Frustrated beyond belief with vertical banding

[Azmyth]

my banding doesn't look like that, I think mine is fixed pattern noise.

 

[Cavemandude]

or mine is fixed pattern noise and yours is banding...

Randy

 

[mimirsan]

I have several Canon FD lenses including the 50mm f1.4 and they in no way rid the GH1 of banding issues.

This example took all of 5 minutes to do just now with a Canon 50mm f1.4 lens, f4, 1600 ISO at 1/50. First pic is just resized and the second one is brightened up to show the banding more easily.

Send me anyone else's GH1 and I bet I can produce the same banding problem with any lens.

Shooting at 1600 iso will dramatically increase banding and thats expecting too much from the camera shooting high iso and wanting a clean image...and the other guy saying he has banding at 200-400 iso must have a faulty GH1...are you guys shooting MJPEG or Avchd? Major increase in FPN and banding in MJPEG mode.

Ive never experienced any banding like ive seen in those samples shooting under 800 iso with all auto assisting image functions off in 44mb avchd.When I get a free moment I will upload samples.

 

[Lpowell]

Two more frame grabs in dimly lit circumstances. These were shot with an Olympus 14-54mm f2.8-3.5 Mark II zoom on a GH1 using my Anamorphic 60Mbps MJPEG patch. Nostalgic Film Mode, Contrast -2, Sharpness 0, Saturation -2, Noise Reduction +2. The only post processing done was to resample the vertical size in Photoshop, from 1920x810 to FHD 1920x1080. With this patch, JPEG Quality Level was 100 for both images, producing maximum MJPEG bitrate.

ISO200, 1/60 sec, f2.8, 63Mbps:

ISO800, 1/30 sec, f3.0, 47Mbps:

 

[omnidecay]

One thing that I know a lot of people have issues with can be solved with just adding more light. It was said on the very first page but when lighting for dark scenes. You illuminate the entire image and then add more light on the areas that need special brightening. For example if you were shooting a dark/dramatic interrogation scene. Illuminate everything and then add more light over the person being questioned. Then you take that clip into post and contrast/darken the image to your liking. This camera does act weird at times in terms of banding (esp that fixed pattern) but really the amount of light needed is usually a mis-understood concept.

That doesn't mean you have to always shoot day-for-night but you noticed yourself the banding goes away in the day. On your next production or location tests try getting a few more fills and seeing how much of a difference it can make. If you want good guides on lighting check out anything related to theater. Most sets are lit identically and can really give you a real understanding of how to make all the fake look more like the real.

I guess the only other option is to get a camera with a bigger sensor but I prefer to just get an extra 1k or 2k.