E-330 horizontal banding and lackadaisical Oly support

[cjtune]

Try this. Set ISO to 1600 then at the EV, -1.0 then shoot anything with a flat out of focus background. It can be a table lamp or even a flat wall. Then look at the background.

When I was at the Olympus service desk, I just shot their wall signboard. The other part's of the off white wall showed the banding and the engineer went ooohhh... when he saw it.

Contrasty (big difference in brightnesses of areas) images will help bring out the bands even more.

LOL, it's be quite comical if that shot of the signboard with the Olympus logo got posted up here or elsewhere. That'll be like a slap to their name brand; a graphic association with the noise banding... :bsmilie:

 

[Blu-By-U]

Better not. They are trying to help and it would deter future buyers of the camera.

 

[tomcat]

It is not as if banding is a problem that's solely exhibited by Olympus DSLRs anyway. Some unlucky owners of Nikon D200 and Canon 20D have reported suffer similar problems at one time or another.

 

[Blu-By-U]

Think Oly only need to tweak the software and release a patch that all. Since it's not in your L1 which have the same sensor, so it's not a hardware problem. Someone may have over looked it.

 

[drewdam]

Think Oly only need to tweak the software and release a patch that all. Since it's not in your L1 which have the same sensor, so it's not a hardware problem. Someone may have over looked it.

i am still waiting for jp to reply me on the firmware for that silly <4s NR issue..no new from them. ;(

 

[tomcat]

Think Oly only need to tweak the software and release a patch that all. Since it's not in your L1 which have the same sensor, so it's not a hardware problem. Someone may have over looked it.

Could it be due to some leaky circuit in affected cameras causing interference patterns to be formed in the digital image under certain exposure conditions? This could explain why it is not observed in every E-330 camera. :dunno:

 

[Blu-By-U]

Strange phenomena ...need to call in the Witch Doctors or spiritual healers!!!:bigeyes:

 

[cjtune]

Better not. They are trying to help and it would deter future buyers of the camera.

Yes, they have been trying to help me since mid August.
You are right, Blu, if someone had posted up pictures as badly banded as mine, I would be a E-500 or 350D owner now reading this thread and saying to myself "poor early adopters...".


xxxxxxxxxxxxx <cjtune@gmail.com> Sep 1
to hot_mail.osp@olympus.com.sg
date Sep 1, 2006 12:18 AM
subject Re: Horizontal banding in pictures!
mailed-by gmail.com
Hi,

Can I have a response, please?


Regards,
Tune
- Hide quoted text -


On 8/19/06,xxxxxxxxxxx <cjtune@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am a owner of a Olympus E-330 DSLR.
> I find that at high ISOs (>800), that very visible horizontal banding
> appears in the pictures that I take, most notably in areas of uniform
> details and of dim lighting. This has lead to a few of my photos being
> unusable even though everything else is of acceptable noise and detail
> -the horizontal banding is the proverbial 'fly in the soup'.
>
> I've provided a link to two examples of this phenomena (taken at 'P'
> setting, -0.7EV, at ISO 1600):
>
> http://www.box.net/public/dke67zlr2q
> http://www.box.net/public/q918gpf16y
>
>
> Please tell me if this is a defect with my particular camera body
> (S/N: B90501124) or with the product's design, and more importantly,
> how can it be addressed.
>
> Thank you.
>
>
> Regards,
> Tune
> (h/p: xxxxxxxx)
>

 

[cjtune]

Could it be due to some leaky circuit in affected cameras causing interference patterns to be formed in the digital image under certain exposure conditions? This could explain why it is not observed in every E-330 camera. :dunno:

Yup, that's very likely, just like the Nikon D1's case. Some faulty electronic oscillator circuit, and not its CCD.

Not all electronic components are made alike so probably some bad batch of circuit boards with marginal specs managed to find their way through the factory QC and into the camera bodies. Those that are well within specs are probably more stable at the more strenuous signal amplifications at high ISOs and with weak signals from low light shots, and have stable output time-after-time.

 

[cjtune]

Today I have exchanged my E-330 body for a new one at the Olympus Studio service centre.
The new body's performance in terms of high ISO banding is the same as observed in the demo unit that I used when my original E-330 body was being serviced. I took the new body for a test drive at Vivocity and shot about 100+ shots at high ISOs and the worst I got were these two:

The bands are still there, but it's much better than my original E-330's. Most of the other shots, including many deliberately underexposed, were quite decent with minimal or non-noticeable banding.

Two candidate new E-330 bodies were presented to me at the Olympus Studio and I shot at high ISOs underexposed and did the long exposure lens-cap closed shot for the both of them (and inverted the dark shot and expanded their histograms to bring out the noise pattern). Of the two, one had the diagonal-ish banding that plagued my original E-330 body. The other, with just some horizontal banding, I accepted.

After handling 5 E-330 bodies (My original E-330, Oly Studio demo unit, some shop's display unit, the two candidate E-330's presented to me today for the one-to-one swap), I doubt there is any E-330 that will not show banding, and in my hands now is a unit that has 'mild' banding which is quite usable for most shots. Curiously, there seem to be two distinct populations of banding for E-330's. One type which is very noticeable and more diagonal, like on Blu's camera, my-ex, and one of the new candidate E-330 replacement bodies, and another, which is mild and seen in my demo unit and the replacement unit I own now, and in most other ppl's E-330's.

Life goes on... and many thanks for Olympus Singapore for following up till now and arranging for this one-to-one swap.

 

[Blu-By-U]

Lucky you. Got mine back yesterday..Oly M'sia's engineer says they are waiting for Oly Japan's reply. According to him, he have directed Oly Japan to this particular thread. (Yet to see any respond from them here anyway.)

As for me, I gotta live with it till a solution in found. So sad...

 

[cjtune]

Lucky you. Got mine back yesterday..Oly M'sia's engineer says they are waiting for Oly Japan's reply. According to him, he have directed Oly Japan to this particular thread. (Yet to see any respond from them here anyway.)

As for me, I gotta live with it till a solution in found. So sad...

Don't worry Blu, I'm sure Oly will come up with an amenable solution for you, as it was for me, though I had to wait for some time. From your vacation photos, I'd say your usage of your E-330 is giving you fantastic results. I use a lot of high ISO shots for indoor and street photography, even with the 14-54mm lens, but since they are mostly candid and for fun and not for earning money (yet), I can live with the mild banding of my new E-330 body.

 

[Blu-By-U]

Olympus better come up with a solution fast, since the banding is seen on all the E-330 you have tested. They will be on the loosing end. Already the market is small, Will users/potential buyers overlook the banding for the LiveView?

 

[microcosm]

Olympus better come up with a solution fast, since the banding is seen on all the E-330 you have tested. They will be on the loosing end. Already the market is small, Will users/potential buyers overlook the banding for the LiveView?

Really, there is no need to overeact. Not everyone will shoot ISO1600 -1EV all the time. I know this is a pain when you need to, but rarely we have to shoot at this setting.

 

[Blu-By-U]

I would not have complained if the banding did not appear in 1 of my holiday shots. I was not using EV- just that I was using the camera's idiot mode, D Image stabilization. If that can happen to me, I am sure it can also happen to other users. Even tho it's only 1 shot out of 50+ shots...

 

[microcosm]

Thanks for sharing this info. I guess I make it a habit of shooting at max ISO800 in desperate situations and that is why I have never come across this issue. I usually shoot at Aperture Priority.

 

[cjtune]

Thanks for sharing this info. I guess I make it a habit of shooting at max ISO800 in desperate situations and that is why I have never come across this issue. I usually shoot at Aperture Priority.

Yeah, mostly the candid shots when flash is not allowed or not effective or cannot be mounted in time. Shots that one doesn't really care too much about sharpness or detail, but just to capture the 'moment'. Oh.. and what are those lines in my picture? Arrgh!

It's quite difficult to avoid the bands in my previous E-330 body. As I have shown with my example pictures they can turn up at 0, +1, and +2 EV biases too, as long as there's some shadowy region in the shot. So deliberate overexposure to avoid it may not always work.

 

[Blu-By-U]

..... Oh.. and what are those lines in my picture? Arrgh! ...

Yeah like me. Though I avoid using the ISO1600..but during the holiday, had to shoot from a distant, use the idiot mode and presto!!! magic lines. :bigeyes: :sweat:

 

[Blu-By-U]

First of all I am sorry I brought this issue up again.

I first though that this banding is isolated to myself and cjtune but it's not. I posted up a help on another fourthird forum asking for E-330, Leica Digilux 3 and Panosonic DMC-L1 users, to help in conducting a test.

In the short 2 days, 2 responds came back 2 E-330 and 1 L1. Results were banding seen on the photographs. I know that Uncle Tomcat is a L1 user, but his did not show any banding any other L1 user around, please assist.

here is the link to the other forum http://fourthirdsphoto.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=11773.
(admin/moderators, please remove link if you find that it's unnecessary)

 

[cjtune]

I really hope Oly support can change your E-330 for you, Blu.
If they do, please do that negative dark image + histrogram stretch trick to weed out the banding units.
Of the 2 new units that were offered to me as replacement, 1 showed the same severity of banding as my previous body, and it was because I brought along my laptop with my copy of Paint Shop Pro X installed that I could tell it apart from the good one (which is serving me well till now). With that rate/probability of finding bad banding bodies, I refuse to believe that we're a very small minority. It's most probably most others have been resigned to using ISO400 or lower.