P: Remove LED banding

OK, OK <hands in the air> 😉 I accept that it's possible to get banding with the mechanical shutter under very special circumstances.

I have never, ever, seen it with my Sonys - and I'm not a casual photographer. This is my job, I can do hundreds of frames in a day, many of them concert settings or other low-light events (which mostly means LED nowadays). That said, I never go above ISO 6400 and always use as slow shutter speeds as possible., just on principle.

I have seen a lot of banding with the silent shutter, which goes away when I switch to mechanical. So I will still maintain that it solves the problem, 99.99% of the time. That's not bad odds.

Oh, BTW, Sony claims improved anti-flicker with every new model, but I have used a7r ii, iii, iv and v, and haven't noticed much difference. Maybe marginally better, but nothing really substantial.

This support article from Sony explains it pretty well. Even if you have a mechanical shutter the sensor will be read sequencally - not like film. https://support.d-imaging.sony.co.jp/support/ilc/flicker/01/en/

An extra complicating factor is that the multiple LED lights on a stage may (will) be flickering at  different frequencies making it very hard for the anti flicker function in the camera to do its job in a real life situation.

(And also the global shutter Sony A9III has a anti flicker function - to avoid reading the sensor when the light is off.)

In that case it has always been a problem, from film-based analog cameras through DSLRs to modern mirrorless. A mechanical shutter works the same way. Even my old Nikon F3 used a slit in the shutter curtains at high speeds.

The difference, of course, is that now you have the ability to push ISO to extremes, past 100 000, allowing you to use shutter speeds in dim indoor light that were previously unheard of.

Plus, of course, that LED technology is fairly newish.

The point is still the same. In practical terms, "scanning" shutters pose a special problem that you don't have with mechanical/traditional shutters.

@D Fosse 
I have quite a few hundreds if not thousands of concert photos shot with mechanical shutter and in need of "debanding". So no, mechanical shutter is not the solution. It may help if you use slow shutter speeds (<1/100s) but that is not always desirable.

And if you have stage smoke combined with the LEDs it makes the problem ten times worse.

An AI tool to do this would be a dream, but in the meantime I got myself the perfect concert camera - with no mechanical shutter.

This feature proposal needs more up-votes!

Understood, and I agree. This would be a much better use of AI than the generative toys.

Just injecting a dose of reality. It doesn't exist now, and there's no easy way to fix it. I've done a few, and it's easily a day's work if you want it to look good. It's more difficult than you might think.

Sure, respectfully I hear you about buying different cameras. That is not the point of my post. It is too late, photos have been taken. I would love to see a lightroom a.i. feature, or some sort of guidance as to how I can fix it in the post-process. 

@Thor Egil Leirtrø 

Actually, the mechanical shutter is not affected by this. Only the silent shutter/e-shutter will exhibit this banding in LED lighting.

So using the mechanical shutter is a definitive solution to the problem.

Unfortunately, some cameras don't have a mechanical shutter, so then you have a problem.

The Sony A9III is the only cure so far. Using mechanincal shutter and slow shutter speed may reduce the effect, but only global shutter will eliminate it.

Correct, the a9 iii has the new global shutter that is unaffected by this. The whole sensor is read in one go.

Note, however, that this is a 24 MP sensor. It'll probably take a while before they get to the 60 MP r-series sensors. But eventually this will most likely be mainstream.

I have R5 and R5ii and with the R5ii i can shoot a lot more without banding and leds because it has almost 3 times the readout speed of the R5. Yet, when I need higher shutter, I will turn on mechanical.

Buy the new Sony A9 iii and you will never have to worry about banding every again and use electronic shutter forever