Online commenters have warned about electronic shutter being the bane of artificially lit scenes, where dark bands might appear. I’ve shot with electronic shutter for the past 5 years. I preferred it on my Fuji X-T2 as it made the camera silent, and it removed camera shake. In that time I’ve not had any issues with banding, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. In this post I’m going to link to an article that does a deep dive into the topic and briefly summarize how to avoid banding.

Author John Platt writes about this topic in a scientific deep dive: https://johnplatt.com.au/electronic-shutters-banding-rolling-shutter-explained/

That post is well worth the read. If you just want the straight answer to how to avoid this problem, it comes down to lighting and shutter speeds. Out in the world we can’t change the lighting, but we can change our shutter speeds.

In Mr. Platt’s article, towards the end, he has a gallery of shots taken at different shutter speeds in an artificially lit scene. He shows were banding, in general, is likely to appear. At 1/50th and 1/100th, banding is absent, but at 1/60th, 1/80th and shots above 1/100, there is banding.

Personally, I’ve never had a banding problem, as low lit scenes usually caused me to shoot below 1/60th. I did notice a poster once complain about banding when they shot photos of breakdancers in a subway. They likely wanted to capture the dancers with no movement, so used a faster shutter speed and the banding appeared.

Camera Mitigations

Some camera brands, like the Lumix S9, have banding mitigation. To address banding issues on a Lumix S9, navigate to the camera menu and find the “Synchro Scan” setting, which allows you to adjust the shutter speed slightly to minimize banding when shooting under artificial lights. While I haven’t tested this, it should lower and mitigate the banding problem that might occur with faster shutter speeds under artificial lighting.