Recently developed statistical methods for analysing orientation data are presented and applied here in a study of the precision by which crystal orientations can be measured from electron backscattering patterns. The use of these methods allows a direct comparison to be made between the precision obtained with manually and automatically localized bands, which is important owing to a more and more widespread use of fully automatic analysis of electron backscattering patterns. Curves which show how the precision depends on the pattern quality and on the number of bands used for the orientation measurements are presented for both manually and automatically localized bands. Typical values for the relative precision of crystal orientations measured from electron backscattering patterns are shown to be of the order of 0.5° for manually localized bands and 0.75° for automatically localized bands, when about 10 bands are used for the measurements. In a more realistic situation where a careful operator is willing to localize four to five bands in each pattern, the precision of the measured crystal orientations is similar to that obtained for automatically localized band