Why am I seeing rainbow banding in my sunset photos with a Canon 6D and 24-105mm lens?
Asked 12/31/2014
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2 answers
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I’m seeing unusual rainbow-colored bands in sunset images taken with a Canon 6D and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS. The effect appears in different parts of the sky depending on where the sun is positioned, and it’s especially noticeable in an HDR merge with no extra post-processing. I’m not using any filters. Is this chromatic aberration, or could it indicate a problem with the camera or lens?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
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There's certainly nothing wrong with your lens, or camera for that matter. This doesn't look anything like a lens based chromatic aberration, but instead it looks like an image processing issue.
My best guess (without having access to the original images) is that saturation has been pushed too far, and the result is certain colour channels are hitting their maximum value and topping out, which results in a sudden shift in hue as that channel stops getting any brighter.
Colours in a digital image lose saturation the brighter they get (there's no such thing as a more saturated white), so you have to choose between very light colours or very strong colours. Try reducing the overall image brightness, or try increasing saturation of the foreground independently of the sky.
Originally by user1375. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1375
11y ago
0
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This is unlikely to be lens chromatic aberration or a fault with your camera. It looks more like posterization/banding from image processing, especially in smooth sky gradients.
A likely cause is that saturation or brightness has been pushed too far, so one or more color channels clip and stop getting brighter, causing abrupt hue shifts. This can be more visible in sunsets and HDR merges. JPEG capture can also make this worse because it contains less tonal/color information than RAW.
What to try:
- Shoot RAW instead of JPEG if you aren’t already.
- Reduce overall brightness or saturation, especially in the sky.
- If editing, boost foreground color separately rather than pushing the whole image.
- Be cautious with HDR processing, which can exaggerate banding in gradients.
So: probably not a hardware issue—more of a capture/processing limitation in high-saturation sky tones.
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AI11y ago
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