DAN THORY , Sep 06, 2005; 06:09 p.m.
Hello
I've recently started using a Canon 10D and have noticed that the
detail has been lost in many of my pictures - some areas of the image
become pixelated, lack detail and form bands of single colour.
The camera settings are standard, as far as i know, & I'm shooting on
jpg at the highest quality setting.
Any ideas what might be causing this? It's especially noticable with
areas of little detail i.e. blue skies - rather than a gradual colour
change, the image forms noticable colour bands. I've attached an
example.
Thanks for your help.
Dan Thory
Colour banding / lack of detail in sky area
Andrew Robertson , Sep 06, 2005; 06:45 p.m.
Shoot in RAW mode and convert to 16 bit images to reduce banding. Other than that, the
sky is exposed, but I don't see any banding in that little reduced resolution picture you
posted.
Andrew Robertson , Sep 06, 2005; 06:46 p.m.
Bob Atkins 
, Sep 06, 2005; 09:11 p.m.
Make sure it's not your monitor setting. If you don't have high enough color resolution set, you'll see banding.
Unprocessed 10D images should not show any banding.
Jesper de Jong , Sep 07, 2005; 03:00 a.m.
Are you using a cheap LCD monitor?
Some cheap LCD monitors cannot display more than 6 bits per channel (3 x 6 = 18 bit colour, 2^18 = 262,144 colours). If you use such an LCD monitor for viewing photos, you have a great chance of seeing banding in certain areas such as the sky.
Try looking at the same photo using different monitors (better LCD that can display 8 bits per channel or a CRT monitor).
Howard Cox 
, Sep 09, 2005; 08:17 a.m.
I have had banding as well, normally with higher ISO, or over exposure. I know on the 20-D, a firmware upgrade significantly improved the banding at higher ISO's. If you shoot in RAW, you can easily see the banding by sliding the exposure slide in Photoshop.
