E-330 horizontal banding and lackadaisical Oly support

[microcosm]

Blu, what baffles me is that, are you aware that all Olympus products are internationally warrantied? This means you can strut into any Oly offices on this planet and get the unit repaired or swapped. You are not at the mercy of Oly Malaysia. Just produce proof of purchase and warranty card, or whatever proof that you have.

This is obviously a manufacturing issue and it is painful for me to see you having to be tortured by your camera. It is supposed to be bringing hours of pleasure to capture images that means something to you, and now you are skeptical about using it in low light and it is not serving you well.

Bro, I feel for you, please get the unit repaired or changed. I am sure any other decent Oly offices will be more than happy to help you. Just prepare the "evidence" of your camera performances and send that together with your camera. Your sister is in Singapore right? Ask her if she can help you sort this out. In the worse case, I am more than happy to give you a hand.

 

[Blu-By-U]

CJtune, have a look at this picture...The fine banding is also seen. That is an L1. If this is so, then can I just say assume that it's the sensor that's playing havoc? If it's the sensor, then what about the new E-400, E-410, E-510 and then the E-pro? They all share the same sensor abide the extra pixels.

 

[Blu-By-U]

Hi microcosm..it's now not about Olympus service malaysia anymore. If you were to read the other forum, the poor fella, jim, had the same problem and the problem is being sweep under the carpet as well. Further to that, if it's in all E-330 only thing is the degree of the severity of the banding, then even any new olympus which uses a similar sensor is going to have the same problem.

As cjtune mentioned, he tested 2 bodies and bot showed the same banding except one is less severe then the other. How is my sister in law gonna be able to do that test? She does not even use a camera.:bigeyes:

 

[cjtune]

As cjtune mentioned, he tested 2 bodies and bot showed the same banding except one is less severe then the other. How is my sister in law gonna be able to do that test? She does not even use a camera.:bigeyes:

Actually, I handled 5 E-330 bodies already.

1.) My original E-330 (BAD banding)
2.) Loan unit from Oly Support (mild banding)
3.) Demo unit from CP booth during some IT fair (mild banding)
4.) New replacement E-330 body 1 (BAD banding)
5.) New replacement E-330 body 2 (mild banding; I kept this one)

There are only two levels of severity I've noticed in those 5 bodies above. Either it's bad like yours, and my old one, or it's totally mild. No in-between severity levels.

The E-330 probably has a susceptibility to banding due to poor design margin already, and some manufactured batches have components out-of-spec enough to burst through that margin and show up as the horrible diagonal fuzzy bands.

 

[Blu-By-U]

Can you post a picture taken with your replaced unit? Is the banding anything like the L1?

 

[VSonic06]

Look for those Oly sales people who were at the event and show them THIS picture you took. The diagonal noise bands simply aren't acceptable in such lighting condition.

I get a feeling Oly service centers are reluctant to acknowledge this issue (ie. sweep under the carpet) as it could potentially explode into flood of users demanding replacements.

 

[cjtune]

Can you post a picture taken with your replaced unit? Is the banding anything like the L1?

Hi Blu. You can refer to the 2 pictures on page 9 of this thread, post#170.
I don't really know the level of banding with official market release L1's but pictures from a preproduction L1 (which I have provided a link to) shows rather bad horizontal banding.

 

[cjtune]

I get a feeling Oly service centers are reluctant to acknowledge this issue (ie. sweep under the carpet) as it could potentially explode into flood of users demanding replacements.

Actually, it's quite stupid not to address unhappy customers facing this issue.
Unhappy or even angry customers actively work against the marketing of the company they are unhappy with. Usually by seeking out others to whine to about their bad experiences and undermining future product sales across all product lines that might be worth many times more than the cost of servicing the original unhappy customer.

 

[microcosm]

Hi microcosm..it's now not about Olympus service malaysia anymore. If you were to read the other forum, the poor fella, jim, had the same problem and the problem is being sweep under the carpet as well. Further to that, if it's in all E-330 only thing is the degree of the severity of the banding, then even any new olympus which uses a similar sensor is going to have the same problem.

As cjtune mentioned, he tested 2 bodies and bot showed the same banding except one is less severe then the other. How is my sister in law gonna be able to do that test? She does not even use a camera.:bigeyes:

You do the test, print out the image and pass them to your sis lah... :sweat:

 

[Blu-By-U]

Heard that there is an Olympus Asian management meeting in Singapore. The Oly's service manager is bringing my shots down to ask the HQ service people. Let's hope for the best.

So for the rest of the E-330 users, please do the test. If there is banding, please complain.

 

[cjtune]

Heard that there is an Olympus Asian management meeting in Singapore. The Oly's service manager is bringing my shots down to ask the HQ service people. Let's hope for the best.

So for the rest of the E-330 users, please do the test. If there is banding, please complain.

Oly Support's hands may be tied too.
There may be things that their R&D do not want leaked to public and they may view the Support division as a very possible leak path of sensitive info to the public.
Maybe they just don't have ANY good idea as to how to address this, and that they may feel the importance of doing so has been diminished as the E-330 is a matured product by now and that they feel the volume of complaints... is manageable at the moment. Lacking any good way to fix the problem, they'd rather not anyhow give any instructions to Support to try to fix it -might actually mess other things up or leave customers more disappointed (like when they tried to swap the sensor of my first E-330 body)... and that there's also insufficient budget to fund for enough replacement units.

 

[Blu-By-U]

You got a point there cj. Somehow, I got this question ... since the new E line will be using a similar LiveMos processor. Will the problem affect the whole new line as well??

 

[cjtune]

You got a point there cj. Somehow, I got this question ... since the new E line will be using a similar LiveMos processor. Will the problem affect the whole new line as well??

Well, I'm hoping that the product launch delay is buying them time to correct issues like those and others. I'm really looking forward to own the E-1's successor sometime in the future (though I won't be an early adopter now!). I'd like to own a fully weather-proofed set and I only need that body now. I would be sad to part with my Zuiko 14-54 and 50-200 as they have been giving me wonderful images so far. But maybe that's because I have yet to be smitten by any Nikkor DX's or Canon L's...

Actually, I suspect the problem is more of an integration problem rather than something inherent in the Live MOS sensors. Do look back at the older posts in this thread where I highlighted a very similar banding problem on the Nikon D1 that was because of a faulty component on the main circuit board of the camera. So it could be something on the circuit board of the E-330's that was by design (or lack thereof) that can barely 'keep up' with the LiveMOS sensor's input/output requirements at high signal amplifications (high ISO).

 

[Blu-By-U]

I sincerely hope that is just that. With so many attractive offers from the Ns and Cs, as well as Ps and Ss...it sure is tempting to jump...but none have the LiveView as the E-330 have. Even the new Olys are not that attractive in that sense.

here are the shots that contributed to the Panorama of the Roadshow photo...see all the banding!!! strangely the banding disappeared after joining.

 

[Blu-By-U]

The rest of the photos....

 

[Blu-By-U]

Finally a reply from Olympus service.

Quote

Technical-Support

Dear Mr. Blu-By-u,

As we checked your pictures, we have confirmed
fairly amount of digital noise which may have been caused
by CCD trouble.

However, we have not received any other similar trouble report.

Please send the camera for check and repair at Olympus Malaysia.

OLYMPUS (Malaysia) SDN BHD
Suite D-10-P1, Level 10, Plaza Mont' Kiara,
2 Jalan 1/70C, Mont' Kiara 50480 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 603-6203-3882
Fax: 603-6203-3885
E-mail: service@olympus.com.my
http://www.olympusimage.com.my/customer/Customer/index.html

Thank you.

Sincerely,

X. XXXXXXX
Customer Support Center
OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. Tokyo, Japan

end quote.

 

[cjtune]

However, we have not received any other similar trouble report.

LOL. :bsmilie:

Officially, according to the Tokyo fellas, it seems you have beaten me to the spot of the FIRST PERSON EVER to report about the banding issue on the E-330. I will now have to hand that dubious 'trophy cup' (which I, in-turn, had probably got from someone else in the world too) over to you. :bsmilie:

 

[Blu-By-U]

So now they say to change the CCD. I though they initially did that to yours? or did they just gave you a swap?

edit.. Thank you for the Cup. Let see who I am going to pass that to next??

 

[tomcat]

...but the E-330 don't use CCD sensor ! It uses NMOS sensor.

 

[cjtune]

So now they say to change the CCD. I though they initially did that to yours? or did they just gave you a swap?

edit.. Thank you for the Cup. Let see who I am going to pass that to next??

I was assured by the Oly S'pore technician involved in my case, that she did change the image sensor. Whether it was actually done or not, or done properly or not, I don't know and it didn't matter as the banding was no better when I got it back after the supposed image sensor change. :dunno: