Panasonic 20mm 1.7 ii on epl-5

Ulric wrote:

Verbatimium wrote:

Just watch out at higher ISOs...

I had the 20mm (older version) on my PL5 and I had the notorious horrible banding issue with it at higher ISOs of 1000+. Ruined too many pictures for me so I got rid of it for the Oly 17mm and never looked back. The problem was never fixed with the newer version of the lens.

If you use this combo in decent light environments and do not shoot above 1000 ISO, it is a great set. If you like low light photography, then forget it.

My experience is that the banding can happen at any ISO setting. The net result is a huge reduction in useable dynamic range, because the way to avoid the banding is to drown it. I.e, where you would otherwise get noise in the shadows, you get banding long before the noise becomes an issue.

Yes, the banding is latent even at lower ISOs but you'd be hard pressed to see it at those ISOs unless you start pushing the shadows.

Some ideas about how to reduce if not completely eliminate the banding at the stage of shooting here

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/50092818

and some ideas about how to reduce its visibility in PP in this thread

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3532757#forum-post-52061838

Note, with regard to the first link, that it appears to be the lens rather than the camera that benefits from being "warmed up" before shooting and that you don't actually need to shoot images to do so. Exercising the AF mechanism a bit (some 5 to 10 AF cycles) appears to do the trick. I should also mention that I am still uncertain about how well this method generalizes to other copies of the lens and body than my own. So YMMV. Furthermore, it is clear to me by now that it doesn't remove the banding completely. However, it tends to reduce its visibility by reducing the likelihood that you get broad, low-frequency banding of the kind illustrated in the post I link to.

The banding can occur on any body using a particular, otherwise excellent, Sony sensor: Olympus E-M5, E-PL5, E-PM2, E-P5 and Panasonic GH3.