K20D vertical banding

Wow, just tried Matt's recommendation using 'geometric NR' in SilkyPix. Works like magic!
So should that feature show itself again when I take my once-in-a-lifetime shot I'm now prepared.
Thanks Matt!

Stefan, you can download a trial version of SilkyPix. It really is worth it (though I haven't used Adobe Camera Raw since I have Silky and the last version I used was CS (without any numbers)).

Prieni

Glad to help Prieni

Well I've tried it... I'm just missing things.
Now I use Lightroom 2 and Photoshop cs3 and it's just an good combination that Silkypix can't replace or at something to it, so I'm sorry but I will stick with Adobe.

Really thanks for the suggestion it's a great program for that price so I would recomend it to everyone that are searching for such programs from now on

Stefan

No problem at all
I have Lightroom and Photoshop CS2... There are things that could be improved with the SP workflow... however, I haven't been able to beat the overall image quality of SPDS3 (especially when it comes to high ISO work).
Personally I do the majority of adjustments in Silkypix and then "polish off" and do creative work in Photoshop
Matt

Hi I'm a newbie here, both to Pentax and these forums. Didn't want to start a new thread, but I've recently noticed the same banding on my K20D.
Does anyone know any more about this, I read somewhere (can't remember where now of course!) that a camera sent back to Pentax for this problem was cleaned and sent back with "No problem"
Is it worth contacting them in this case?
I don't think it's the IS. I did wonder at first, but the last incidence of the problem was on the tripod with IS turned off. It seems to happen after taking several shots with a cold camera, although the EXIF shows 20C as camera temperature. Intermittent faults in any type of electrical / electronics gear are the very devil to solve!
Very strange whatever the cause. I must say I don't really want to invest in new software to solve the problem. Anyone know if there's any chance of a firmware fix. This problem seems to be showing up in lots of these cameras. Mine has about 3500 shots on it now.
All comments on this slightly disjointed post gratefully received.
Dave

I've got this problem on my k20d too. It happens independently of iso setting (auto- or with manually chosen isos of various values) and is not sd card related - I have experienced it with 3 different cards from multiple manufacturers and all formatted in the camera. It's also not just in the dark areas of the photos. What's more, it seems to be happening more often in my photos over the last while. Has anyone else had any more experience?

My Samsung GX-20 has this fault too.

I bought my GX-20 back in May. In one of my early sessions with this camera I spotted a few images with the vertical banding, only about 3 images in a batch on one day. I thought it might be an issue with the memory card, so I used a new Sandisk 8GB and observed no re-occurrances until November.

However at the start of November, on a cold icy day in Glencoe, I found about 30% of my images had problems. Some had strong banding, others suffered severe posterisation of some colours, and some had large horizontal bands with purple discolourations. Most of these pictures are unuseable.

You can see the faulty images for yourself on FLIKR: link.

The sample images with "_Small" at the end of the name are exports from Lightroom using the default "As shot" settings from the DNG file. The images with "_Crop" in the name are 100% crops of problem areas, although I have tweaked the levels on some to make it easier to see the issues.

Two samples of these are shown below for convenience. The first has a purple horizontal band:



And this image shows how the vertical banding changes at the point a horizontal band occurs:



Clearly the camera is faulty so I sent it into Samsung to be repaired providing many of the above faulty images on a DVD. They returned it back saying no fault found, vertical lines are due to under-exposure.

I was a bit shocked by this response. I can understand it is hard to fix the camera if you cannot reproduce the fault to debug it. However I think there are enough examples of this banding on K20Ds to indicate there is a clear fault with some of these cameras, and I think it is not acceptable for a normal camera to produce some of the images I show - noise may be a fact of life but horizontal purple zones are clearly unacceptable on any camera in my opinion.

I have since found an interesting discussion on PentaxForums.com on "K20D vertical strips" that has further examples, and a suggestion on how to reproduce the fault. One user has the same horizontal regional banding I encountered.

Despite the fact that it seems cameras sent in with this issue are being returned un-repaired, my feeling is that if you have this vertical banding on your camera you should still send it in in an attempt to get it fixed. Whilst the banding may be a minor inconvenience at the moment, the fault may provide much worse images in the future as I have found and wreck important pictures. If Pentax receive enough cameras with this issue reported they may eventually take it seriously and do something about it. If you can find a way of repeating the fault on your camera then telling Pentax how to do this may help. Definitely provide RAW images illustrating the banding so they can at least look at the image data. I would also let them know you have seen identical faults reported on the Internet by other users and maybe provide them links to other users' experience - it might just persuade them to accept there is a real issue and do something about it.

I am now somewhat in a quandry. I don't feel I can trust this camera anymore. I could right off the £500 it cost and go back to my DS. I really have spent too much on the lovely lenses to change brand. I will probably continue to see if I can find a reliable way of reproducing the fault on my camera on demand, and also see if I can investigate the RAW data itself to see if I can observe what is going on. Maybe if I can analyse the fault further I may be able to convince Samsung to take the camera back again and fix it. It is a great camera when it works.

Note, PhotoME says the camera was built in February 2008 and indicates temperatures of 4-8C, however I reproduced banding today in the house at about 15C.

Paul (mera),

does the original EXIF say something about the shake reduction? I noticed that you used 200 ISO. Is that your standard setting?

I use 200 ISO and this dynamic range enhancing thingy as a standard and had the problems, as it seems, only when using shake reduction but not waiting long enough for it to lock on. (Though I have to admit that I haven't really followed up on it.)

Prieni

I normally shoot 100 ISO but as evening approached I switched to ISO 200 for a few pictures. Banding appeared at both speeds - I don't think it is ISO dependent.

Most of my failures were with SR on and stabilised, but I have reproduced a few with SR switched off - again it does not seem to be a factor.

Does someone know if the software/firmware that process the image is the same on both the GX-20 and the K20D?
I know that the jpgs come out differently but don't know about the raws but if it does then we can conclude it's the hardware that is making the banding or Samsung is so unlucky to copy the fault in his software

I've only had my K20D since the beginning of December and haven't had alot of opportunities to take many photo yet but I have noticed quite a few that I have taken have vertical banding.


200% crop (well near enough I think, couldn't work it out.:roll

There's lots about this problem on the web. To be honest I don't want to play the "send it back for a corporate speak reply" game. Maybe it will tell them there's a problem, but I'll have a guess that Pentax know that already, they just don't want to admit it and open the floodgates to giving out new cameras.

I have just checked my K20D's and so far no banding, when the Nikon D2X first came out that had banding and Nikon sorted it out with a firmware update, hopefully Pentax now about this and will do a firmware update.

I now use Lexar SDHC or Kingston SDHC since 2 Sandisk failed on me.

Glad to hear you don't have the banding. Apart from anything else it shows that not all the cameras are affected. I just hope you're right about the firmware. As I said in my previous post, I'm sure they know there is a problem, apart from anything else I can't see any manufacturer not being interested in what's being said on a forum about their products. As you say, let's hope they're working on a firmware fix!

Are we talking RAW or JPEG when the banding occurs?
I haven't seen a single image with banding from my K20D but I only shoot RAW.