'm personally not one of those people that care about DR specs and pushing shadows by a million stops... but to each their own.


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## dtaylor (May 1, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> It's a very good shot but I think the necessary DR isn't that vast because...



Every time. Every single time a wide DR scene is shot on a Canon someone comes back with _"...it's not THAT wide a scene." _Like clock work. No examples of their own...but the Canon example just isn't good enough. DxO and DPReview said so!



> ...and the sun is blown out.







neuroanatomist said:


> When it's on the other side of the earth?



Neuro...when the sun is on the other side of the Earth you should be able to aim your camera at the ground, take a shot, and reveal the sun by pushing the shadow detail. Of course Canon can't do that but I bet Sony can!


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## neuroanatomist (May 1, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> If you do not saturate the photosites of your sensor. With enough DR you could map the tones to that result - or if you have the right display medium.


Or if your camera was turned off. At the risk of derailing your pedantry, the point of the question was under what _practical_ circumstances would the sun not be blown out. A 13-stop ND (e.g. solar eclipse filter) would result in the sun not blowing out, but of course everything in the image that wasn't the sun would be pitch black.


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## bokehmon22 (May 1, 2019)

I'm glad to see Canon address these issues. EyeAF is definitely more than usable now.


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## mb66energy (May 1, 2019)

dtaylor said:


> Every time. Every single time a wide DR scene is shot on a Canon someone comes back with _"...it's not THAT wide a scene." _Like clock work. No examples of their own...but the Canon example just isn't good enough. DxO and DPReview said so!
> ...



I have not mentioned specifically Canon and I think that the modern sensors of all companies are more or less comparable in usable DR. One stop does not help in critical situations therefore I mentioned the 16-20 stops. Which no camera company delivers for the standard consumer/pro photography market as far as I know.


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## privatebydesign (May 1, 2019)

Landscape, include sun, don't blow highlights, maintain realistic detail in shadows without helpful reflecting surface? Done.

Done, I might add, with a 2008 Canon DSLR with a single shot and no clever processing or masks or filters of any kind.

Now I am the first to admit I can find the limits of the DR of my camera, but I believe I could do that with any camera because they are all comparable. What I can also do is mitigate any perceived 'limitations' it has to get the shot I want regardless of the scene DR. I shoot real estate that no on the shelf camera can retain the scene DR in one shot, none, no Sony or Nikon or anything else, if I need more DR than I can capture in one shot I take more than one shot!


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## mb66energy (May 1, 2019)

neuroanatomist said:


> Or if your camera was turned off. At the risk of derailing your pedantry, the point of the question was under what _practical_ circumstances would the sun not be blown out. A 13-stop ND (e.g. solar eclipse filter) would result in the sun not blowing out, but of course everything in the image that wasn't the sun would be pitch black.


I would prefer to increase the full well capacity to 1 000 000 photoelectrons - I think this is the way to have data for all light levels. And it also helps to get a more precise image due to lower statistical errors. As physicist I always like to have the best data I can get.


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## HarryFilm (May 1, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> If you do not saturate the photosites of your sensor. With enough DR you could map the tones to that result - or if you have the right display medium. OLED might be one step in the right direction if the OS of your computer delivers precise data to represent the brightness levels ... or micro LEDs (sub-mm anorganic LEDs) which are non-organic and burn-in-proof but expensive (now). They are state-of-the-art in cinema displays.
> 
> A LEDs photon flux can be changed between 10 photons per second up to 10^12 photons per second should be possible resulting in a DR of roughly ridculous 25 stops ... theoretically.
> EDIT: 10^12 = 1 000 000 000 000 is a rough estimate




Nice to see SOMEBODY HERE knows their optics and math!

Anorganic LEDs require some serious CMOS etching technology over a wide area for large displays, and the only system that can print out very large area high dynamic range colour micro-LEDs for display purposes is from Heidelberg Instruments:

Large Area Volume Pattern Generators
VPG+ 800, VPG+ 1100 and VPG+ 1400








The Power of Direct Writing ǀ Heidelberg Instruments


Heidelberg Instruments is a world-leading manufacturer of high precision maskless direct write lithography systems and nanofabrication tools.




www.himt.de





And we are talking about tens to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of layout and etching gear!

Price-wise, it's actually CHEAPER to recreate those now defunct Pioneer Plasma Displays (which I STILL HAVE!) which outperform even OLED screens in terms of black levels and colour brightness. I have a few of the Canon $34,000 IPS reference monitors and a high end Sony BVM-series OLED broadcast reference display and I still like my 1080p Pioneer Plasma displays BETTER!

The ONLY price-sensitive system that is coming out that can exceed OLED in terms of dynamic range and colour rendition are vertically stacked Boron Nitride Nanotubes which are rugged enough to withstand long-term photon emissions AND reception AND still have the RGB wavelength emissions repeatability which make for great colour rendition!

I've seen a Boron Nitride display and at 65+ inches horizontally at 1000+ dpi, it was the finest 16-bits per channel RGB display EVER CREATED !!!

Th only problem is a stacked nanotube display takes MONTHS to create just ONE of them using MEM's based stacking micro-instrumentation AND right now that one single display was literally 25 million dollars U.S. of RnD funding! That said, with the coming ability to GROW vertically stacked nanotubes like trees in mere weeks or even days coming online within two to four years, it will mean Millions-to-One contrast ratios for 1000+ DPI displays at sub-$5000 prices. AND since dopants can be ADDED to Boro-nitrides for photon RECEPTION, it means we can COMBINE a stacked RGB emissive display with in-between photo-receptors so that entire screens CAN ALSO BE CAMERAS !!!!!

Imagine an 8K display that has inter-twined RGB display pixels and RGB SENSOR pixels on one single substrate! No CMOS camera with complex optical pathways needed anymore! Just screens that have micro-lensed nanotubes EMITTING and RECEIVING RGB light wave at the same time! Your ENTIRE smartphone display IS ALSO THE CAMERA !!!

That would OBLITERATE the DSLR and MILC camera system market in one fell swoop since computational imaging techniques can then be used to manipulate the incoming photons as we see fit since the ENTIRE display is a giant image sensor in itself in addition to being a display system!


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## Rado (May 1, 2019)

I've seen the banding in my R shots when there was a light source in the frame so if this update fixes it that's great news.


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## HarryFilm (May 1, 2019)

privatebydesign said:


> Landscape, include sun, don't blow highlights, maintain realistic detail in shadows without helpful reflecting surface? Done.
> 
> Done, I might add, with a 2008 Canon DSLR with a single shot and no clever processing or masks or filters of any kind.
> 
> Now I am the first to admit I can find the limits of the DR of my camera, but I believe I could do that with any camera because they are all comparable. What I can also do is mitigate any perceived 'limitations' it has to get the shot I want regardless of the scene DR. I shoot real estate that no on the shelf camera can retain the scene DR in one shot, none, no Sony or Nikon or anything else, if I need more DR than I can capture in one shot I take more than one shot!





dtaylor said:


> Great shot! I don't expect to see anything comparable from the DRoners.




The KEY ISSUE for ANY photographer is CONTENT and absolutely NOT the camera it came from!

The following two shots, even though they come from a smartphone, with their mere minor shadow level lift editing and cropping, do they not symbolize a somewhat artistic interpretation of person's life?

"The Perfect Burger" and "Pretty Car" to me are NOT the mere assemblage of pixels taken by some $100 image taking device. They SYMBOLIZE a life I wish to attain and/or can enjoy right now! That is the essence of photography! The capture of a GIVEN MOMENT in our daily life! Who cares about banding or NOISE in our images, when YOU TOO can now enjoy the world's MOST PERFECT BURGER and a slice of the automotive high life!

.


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## docsmith (May 1, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> He said landscape work with the sun in the image - in that case you would like to have 16-20 stops of DR. And IMO he is right.


So, which still camera in regular use will give you 16-20 stops?

Really, if he prefers something for whatever reason, great. But my issue is saying you can't do serious landscape photography with the 5DIV and R, even with the sun.



mb66energy said:


> the sun is blown out.


What's fun, is so is the sun in Michael Mavin's shots.....

__
http://instagr.am/p/BtXnp9thKoo/


__
http://instagr.am/p/Bufha9ch2zq/

I am not sure what camera he used for these, so they may not be perfect examples. In some other shots of landscapes with the sun in them, he was using the Canon RP. These, he didn't seem to specify. But, maybe these are not his "serious" shots.

This was with the Z7:

__
http://instagr.am/p/BpYow8cHg8z/

A few of mine, taken on 7D, 5DIII, and 5DIV (last one). This really isn't my style or what I typically shoot, so I am not trying to hold these up as something great. But, more to say, even a hack such as myself can take reasonable landscape shots with the sun in it with Canon gear. Even "old" Canon gear.


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## neuroanatomist (May 1, 2019)

privatebydesign said:


> Landscape, include sun, don't blow highlights, maintain realistic detail in shadows without helpful reflecting surface? Done.


Fail. Sorry, but the sun itself in your image is clearly blown out. Obviously, you need to be able to see sunspots on the surface of the sun and complete detail in the deepest shadows of the landscape, and in your case since you mentioned reflections you really should’ve used a circular polarizer to enable imaging of the underwater depths, where you should be able to distinguish the flounder from the sand after pushing the unlit ocean floor to daytime brightness. Face it, if you can’t do that then your image sucks. Just sucks.


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## jeanluc (May 1, 2019)

DR in 5d4 sensor is good enough, even for “serious landscape” work. Is Sony sensor a bit better? Yes. Meaningfully so? No. End of story IMHO. Give us a bit more resolution, and we can put this topic away. And they will very soon.


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## RayValdez360 (May 1, 2019)

unfocused said:


> Under what circumstances would the sun not be blown out?


The sun is red and yellow looking not white bruh. I saw it on star trek,


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## Cochese (May 2, 2019)

I wish they'd solve the issue on the 5DMIV. I shoot my city's fireworks every year. I've never experienced the same kind of banding like I get on the 5DMIV. It's some weird banding that I thought was only visible when trying to over expose it. But even in normal conditions, it's there. I found people on several different forums discussing this very issue and in each one, there'd be twice as many people acting like apologists. But I never had the issue with a t2i, t3i, or my 7D.
Frustrating to say the least and very obvious in landscape photos with areas of extreme light and dark such as my fireworks photos. I don't usually push the shadows on them because they're long exposures, only lower the highlights and occasionally, the overall exposure, which should actually help the situation.


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## LSXPhotog (May 2, 2019)

Thomas Heaton it's one of the best Landscape photographers right now, at least he's one of my favorites. Also, Brendan Van Son...Thomas uses a 5D4 and Brendan just replaced his 5D4 with and EOS R and even shoots landscapes with the RP. Haha


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## LSXPhotog (May 2, 2019)

I like Michael, but when he said he could finally recommend the EOS R to landscape photographers, I laughed. It's so ridiculous to imagine this being a factor.

My 5D Mark IV and EOS R have the banding issue described by Michael.

I've been shooting images professionally for over a decade and landscapes are one of biggest hobbies away from my normal work. My career was build on cameras much less capable than the 5D Mark IV. The Mark IV has a truly spectacular sensors for photographers that know how to actually take images and don't just shoot crap and try to save it in post. Sony sensors are more capable, and I often see many unskilled photographers boasting about their camera's performance because -for them- it might be a necessary crutch for their lack of skill.








The banding issue was legitimately only a problem in a handful of images on the Mark IV over the past couple of years. I'm extremely satisfied with the EOS R as well and I look forward to testing if my banding is gone as well.


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## Skyscraperfan (May 2, 2019)

I was quite shocked when I saw Tony Northrup's video last year, which mentioned the banding issue: 




Even if you "exceed the limitations" of a sensor, you may not be able to recover shadows, but you should not see such a horrible banding. It really scared me away from even considering buying an EOS R. Banding is much worse than totally random noise, which is random in two directions. 

Somewhere it was mentioned that the problem might be that some whole lines of pixels have to be used for auto focus. For me that does not sound like a good idea at all. I do not want whole lines skipped and interpolated by software. Each pixel should be used to capture light that actually appears on the final photo. Unfortunately even modern DSLRs to that to maintain auto focus for video and live view. That is very concerning for me. Rather than losing pixels on the sensor I would get rid of video and live view.


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## koenkooi (May 2, 2019)

Skyscraperfan said:


> [..]
> Somewhere it was mentioned that the problem might be that some whole lines of pixels have to be used for auto focus. For me that does not sound like a good idea at all. I do not want whole lines skipped and interpolated by software. Each pixel should be used to capture light that actually appears on the final photo. Unfortunately even modern DSLRs to that to maintain auto focus for video and live view. That is very concerning for me. Rather than losing pixels on the sensor I would get rid of video and live view.



Discarding autofocus pixels is how Sony sensors work, not how Canon DPAF sensors work. So that isn't an explanation for banding on the 5D4/R.


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## Kit. (May 2, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> I would prefer to increase the full well capacity to 1 000 000 photoelectrons - I think this is the way to have data for all light levels.


Unlikely. That's only 20 stops of DR.

Another factor contributing to DR and often forgotten is that shooting at ISO 5 and below is rarely feasible.


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## jolyonralph (May 2, 2019)

So the guy compared two cameras with different firmware rather than comparing the SAME camera before and after (NOTE: I can't watch the whole video right now so maybe he did later, in which case it's all good).

That doesn't prove anything on its own if the issue is to do with quality control on the EOS R sensor.


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## mb66energy (May 2, 2019)

Kit. said:


> Unlikely. That's only 20 stops of DR.


You are right - that is NOT all light levels but I think the DR of the eye-brain-system is something like 16...18 stops with the same setting (retina sensitivity/sensors and iris aperture setting). By the way it is less than 20 stops due to noise floor.



Kit. said:


> Another factor contributing to DR and often forgotten is that shooting at ISO 5 and below is rarely feasible.


I am shure full well capacity doesn't mean to shoot always at ISO 5 - it helps to conserve very high highlights (high contrast scenes, e.g. macro in contra light, deep forest in contralight) at ISO 100 which are always overexposed if you use a photographically correct exposure of the main subject. And ISO 5 would be helpful as an option to (1) open the aperture or (2) increase exposure time without additional devices (ND filters).

If memory serves well the classic 5D has something like 70 000 photoelectrons full well capacity mainly supported by its relatively large photosites (~ twice the area of 6D/EOS RP). The DR is limited by its higher noise floor but that camera records very precise brightness levels if you expose right - in my eyes the images look very clean.


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## mb66energy (May 2, 2019)

jolyonralph said:


> So the guy compared two cameras with different firmware rather than comparing the SAME camera before and after (NOTE: I can't watch the whole video right now so maybe he did later, in which case it's all good).
> 
> That doesn't prove anything on its own if the issue is to do with quality control on the EOS R sensor.


He answered this @ 2:06 in his video: He updated the camera with the older FW to the current version and the banding issue was resolved.

Are you too one of those who does NOT like these video only things where you need a lot of bandwith to get some bits of information? - IMO text rules  But maybe I am too old for this modern "life".


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## jeffa4444 (May 2, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> I have not mentioned specifically Canon and I think that the modern sensors of all companies are more or less comparable in usable DR. One stop does not help in critical situations therefore I mentioned the 16-20 stops. Which no camera company delivers for the standard consumer/pro photography market as far as I know.


No company produces a camera with 16-20 stops period including very expensive high end movie cameras (dont believe all the marketing hype). 

Latest research suggests certain humans can see up to 20 stops of DR when our eyes adjust but not at a single point of time (we have been helping a researcher on this for over ten years in Scotland). 
Our eyes can adapt, a sensor cannot. 

The best high end camera we have tested is claimed at 16 stops but actually is more like 15. No system of checking is a 100% guaranteed either because small external factors can affect the results and at high sensitivity (including heat). 

Manufacturers over egg real world DR and always have.


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## mb66energy (May 2, 2019)

Just after some thinking of how a firmware update can resolve banding issues: How does it work? Replacing the sensor by a FW update seems impossible.

My first substantial idea is that this is a timing issue of two digital high frequency signals at slightly different frequencies - one of the ADC, another from an other source which interfere. This might be solved by programming - if you synchronize both the interference is cancelled out and the resulting signal (here the stream of ADC values) is clean.


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## mb66energy (May 2, 2019)

jeffa4444 said:


> No company produces a camera with 16-20 stops period including very expensive high end movie cameras (dont believe all the marketing hype).
> 
> Latest research suggests certain humans can see up to 20 stops of DR when our eyes adjust but not at a single point of time (we have been helping a researcher on this for over ten years in Scotland).
> Our eyes can adapt, a sensor cannot.
> ...


Thanks for confirmation about camera DR availability for non-prototypes.

I derived the miniumum of 20 stops for the human from the fact that you have 1 000 W per m² on a bright sunlit day at noon and that a 70mW (electrical input) LED (10mW light output @ 15% efficiency) is bright enough to illuminate a room wall (roughly 10 m²) resulting in 0,001 W per m² and just there is maybe three or 4 stops of DR ... 

And yes, manufacturers push their spec tables to the best case scenarios (like gas consumption of cars which is 20-30% higher than the data in their spec sheets.) So I would like to have a 18 bit DR in the spec sheet to get maybe 16 stops in real use.


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## Viggo (May 2, 2019)

This made my day! I’m so glad they listened to us  I haven’t edited any shots since I updated, but did today and can confirm that the banding is gone


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## Wim Hendriks (May 2, 2019)

also the up-date for the canon RP


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## Kit. (May 2, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> Just after some thinking of how a firmware update can resolve banding issues: How does it work? Replacing the sensor by a FW update seems impossible.


There are probably several "dark" (unused) pixels at the beginning and the end of each line. Their averaged values can give an offset to subtract from the values in the line to reduce banding.


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## mb66energy (May 2, 2019)

Kit. said:


> There are probably several "dark" (unused) pixels at the beginning and the end of each line. Their averaged values can give an offset to subtract from the values in the line to reduce banding.



I always wanted to know what the purpose for these non-net pixels is: Thanks for your idea!

Maybe they have found a better way to implement the offset correction - it's not always easy to understand simple systems and modern cameras are lightyears from simple with these different sensors, actors, electronics and its firmware which work together in a delicate way (or sometimes not).


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## QuisUtDeus (May 2, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> Are you too one of those who does NOT like these video only things where you need a lot of bandwith to get some bits of information? - IMO text rules  But maybe I am too old for this modern "life".



If someone won't take the time to write down the information they have, I won't take the time to listen to their blather. Video is a plague and a crutch.

And I'm a millennial, for what it's worth.


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## flip314 (May 2, 2019)

jeffa4444 said:


> No company produces a camera with 16-20 stops period including very expensive high end movie cameras (dont believe all the marketing hype).



But what if I SPEAK REALLY LOUDLY about a camera from a company that I can't name that will soon release a camera that will BLOW THE LID off of anything you've ever seen. Really, this will make everything you've ever heard about obsolete. You will get 16K video at 3000fps. 300,000 megapixel stills pulled out of video. 50 stops of DR and 80b color depth.

I have a prototype sitting on my desk RIGHT NOW, and my employer has kindly allowed me to post on internet forums about it, but this is all they will allow me to say. I can't tell you which company is producing it or when it will be available, only that it will BLOW YOUR MIND. The entire thing is in a 1" cube and weighs just grams. It will FUNDAMENTALLY change videography and photography forever and will be here SOON.

But I've already said too much. You will just have to wait and see, and then you will feel stupid for doubting me.


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## mb66energy (May 2, 2019)

flip314 said:


> But what if I SPEAK REALLY LOUDLY about a camera from a company that I can't name that will soon release a camera that will BLOW THE LID off of anything you've ever seen. Really, this will make everything you've ever heard about obsolete. You will get 16K video at 3000fps. 300,000 megapixel stills pulled out of video. *50 stops of DR* and 80b color depth.
> 
> I have a prototype sitting on my desk RIGHT NOW, [...]



Hardly believable. 50 stops of DR is roughly 1 000 000 000 000 000 photoelectrons full well capacity. EOS 5D has 70 000 x 13 000 000 total of full well capacity or ~ 1 000 000 000 so *one pixel* of your camera has to be ~ 1 000 000 times larger than the full full frame area resulting in 36 x 24 meters. No, I don't believe that it sits on your desk, no desk is large and stable enough.

Reading of a fully saturated chip at 3000 fps @ 16k (132 000 000 pixels x 3000 frames x 1 000 000 000 000 000 electrons ) results in a current of 70 000 000 Ampere ... needs its own small powerplant.


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## neuroanatomist (May 2, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> Hardly believable. 50 stops of DR is roughly 1 000 000 000 000 000 photoelectrons full well capacity. EOS 5D has 70 000 x 13 000 000 total of full well capacity or ~ 1 000 000 000 so *one pixel* of your camera has to be ~ 1 000 000 times larger than the full full frame area resulting in 36 x 24 meters. No, I don't believe that it sits on your desk, no desk is large and stable enough.
> 
> Reading of a fully saturated chip at 3000 fps @ 16k (132 000 000 pixels x 3000 frames x 1 000 000 000 000 000 electrons ) results in a current of 70 000 000 Ampere ... needs its own small powerplant.


@HarryFilm is all the explanation necessary.


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## lawny13 (May 2, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> It's a very good shot but I think the necessary DR isn't that vast because the gray surface has around 20% reflection (looks like a Kodak gray card) and the sun is blown out. Do you have used a mask to make the person brighter?
> 
> The sun in the frame in a deep forest is impossible right now with available photographic cameras so I would like to have 16 stops or more but I know very well that it will not always help if you try to compress that dynamics into a 6 or 8 stop wide print.



The human eye has way more DR, and yet in a scene like that the sun would be blown out to our eyes too.

So an image where the sun was not blown out would essentially look unrealistic.


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## deleteme (May 2, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> I would prefer to increase the full well capacity to 1 000 000 photoelectrons - I think this is the way to have data for all light levels. And it also helps to get a more precise image due to lower statistical errors. As physicist I always like to have the best data I can get.


The challenge with gathering that much data is that the cost-benefit ratio stops working at a point well short of what you may think will be useful.


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## Policar (May 2, 2019)

Hoping this fix gets ported to the C300 Mk II etc as someone mentioned earlier... I have seen this banding problem show up in "real world" circumstances with Canon's cinema cameras, not just Xyla charts (where it's quite obviously worse than what other manufacturers have). It's been a known issue they've been intending to address for a while and I'm disappointed that it persists.

Everyone has their own needs, which don't necessarily correlate with their ability, but I do think it's presumptuous to assume others share your needs and wants. I'd be very happy with an EOS-R for landscapes and don't need anyone telling me I shouldn't be. Then again, my favorite landscape photographers are mostly shooting Velvia, which has maybe six stops of dynamic range. But you can't really do proper black and white zone system without a full 10+ stops, so I acknowledge the need for more.

These jokes about 16-20 stops of DR are just that for now, but I don't know if they will be for long. High end prints I believe have at most five stops of contrast, and typically maybe four, and even backlit LCD monitors often have 1000:1 contrast ratios, about ten stops. Fitting too much capture dynamic range into that space, even with dodging and burning/tone mapping/power windows will start to feel artificial–or just very very very flat, but 10,000 nit and even 4,000 nit micro-LED screens can comfortably display 15-17 stops in one scene. It's a lot like looking out a window. Glowing reports from CES, imo, are still underselling the technology.

Such displays are a ways away from the consumer space, but when they're commonplace, so too will be a need for greater dynamic range in capture. The C300 Mk II was designed with HDR video in mind, which is another reason it's annoying to me that there's such severe CMOS smear in that sensor.


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## LSXPhotog (May 4, 2019)

I can confirm that this 100% resolved the issue on my camera. I almost feel like it has added much more usable dynamic range and I'm honestly impressed by the result.


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## jolyonralph (May 5, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> He answered this @ 2:06 in his video: He updated the camera with the older FW to the current version and the banding issue was resolved.
> 
> Are you too one of those who does NOT like these video only things where you need a lot of bandwith to get some bits of information? - IMO text rules  But maybe I am too old for this modern "life".



Bandwidth is plentiful, time isn't!


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## HarryFilm (May 7, 2019)

mb66energy said:


> Hardly believable. 50 stops of DR is roughly 1 000 000 000 000 000 photoelectrons full well capacity. EOS 5D has 70 000 x 13 000 000 total of full well capacity or ~ 1 000 000 000 so *one pixel* of your camera has to be ~ 1 000 000 times larger than the full full frame area resulting in 36 x 24 meters. No, I don't believe that it sits on your desk, no desk is large and stable enough.
> 
> Reading of a fully saturated chip at 3000 fps @ 16k (132 000 000 pixels x 3000 frames x 1 000 000 000 000 000 electrons ) results in a current of 70 000 000 Ampere ... needs its own small powerplant.



===

Me thinks you took my camera body sarcasm just a tad too much to heart -- THAT post truly WAS SARCASM!!!
(be it at it's best or it's worst!) trying to illustrate the almost pointless nature of spec-wars when even a $100 smartphone is good enough these days for most photography!

...BUT... I will still note that a 50 megapixel Medium Format Sensor combined stills/video monster IS COMING .... rather soon!
.
from who? ... Well... I'm pretty sure you will probably be quite shocked at who that is!
.


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## SecureGSM (May 8, 2019)

> ...BUT... I will still note that a 50 megapixel Medium Format Sensor combined stills/video monster IS COMING .... rather soon!



Put a bridle on thy tongue; set a guard before thy lips, lest the words of thine own mouth destroy thy peace... on much speaking cometh repentance, but in silence is safety. 

William Drummond


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