'You have better things to do than to track down the cause of the problem, but you don't have better things to do when it comes to bashing the camera for that fault. I don't view that as being a benefit at all. Making a mountain out of a mole hill, isn't helpful.'

I'm not making a mountain out of anything. When I first discovered that my sample had a banding issue, I found forums like this a helpful resource. At the very least, I was able to establish that I wasn't going slightly mad In the spirit of giving something back, I reasoned that others might benefit from my experience in the same way that I'd benefitted from theirs.

'So, where are the samples of such correctly exposed images that have this artifact?'

On my hard drive, where they're staying. There are enough good examples posted out there already. Better things to do with my time, remember?

'When you shout fire, you need to be ready to show where that fire is located. That's the way things work in normal life. It should be no different here.'

Sorry Kerry, but I don't feel the need to prove anything - to you or to anyone else - whether it's my ability to take a correctly exposed image or the fact that my D200 was faulty.

'It might very well be that your camera suffers from abnormal banding, but if it doesn't, exchanging the camera isn't going to solve anything.'

It did (suffer from banding). The replacement will probably be fine. And if it isn't, I'll deal with that as and when.

'if the issue is caused by inappropriate exposure and nikon issues a firmware NR "fix" due to unreasonable internet hysteria, that is not a good thing. '

Inappropriate exposure has nothing to do with this issue. And I don't see much evidence of hysteria (and certainly not originating from me - check my posting history).

SebRogers wrote:

Sorry Kerry, but I don't feel the need to prove anything - to you or to anyone else - whether it's my ability to take a correctly exposed image or the fact that my D200 was faulty.

Well, then you have no right to complain about people not taking your word for it.


Inappropriate exposure has nothing to do with this issue. And I don't see much evidence of hysteria (and certainly not originating from me - check my posting history).


Inappropriate exposure certainly does have something to do with the issue, from most of the samples that I've seen.

Your history is 5 posts, all of them in this thread, about this banding you claim to have.

'Sorry Kerry, but I don't feel the need to prove anything - to you or to anyone else - whether it's my ability to take a correctly exposed image or the fact that my D200 was faulty.

Well, then you have no right to complain about people not taking your word for it.'

What a weird place this is. I have a problem with my new camera. I discover that other people on this forum have been experiencing similar problems. I share my experiences. And then I am all but accused of making it up / not knowing what I'm talking about because I don't have the time or inclination to upload samples for discussion and then get into a protracted and pointless 'discussion' about whether said samples are correctly exposed, what lens I used and whether Uranus is currently in Saturn's trajectory (or somesuch).

On the point of whether or not I know what I'm talking about, my website is accessible via my profile and speaks, I hope, for itself. My ability to produce images that are, at a minimum, sharp and well exposed is directly related to my ability to pay my mortgage. And on this specific point - that my D200 was faulty - I had no difficulty persuading Nikon Europe, Nikon UK and my local dealer that there was a problem. Why should I need to persuade you too?

'Inappropriate exposure certainly does have something to do with the issue, from most of the samples that I've seen.'

I've seen plenty of examples of banding on properly exposed images. And in any case, even underexposure shouldn't necessarily result in banding.

'Your history is 5 posts, all of them in this thread, about this banding you claim to have.'

Well spotted. I've steered clear of forums in the past precisely because of these kinds of pointless, circular finger-pointing exercises. And I think I'm about to go back into my self-imposed forum exile

I wish you the best with your banding-free camera, and many happy years of snapping...

SebRogers wrote:

What a weird place this is. I have a problem with my new camera. I discover that other people on this forum have been experiencing similar problems. I share my experiences.

Seb, there are tons of anonymous people on the internet, that will post lots of provocative and/or patently false things. You seem to expect instant credibility in a crowd of strangers and now act indignent that you don't get it.

point - that my D200 was faulty - I had no difficulty persuading Nikon Europe, Nikon UK and my local dealer that there was a problem. Why should I need to persuade you too?

No, you don't need to do anything. But others don't need to believe what you say, either. Respect and credibility is a 2-way street and both are earned. That is not at all an unusual condition.

Well spotted. I've steered clear of forums in the past precisely because of these kinds of pointless, circular finger-pointing exercises. And I think I'm about to go back into my self-imposed forum exile

There's nothing pointless about trying to understand an issue and asking for more information. If it's a pointless exercise, it's because it was your choice.

I wish you the best with your banding-free camera, and many happy years of snapping...

Thanks, I extend the identical wishes to you.

Seb,

I'm sorry your initial experience with this forum resulted in useless banter with various hard-heads that can only see things from one perspective, which I've found is generally that of a snapshooter.

I hope your D200 is repaired/replaced quickly and that you will come back to give us your impressions of this camera from a pro's perspective. I'm most interested to see how it fits into your work process and if it alters your photography style (smaller size) when it is compared to a D2x.

Thanks,

Kerry Pierce wrote:
I would like to know how you can calculate out blooming and color fringing, without any loss of detail. I've never heard of that before, but I'm more than willing to be educated on the matter.


Pano tools (and PhotoshopACR) can remove CA colour fringing - and fractionally enhances detail by moving the colour focus point to the place "where it belongs".

Blooming around fine detail cannot be fixed. Blooming manifested adjacent in large areas of overexposure can be "calculated" out by selecting a colour in PS and replacing it with the "correct" colour. This corrects a colour error and not the luminosity detail. However, an incorrect colour substitution could be made and "colour detail" could be lost.

If I am not wrong, the following picture is an example of blooming (on a D70)

tonyfield wrote:
Pano tools (and PhotoshopACR) can remove CA colour fringing - and fractionally enhances detail by moving the colour focus point to the place "where it belongs".

Blooming around fine detail cannot be fixed. Blooming manifested adjacent in large areas of overexposure can be "calculated" out by selecting a colour in PS and replacing it with the "correct" colour. This corrects a colour error and not the luminosity detail. However, an incorrect colour substitution could be made and "colour detail" could be lost.

Thanks, I appreciate the info, Tony. I haven't had much luck, with lossless editing of either issue, but I haven't used either of the tools you mentioned either.

This person's camera exhibits the vertical noise "banding" problem, and I don't think you can attribute this particular example of it to blooming or exposure

http://flickr.com/photos/spincycle/74270369/

In this thread he claims that replacing the camera seems to have alleviated the problem:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/d200/discuss/141067/

hmm.

well i must admit it's still a little frustrating, and am also debating returning my body - for a replacement. it IS sporadic for me.. I've had it today in a shot where i shot at 320 ISO with the sun low in the sky. So low ISO doesn't do it for me as a theory. I can't work out what's causing & NOT causing it to happen though.

maybe it's the pains of being an "early adopter" - i don't know

well, FWIW, here's two images - click the links to see the full size shots. You'll see it's a similar view, same 320 ISO, same lens, same kind of shot

Banded...
http://www.pbase.com/lord_of_the_badgers/image/54300057
Not Banded...
http://www.pbase.com/lord_of_the_badgers/image/54300059

rob_r - your images are password-protected

should be ok now...

Hi all yes banding is real look @ these examples on my pbase also I cant seem to get a truly sharp image from my copy of the D200 ah well its going back tomorrow as its on my account thank god I didnt pay cash for it.
www.pbase.com/glider/

hmm.. the one thing my d200 is, is SHARP. do you shoot RAW & with a high spec lens?

rob_r wrote:
well i must admit it's still a little frustrating, and am also debating returning my body - for a replacement. it IS sporadic for me.. I've had it today in a shot where i shot at 320 ISO with the sun low in the sky. So low ISO doesn't do it for me as a theory. I can't work out what's causing & NOT causing it to happen though.



Seems to me that the differences are the dynamic ranges of the respective images. One greatly exceeds the limits of the sensor, with severe blowout of the highlights, while the other doesn't have such high dynamic range.

could be, i know they're pretty dismal images.. either way, this didn't happen on the d100.

well the next question is, can this be firmware fixed or is it a recall job.. would be nice (though of course one would never expect it) if Nikon were to say they are "looking into it"

rob_r wrote:
could be, i know they're pretty dismal images.. either way, this didn't happen on the d100.

well the next question is, can this be firmware fixed or is it a recall job.. would be nice (though of course one would never expect it) if Nikon were to say they are "looking into it"

Dunno about the d100, but the d70 has some pretty nasty artifacts under some extreme circumstances like this. In response to that issue, nikon said, don't shoot like that.

There is a similar statement about it, with respect to extreme shooting circumstances in the d200 manual, page 187 under blooming.

Unless you're seeing banding in normal shooting circumstances, with well exposed images, it doesn't seem likely that nikon will do anything different than they did with the d70.

Hi All,

It's my first post to this board so try to be kind!

I had the banding problem with my D200, returned it to my dealer and he will be getting me a replacement, when that is who knows since the D200 is a very popular camera!

It is too bad there were some cameras that had some defects! But with any new high tech item, there are bound to be problems! I can't wait for my replacement D200 to come, it is such a great camera!

Anyway, yes there are banding problems, especially when you shoot iso 200 and above with overexposed (mine did this) areas of the photo. My D70 and Canon cameras don't do this, they just show overblown areas!

And I'm not a good enough photographer to avoid the occasional blown highlight or two, or three, etc. I'm still learning!

But there is hope for those of us who have this problem and don't want to return your cameras to get it fixed or repaired. There have been serious discussions in the Japanese and Korean camera websites on this problem, and a clever Japanese Nikon owner (or group of owners) has made a free Photoshop CS and PhotoShop Elements 3.0 plug in that will allow users to eliminate the banding. I tried it, and made sure it wasn't virus ladened or spyware, and it works pretty well. Has a sliding bar of 0-255 to control the strength of the banding fix. It works on RAW or JPEG, although you have to downconvert the RAW to 8 bit in PhotoShop Elements 3.0 for the filter to be used.

The following is a link to the post I found this plug in at:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=16504370

Note, there are two versions of this plug in, AntiBanD200.8bf and AnitBanD200f.8bf, the first is the full version, the second is the fast version. I downloaded and tested both and they work. The site is in Japanese, but if you follow tmasumo_2000's bablefish translation instructions, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Although the translation is bad, it's workable!

With this RAW and JPEG filter fix, it seems to me that Nikon could probably fix this problem with a future firmware fix, since it can be eliminated in software like this.

Later All!

Click on the following link to take you directly to the translated page.

There are two photoshop plug ins, which consist of the full version called AntiBanD200.8bf and the slim downed/faster version called AntiBanD200f.8bf. Windows XP might require the additional DLL file that needs to be placed in Photoshop's main executable folder.

This is why I have two very expensive bodies...Murphy's Law I also have two cars.... two dogs well, you get the idea.

If you're married I hope you live in Utah!


BTW, Dave Barry also has two dogs, a big one and a little one. He refersn to the little one as his "small emergency back-up dog".

Someone else said that this is unlikely to be a major problem or else they'd be talking about it all over the Web. Well guess what - they ARE! Almost every photo forum with a significant Nikon section has people talking about it.

Speaking as a design engineer, this is exactly the kind of problem that should have been straightened out in preproduction because it's very expensive to fix (presumably by complete replacement) once it's in people's hands.

Also, someone suggested that they can probably fix it with a firmware upgrade. But that depends on the cause. It was proposed that it might be caused by RF interference. That would actually make good sense, because it the bands could easily be accounted for by a beat (interference) pattern between the data getting marched out of the CCD array and the RF signal. It would explain why it seems so random. Someone with access to an RF signal generator (or a ham radio operator) could probably test this. But if it is, it would probably require a hardware fix, such a better shielding.