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Thoughts on the vertical banding in some SD1M images

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What I found is SPP converts all color noise coming from pixel CA, blotches, ... into B&W noise; at default 0 NR zooming at the dark you will see aggressively nasty painting strokes and I always keep luminance NR at -2 and denoise in PS - try Topaz DeNoise which bring up strong brightness at 400% for seeing it. I try Noiseware, Noise Ninja and Topaz and it depends on different scenes, each one has own advantage but my favorite is still Topaz which can clear banding at various low settings; in fact you can see slight banding anywhere in the dark.

Hùng
maple said:
Thank you, John,

By NR “0”, I meant the default setting of NR in the neutral position, both luminous and chromatic, while “-2” means all the way to the left. Basically we come to the same finding: leaving the luminous and chromatic NR at its default setting, i.e. unchanged, seems to be a good balance between keeping the vertical banding away and retaining fine details.

BTW, a few more words that I did not start this post for no reason, as some seem to have found it. Quite a few have suggested both luminous and chromatic NR should be set to minimum, i.e. to the left most position, for ISO 200 images. I had a different opinion and thought it may be a good thing to share it.

--
Maple
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mike earussi said:
rick decker said:
SPP only enhances what is already there (just like it can do with CA if you are not careful). Much of banding comes fron inadequate shielding of the lens AF motor.
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So you're saying that the camera body has poor shielding. Then have you tried AF vs MF and seen any difference?
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Huh? I don't understand why the SD1M body should have worse shielding than other SDx cameras. If it's inadequate shielding of the lens AF motor, then the problem is more likely to be in the lens barrel... or is it?

--
Regards,

Vitée

Capture all the light and colour!



http://www.pbase.com/vitee/galleries
 
While John find setting chroma NR to lowest is OK, you prefer -2 for lumin NR.

Your B&W in the shade theory is also interesting. I had read it from you somewhere else and I tried to boost colour saturation in shadows to see how it works. It did not respond well, suggesting that you are probably right.

I'll continue experimenting various tricks and settings.
--
Maple
 
Maple,

Yes, tricks with SD1M, one of my dirty test images to be processed:

Camera Jpeg:





SPP:





Tiff saved to PS, some quick tweaks to denoise, pin black and white, raise brightness and contrast:





In fact SD1M has quite decent DR near to my eyes, not too limited like some propaganda found here.

Hùng
maple said:
While John find setting chroma NR to lowest is OK, you prefer -2 for lumin NR.

Your B&W in the shade theory is also interesting. I had read it from you somewhere else and I tried to boost colour saturation in shadows to see how it works. It did not respond well, suggesting that you are probably right.

I'll continue experimenting various tricks and settings.
--
Maple
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maple said:
I haven’t done any serious test, but I have not seen any vertical bandings in SD14 images processed in SPP 5 with my regular and usually quite generous dose of processing (pushing). Accusing SPP doesn't stack up well.
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If you have problems with banding - then it is quite easy to test if it is a fault in SPP.

Just take the same image that has banding problems and extract the RAW image (e.g. by using my X3F tools). Then play around with contrast in Photoshop. If you cant get any banding - then its SPP that invents it. If you can find the banding - then its the camera - and SPP might only exaggerate it.

--
Roland

X3F tools:
http://www.proxel.se/x3f.html
https://github.com/rolkar/x3f
 
SigmaChrome said:
mike earussi said:
rick decker said:
SPP only enhances what is already there (just like it can do with CA if you are not careful). Much of banding comes fron inadequate shielding of the lens AF motor.
Click to expand...
So you're saying that the camera body has poor shielding. Then have you tried AF vs MF and seen any difference?
Click to expand...
Huh? I don't understand why the SD1M body should have worse shielding than other SDx cameras. If it's inadequate shielding of the lens AF motor, then the problem is more likely to be in the lens barrel... or is it?
Click to expand...
I am also somewhat surprised by Rick's conclusion. The camera is hardly focussing while doing any analog work, e.g. D/A conversion.

A more reasonable conclusion would be problems with the A/D conversion.

--
Roland

X3F tools:
http://www.proxel.se/x3f.html
https://github.com/rolkar/x3f
 
Hng said:
What I found is SPP converts all color noise coming from pixel CA, blotches, ... into B&W noise; at default 0 NR zooming at the dark you will see aggressively nasty painting strokes and I always keep luminance NR at -2 and denoise in PS - try Topaz DeNoise which bring up strong brightness at 400% for seeing it. I try Noiseware, Noise Ninja and Topaz and it depends on different scenes, each one has own advantage but my favorite is still Topaz which can clear banding at various low settings; in fact you can see slight banding anywhere in the dark.

Hùng
maple said:
Thank you, John,

By NR “0”, I meant the default setting of NR in the neutral position, both luminous and chromatic, while “-2” means all the way to the left. Basically we come to the same finding: leaving the luminous and chromatic NR at its default setting, i.e. unchanged, seems to be a good balance between keeping the vertical banding away and retaining fine details.

BTW, a few more words that I did not start this post for no reason, as some seem to have found it. Quite a few have suggested both luminous and chromatic NR should be set to minimum, i.e. to the left most position, for ISO 200 images. I had a different opinion and thought it may be a good thing to share it.

--
Maple
Click to expand...
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LOL !

That is what I call a photographer :D

--
http://www.hulyssbowman.com
 
JohnLindroth said:
Maple,

The vertical banding is one of the things that bothered me the most with the SD1 images. Since I'm testing out an original SD1, I've been looking for it, and trying to decide how to handle it. By setting NR to it's minimum (0 or -2, depending on your reference point) in SPP, it's more visible. The internal sharpening in SPP (why you want it set to -2) makes it more visible. The default setting in SPP (both chroma and lumin in the middle) seems to eliminate most of it, even moving chroma to the lowest is reasonable. I do see a slight softening of the image with this NR setting, but following up with a sharpening in photoshop of 0.1 or 0.2 pixels at 200-300% brings back the sharpness quite well.
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Can somebody point to actual photos where one can see this banding?

--
AF takes away the Zen in photography
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/prebenr/
M42 on Foveon: http://www.flickr.com/groups/m42-foveon/
 
mike earussi said:
Mostly Lurking said:
but from your recent posts I am of the opinion that you do not have an SD-1 or SD1M. That means that your post is based upon the on-line shots of others; always far less than perfect representations of photos. Still, your post comes across as that of an expert rather than opinions based on the work of others seen in an 'imperfect light'.

You may be completely correct in your assessment for all I know. However, not everyone who owns an SD-1 or SD1M is making the same complaints.

To be sure, my skills are probably not up to either camera and the cameras are probably not up to my lack of skills . No probably about it, my bank account is not up to either of them!

Regards!
--
William Wilgus
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There are plenty of raw files available online that anyone can process for themselves to see exactly how the SD1 looks. I've processed over 50 raw files myself even though I don't own one (and don't ever plan on owning one given it's buffer limitation) and have come to the conclusion that if you shoot at iso 100 only banding is minimal. And looking at the DP2M jpegs from Sigma's site what banding that did exist now seems to be gone.

Sigma does seem to be slowly improving the output of their 15mp chip and so I am looking foward to the next incarnation of the SD line, hopefully with a much larger buffer, faster processing time, and live view. With these three improvments coupled with the continued improvement in IQ from the chip the SD2/SD16(?) will finally be a camera worth buying.
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You forgot to add, as long as Sigma price them sensibly this time! :)
 
Roland Karlsson said:
Its all quite simple

If you cannot, via any manipulation of contrast, can get a RAW image to contain the banding - then its SPP that makes the banding.

If you can get the banding by e.g. increasing the contrast in a RAW image, then RAW therapy is "hiding" the banding.

BTW - no mater what the result of the analysing of the RAW image gives regarding banding - I am quite sure that this is not the cause for the loss of Foveon effect. I rather think it is lack of resolution - either by lack of good enough lens or some smoothing noise reduction or both.
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The latter intrusive and compulsary noise reduction being particulary efficient at reducing any resolution advantage the SD1 should supposedly exibit over the SD14/15...In practice, the only difference seems to be the SD1 gives you bigger images, but not noticably much higher resolution images. ;)
 
At the risk of ridiculing myself for poor photographic and pp skills.





Was I heavy handed with this image? Possibly, but not by a lot. As a reference: I just re-run this RAW file in SPP5.2 using the most benevolent adjustments: all 0 by auto; except exposure -0.4 (by auto); and sharpness -2 (manual), wb: sunlight, colour mode: neutral; NR, both chroma and luminance: at neutral position by default. And the result?

Vertical banding is less pronounced, but still clearly visible.
--
Maple
 
DaSigmaGuy said:
In practice, the only difference seems to be the SD1 gives you bigger images, but not noticably much higher resolution images. ;)
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Hi, DSG,

I respect you for your photographic skills and knowledge. But you may not have enough info to make a statement such as the above. The file below, for example, is typical of what I get from SD1M. It's about 3 times the size of a regular SD14 image size of similar scenes using the same lens and the same JPEG compression rate. Click on the file name to view the original.





--
Maple
 
Oh, it's not banding I think of, something's wrong here.
maple said:
At the risk of ridiculing myself for poor photographic and pp skills.





Was I heavy handed with this image? Possibly, but not by a lot. As a reference: I just re-run this RAW file in SPP5.2 using the most benevolent adjustments: all 0 by auto; except exposure -0.4 (by auto); and sharpness -2 (manual), wb: sunlight, colour mode: neutral; NR, both chroma and luminance: at neutral position by default. And the result?

Vertical banding is less pronounced, but still clearly visible.
--
Maple
Click to expand...
 
Yes, much more resolution that could be seen with any other Sigma camera. You can also see the banding in the upper left corner of the sky in the original size. I haven't printed any photos yet - will this all be a moot argument if the printing process makes the banding go away?

-John
--
http://www.johnlindroth.com/
[email protected]

My future starts when I wake up every morning ...
Every day I find something creative to do with my life.
--Miles Davis
 
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