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Trying out the R4

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wardy_

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Well i was lucky enough to borrow an R4 for the day today and tryed it out. Im definetly an ametuer when it comes to photography and my current camera is the G3. I took a lot of photos and put it to the test and here are some i came up with. I would love some feedback please.
Was impressed with this picture



Its hard to tell because the photo has been resized but there is a lot of banding in this picture. This is at full zoom. Any ideas on how to prevent this happening?



This one came out alright, except the headland opposite was a bit overexposed. Again its hard to tell since its been resized.



At full zoom this photo has a lot of banding as well. Ill have to put up some cropped pictures of this because it looks fine when its resized! Again any ways to prevent this would be appreciated.



At this range, these came out just fine:





And was very impressed with how these photos of the duke came out!:





The macro mode is excellent and even i could come up with some good decent pics:







I also tested out the flash (now you believe me when i say i put it to the test!)

The flash seemed a bit overpowering and i was able to get better results with my 3mp ricohG3.
G3 with flash:



R4 with flash: (and yes i know my dog is spoilt rotten!)



Those were taken with setting all on auto, but after changing something (not sure what), i came up with a less bright photo. The dog seemed happy about it to ;)



I also tested the flash out in macro mode in the dark, again i found the flash a bit to powerful so some tips in this area would be great.
The G3 with flash:



The R4 with flash:



I may have gone a bit overboard with the amount of images ive put here but yeah some comments on the photos would be great. Because the only thing thats stopping me from getting this is the banding and some noise that it picks up, but if i know its preventable or removable then the camera is considered sold :D
Full album at http://www.flickr.com/photos/11716430@N00/sets/72157594228614392/
 
To me some of the images look like they have a smudge on the lens. The R3/R4 seems very sensitive to any dust or fingerprints. You have to keep it extremely clean.

From what I've seen, the banding comes about when there is lens flare, always shade the lens front from direct sun.

And scenes from Manly to Harbord, hmmm, another Aussie. This Aussie off to bed now.

Regards.............. Guy
 
wardy_ said:
Because
the only thing thats stopping me from getting this is the banding
and some noise that it picks up, but if i know its preventable or
removable then the camera is considered sold :D
Click to expand...
Good pictures!

Banding is preventable by using ISO 64 (not so hard to do since banding is related to very bright scenes, see below) - on my system it is practically invisible at 64 and barely visible at 100, but from 200 on can be repeated very easy - when taking pictures in strong sun with a LOT of bright blue (sky, water) at the tele end (200mm, if you go 1-2 steps towards the wide end banding will be gone even at 200 ISO). However removing those on postprocessing is VERY HARD!

Normal noise is easy to remove - and again a little tweaking of the settings can generate great results!
 
Guy Parsons said:
From what I've seen, the banding comes about when there is lens
flare, always shade the lens front from direct sun.
Click to expand...
Hmm, I have extensively tested that and (at least on my system) flare had very little or nothing to do with the banding problem - of course flare is bad by itself but the banding problem is more like something related to the sensor, A/D convertor and some of the in-camera processing !
 
I have pictures on ISO 64, with severe banding, so using lowest ISO is no guarantee for banding.

Could it be possible that the banding is created through reflections of the side of the plastic arrround the lens?

--

Greetz
Allejandro

----------------------
Ricoh R4
Probably the best (P&S) camera in the world!
 
Thanks for the replys. Well i couldnt resist and ive ordered a black R4, should arrive tomorow cant wait :D
 
You won't regret it. Hopefully the camera you get will be less susceptible to banding. I've only seen it once on my R4 so far. I put it on Flickr (No 16). The banding is visible in the flare where the sky meets the river. Most people say it only happens at full zoom, but this was not my experience.

All that said, I have no regrets. If a 28mm lens is a priority, and it is for me, it does limit your choices in the compact range.

I'd love to see photo's of the Bondi to Coogee cliff walk......if you're ever over that way.

Enjoyment,

happytraveller.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/happytraveller/
 
Dr. Leonard said:
What is banding? I don't see anything in the photo.
Click to expand...
Here are a couple of crops from the other ones i took to show you what i mean. Looking at it again its accually not that bad and shading the lens might make the difference.




happytraveller said:
I'd love to see photo's of the Bondi to Coogee cliff walk......if
you're ever over that way.
Click to expand...
Yeah ive done that walk before its great. Ive got pictures around somewhere taken with the G3 but the hard part is finding whereabouts they are!

On another note i got my R4 today, ill give it a good test on sunday at the city to surf.
 
I forgot, The more mathematical information I have about it the better, so start posting!
 
I would like to help, but what do you mean with mathematical info?
--

Greetz
Allejandro

----------------------
Ricoh R4
Probably the best (P&S) camera in the world!
 
The better I know the problem the better I can fix it.

So I need to know:

If the banding is alway´s at a fixed interval?
Is it linear, sin, ,log or just an offset ?
Every information you can give me is welcome.

All time I can spend programing in stead of studying the problem is welkom.
 
rvvoorden said:
The better I know the problem the better I can fix it.

So I need to know:

If the banding is alway´s at a fixed interval?
Is it linear, sin, ,log or just an offset ?
Every information you can give me is welcome.

All time I can spend programing in stead of studying the problem is
welkom.
Click to expand...
Do you plan on a firmware fix in the R4 or for a software fix in post-processing ?

Post-processing might have major limitations since the information seems to have been lost.

For a firmware fix you obviously need the source code of the existing firmware :)

You can also take a look at some of the information in many threads on that subject - including http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1013&message=19294669
 
what do you think, I'm not more then one hundered years old so I'm not Einstein, I can't decompile the Ricoh firmware fix it and then put it all back i the camera in one weekend. No it will be PP. I think that will fix the problems of most R4 users not?
 
rvvoorden said:
what do you think, I'm not more then one hundered years old so I'm
not Einstein, I can't decompile the Ricoh firmware fix it and then
put it all back i the camera in one weekend.
Click to expand...
Deep inside I still hope that 'somewhere' there is some Ricoh engineer that might still be alive ... so far it seems that japanese companies managed to keep all those under a very secure lock since nobody has ever seen one 'visiting a customer forum' :)
rvvoorden said:
No it will be PP. I
think that will fix the problems of most R4 users not?
Click to expand...
I am extremely curious ...
 
I think they already know what the cause of banding is, but have most likely found it can only be fixed by a revision of their hardware chip. They would be very reluctant to mention this as it would be too costly and most likely impossible to fix before the next model is released. The reason I have come to this conclusion is because it would be a very simple problem to solve so they should already know the cause by now.

I have noted in previous threads that it can already be easily fixed in PP by applying deinterlacing, for odd then even lines. I did this to one of mine and it came out perfectly.

I can easily live with this flaw as it only affects a couple in 1000 in my R4 with the way I generally shoot.

Brian
 
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