E-330 horizontal banding and lackadaisical Oly support

[cjtune]

I recently sent in my E-330 for 'service' to the North Bridge Road Olympus Studio service centre for serious image banding problems at high ISOs (ISO800 and above). Pictures taken at high ISOs, and when underexposed (<0.7 EV) or at shadow areas, tend to develop very obvious horizontal bands -resizing the image smaller makes them even more apparent, and I can't seem to find a suitable post-processing program or method to get rid of them. Shooting with or without Noise Reduction, mirror lock or not, or whether in RAW or JPEG doesn't matter much. Shooting slightly overexposed (>0 EV) minimises or totally eliminates the bands but in pictures with high contrast in lighting, the bands are unavoidable in shadowy areas.

After keeping my camera for a week, the service centre returned to me with an 'assurance' from the technician that "it's normal", and upon being asked whether she had asked Olympus Japan about it, the reply was a callous "Why should I?". But at least I was assured that they'll try to find out more but I guess it was forgotten as soon as I left as it's been over a week and I've heard nothing. I guess I shouldn't expect much from a service that doesn't respond to emails -I had originally sent emails with links to sample pics detailing this problem many weeks prior to my eventual visit to their service center.

Anyhow, I eventually got in contact with a Olympus Japan service rep through email and the communication was mostly generic and unhelpful suggestions ("use noise reduction! avoid shooting at high ISOs!") and ended with a "please send your camera to your nearest service center". I was hoping for a definite confirmation by Oly Japan on whether it is:
a.) A problem with the whole product line
b.) A problem with just a batch of the product line
c.) Neither a. nor b. so it must be something wrong with my camera alone.

I am suspecting it's either b. or c. as I have tried out another E-330 body at the service center and I could reproduce the banding, and I have not seen any worser pictures of banding than mine on the 'net. Through my searches, I was made aware of similar issues that plague the early batches of Canon 1Ds, 5D, 20D DSLRs but Canon acknowledged those as product defects and took appropriate steps to address them (mainly firmware fixes) even though they weren't always 100% successful fixes.

So, I wonder if anybody here has had similar banding issues (also with other Evolts like the E-300 or E-500) or any other serious hardware or support issues that they had to escalate past the Olympus service desk to their management and through which channels or contacts?

Thanks in-advance for any leads and advice.

Olympus S'pore support staff, if you are reading this, the Job Number assigned to my case is:
C2006090096


Sample pictures displaying banding (Warning! Large 4MB files!); you may need to resize the photos to fit your screen or smaller to better notice the bands:

http://www.box.net/public/zp5jfm85vs (ISO 100 + weak fill flash)
http://www.box.net/public/jey2l9fefb (ISO 800, natural lighting)
http://www.box.net/public/dmmg754km2 (ISO 1000, natural lighting)
http://www.box.net/public/lxvfgh4dy6 (ISO 1600, natural lighting)
http://www.box.net/public/2s7feivv4x (ISO 1250, natural lighting)

Here's a horrific one:
http://www.box.net/public/dke67zlr2q (ISO 1600, natural lighting)

Here's the 'horrific' example resized smaller for convenient viewing:

[Blu-By-U]

Blu own a E-330 as well. Please explain what should blu be looking for? What's this "image banding"? From the picture, blu see diagonal "lines" from top right to botton left at about 45 deg clockwise. Is that what you are talking about?

[cjtune]

Originally Posted by Blu-By-U Blu own a E-330 as well. Please explain what should blu be looking for? What's this "image banding"? From the picture, blu see diagonal "lines" from top right to botton left at about 45 deg clockwise. Is that what you are talking about?

Yes, in the last picture, the lines do take a diagonal pattern as well as a horizontal structure. Those are the bands I'm talking about. In the first few pictures, notice the bands form in the shadow areas under the teddy bear and get progressively worse as I crank up the ISO.

Try taking pics at ISO800 till ISO1600 at subjects/backgrounds that are featureless so you can better see the banding. Deliberately underexpose your pics. You can start at -0.7EV till -2EV. Even better, find a composition that has both bright and dark areas, ie. with high contrasts, eg. a naturally-lit window of a room with a dark interior.

If you don't see it, then it's case (b) or (c) with me, and please tell me your camera body's serial number if you don't mind. If you do see bands, then it's case (a), a problem with all E-330s. Either way, something is wrong with my E-330 and is still unresolved. My E-330 is most probably one of the earliest releases, as I bought it the first few days it started selling in Singapore.

Thanks for helping to verify this with your camera.

[wrx_sti_22b]

Geee, call me stupid but i can't see where is the banding... sometimes i find my pics taken by my E-330 looks weird at the sides but i tell myself probably it's the f stop, depth of field not right or if not it's coz by the Sigma 18-125mm lens which i have on it... i have not suspected the camera itself yet...

[Mikefellh]

I agree...anything above ISO400 you can't complain about. Why do people expect high ISO to be noiseless, film isn't! Show me an ISO100 picture with that quality, and then I'll tell you you've got a problem.

[Blu-By-U]

The banding is there...but at ISO1600. I had the camera to the D Stabilization mode. Then viewed it on teh computer. the banding lines are there but mine is not 45 deg. it more like 10~15 deg off verticle. Oh yes, if you resize the shot, the banding dissappears. Wonder why.

[cjtune]

Originally Posted by Mikefellh I agree...anything above ISO400 you can't complain about. Why do people expect high ISO to be noiseless, film isn't! Show me an ISO100 picture with that quality, and then I'll tell you you've got a problem.

I expect noise, not bands! Show me high ISO films that bands!

[cjtune]

Originally Posted by Blu-By-U The banding is there...but at ISO1600. I had the camera to the D Stabilization mode. Then viewed it on teh computer. the banding lines are there but mine is not 45 deg. it more like 10~15 deg off verticle. Oh yes, if you resize the shot, the banding dissappears. Wonder why.

Perhaps you could share some pictures so that I can compare its banding severity with those of mine? Thanks.

It would be great if I could just resize a pic smaller and the bands become not noticeable, but anything A4/8R/Letter or smaller prints will display the bands. I do not expect noisy photographs at high ISO to be of high quality enough to be printed on A3 or B+ sizes, but surely it can do better at A4/8R/Letter size or smaller.

[tomcat]

I don't like to take ISO 1600 pics but from those that I had taken for testing purpose when I first bought the E-330, I don't see any banding problem at all, like these after resizing...





I also don't see any banding even when I reprocess the RAW files to deliberately under-expose them by up to -2EV.

[Blu-By-U]

Shot in Jpeg.

[cjtune]

Looks like I'm not the only one...

Blu, when did you buy your E-330?

Tomcat, normally, if you have a scene that's fully detailed the bands are hardly noticeable. It's only when you have featureless backgrounds that the bands become painfully obvious. Perhaps you have a better built E-330?

Either way, I am still wondering how to escalate my case to get proper attention from Olympus.

[megaweb]

What software do you resize your photo ? What is your workflow ?

I have downloaded 1 of your original jpg and resize by breezebrowser, I do not have any banding issue. See the image below

[cjtune]

Hi Megaweb,

The there are 5 teddy bear pictures. 1 each at 100 ISO (with slight fill flash), 800 ISO, 1000 ISO, 1250 ISO, and 1600 ISO, with increasing severity levels of banding at the shadow areas to the bottom right. The one you resized, is probably the 100 ISO pic and shouldn't have any noticeable banding so that the high ISO shots can then be compared against it (lest someone claims the wall itself gave rise to the banding patterns). It's stated in its file name.

My workflow is pretty modest:
1.) Snap in JPEG least compression.
2.) Upload to PC.
2b.) Append to JPEG file names.
3.) Upload from PC to box.net.

Thanks for helping to investigate. If you know of any workaround I can do in post-processing I'd be very thankful for that tip too since I'm not expecting a full nor speedy fix on the hardware/firmware side anytime soon (or maybe even till my camera body's warranty expires March next year!). The bands seem to be the most prominent in the blue colour channel.

[Blu-By-U]

Don't think there is gonna be a solution in this. The banding is like a visual illusion. If you zoom in, with any photo editting software, to the band, it does not show up as clusters of darker or lighter dots.

Another thing blu noticed is if you use nay software to Rotate the picture, the bands "dissappears".

BTW, have you tried printing them out? Do them bands show up on prints?

[cjtune]

Originally Posted by Blu-By-U Don't think there is gonna be a solution in this. The banding is like a visual illusion. If you zoom in, with any photo editting software, to the band, it does not show up as clusters of darker or lighter dots. Another thing blu noticed is if you use nay software to Rotate the picture, the bands "dissappears". BTW, have you tried printing them out? Do them bands show up on prints?

Actually yes, I did print out the ceiling fan picture to present to the Oly tech support and it was reproduced ad verbatim on paper.

I use both MS Picture Manager and Paint Shop Pro X, and rotating the picture in 90' increments do not make the bands disappear. I have tried splitting my banded pictures in PSP X and tried to blur or clone brush them out on the blue channel where they are very prominent hoping to solve it, but it just ends up messing the colours when recombined. If they were just visual illusions, then photo-effects like blur shouldn't have any effect on them, would they?

The bands are large-scale structures. If you do zoom in to near pixel-scale level, you will hardly notice it. But then again, I don't think most ppl will pixel-peep at pictures. Ppl look at pictures as a whole. This is also counter to traditional noise. By resizing photos smaller, the effect of noise and grain ought to be less noticeable.

Even if you print at full size (about A3+ for 7.5MP pics), I think you'd still be able to see the bands when viewing the larger pix from a distance. Larger pictures are meant to be viewed at a distance anyway. If you have such a size of a photo printer or are willing to pay the photo developers for such large prints, you may want to try it out to confirm your theory of a visual illusion. I have access to one such photo printer, and even if it works, the practicality of printing these sort of pics on expensive A3-size photo media everytime to minimise it is questionable.

[bernstein1234]

Originally Posted by tomcat I don't like to take ISO 1600 pics but from those that I had taken for testing purpose when I first bought the E-330, I don't see any banding problem at all, like these after resizing... I also don't see any banding even when I reprocess the RAW files to deliberately under-expose them by up to -2EV.

From the cat pic, i tink there is some fine 'strips of lines at the top right section. But is due to the noise grains. But overall not that bad as compared to threadstarter's one

[Blu-By-U]

Hey look at this...Noisy , yes but no banding

I shot the same but RAW instead of JPEG. Converted to JPEG with rawShooter. Resized with Corel PS X for uploading. Think the problem is in the camera's JPEG engine.

[say123]

hmmm could it be due to the sensor as well since it is using a different sensor compared to the rest of the e series?

[Blu-By-U]

Both of my shots were done with the same E-330. only the earlier was in JPEG and the latest in RAW. So why the difference. OlyFlyer, shoot in RAW and see.

[say123]

Originally Posted by Blu-By-U Both of my shots were done with the same E-330. only the earlier was in JPEG and the latest in RAW. So why the difference. OlyFlyer, shoot in RAW and see.

hey blu, maybe its really the JPEG compression.

There are many modes of compression (jpg) for e330. maybe you can try at different compression setting on a same subject?