Banding Noise

Sensors & Noise

Faint dark stripes, usually at the edges of objects, that appear when pixel data falls out of step between camera and computer. Of the three kinds of noise it is normally the least serious, and it can often be corrected in editing software.

Related Terms

Random Noise

Noise that depends on the subject as much as on the sensor. It arises where fine detail falls awkwardly across pixel boundaries and through the demosaicing arithmetic: a line half in one pixel and half in the next. Because it changes with every scene, the camera cannot mask it out in advance the way it removes hot pixels. Moiré is its most dramatic form.