The Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 has horrific flare characteristics

boxerman wrote:

Henry Richardson wrote:

I can't speak for everyone, but your impression that one must boost the shadows to see the banding is wrong. It is in the mid-tones too and ruins photos. Why do you make claims about things that you admittedly have not experienced?

Could I politely suggest that you did not read my post very carefully? I said "I am sure it [banding] exists..."

Then I noted that USUALLY posts use high ISO and low-level boost to demonstrate banding, and I am pretty sure I can stand by that without doing a statistical analysis. When I said usually, I meant usually. I did not say that one must boost the shadows to see banding, which is what you attributed to me.

And then I explained that the reason--almost certainly--that I haven't experienced banding is that "I limit my ISO to 1600." Olympus describes the problem as a "high ISO" issue. Not seeing banding below 1600 (or at it) is my experience, not something that I have not experienced. I think it is useful to know that. I think it is consistent with what most people who have looked at ISO-dependence of the phenomenon report.

I'm not sure why you seemed to want to read my post in such a non-literal and challenging way. Do you need people to deny banding (and made me into one) in order to make your points?

markitosh also insisted on ignoring my calibration that I shoot at or below 1600 ISO and went on to say he found banding from 2000 - 4000. Excellent additional information. Now, together, we've got probably a decent calibration where you do and don't see banding (...much--please, again, I'm not making categorical statements).

Gee, a lot of negative vibes. I guess people just got riled up with the thread and poured out the rile somewhat indiscriminately.

It happens at 1600 ISO without raising shadows, as well: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/51951109

I think the negative vibes are coming from people who, like me, have had images unnecessarily ruined by this banding. It rubs me the wrong way to hear people try to minimize a problem that's very real for me, a photographer who also has max ISO set to 1600 on his E-M5.

1600 ISO, no shadow-pushing, plenty of banding = a ruined image that might have otherwise turned out quite nice.