K10D vertical pattern noise problem

[chals]

I am about to buy a K10D, but what is the vertical pattern noise problem I have heard of?

I experienced an annoying banding problem with a Nikon D200 i bought a year ago. Had to change to D2x wich I am selling now.

But I dont want to run into the same kind of problems with a new camera.

My typical pictures are at 100 iso tripod f=8 (11 with the K10d?) shutterspeed between 1/30 -3sec

I print typicaly 70x100cm

will dark areas suffer in a way?

Hoping for good news:

Cato
       

[AndrewShirley]

I noticed the vertical banding ONCE in 900 pictures.  In order to see it, I had to take my most severely underexposed shot - I'm talking metering directly off of the sun, then I had to process the RAW and WAY over expose it to show the details that were blacked-out.  That's when I saw the vertical banding throughout all the places where it was previously black.

Keep in mind, I'm talking extreme conditions here - ones that you would NEVER ever replicate for a photo.  It was completely unrescuable, even without the banding.

- Andrew

[Spot Focus]

I am about to buy a K10D, but what is the vertical pattern noise problem I have heard of?

I experienced an annoying banding problem with a Nikon D200 i bought a year ago. Had to change to D2x wich I am selling now.

But I dont want to run into the same kind of problems with a new camera.

My typical pictures are at 100 iso tripod f=8 (11 with the K10d?) shutterspeed between 1/30 -3sec

I print typicaly 70x100cm

will dark areas suffer in a way?

Hoping for good news:

Cato
       

Hi chals this banding has apparently been addressed with a firmware update v 1.10
http://pentaxworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=264.0

[AndrewShirley]

Hi chals this banding has apparently been addressed with a firmware update v 1.10
http://pentaxworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=264.0

My firmware is the latest and I still got banding.

But do remember, the banding is only apparent under extreme conditions that no one will ever use.  It is not present under normal or low-light conditions on my camera.

- Andrew

[benjikan]

As I stated earlier.  I will be meeting with President of Pentax France this weekend with the the head of Photographer Relations and the Commercial Head. They are coming to my photo shoot. I will address this banding issue with them to see if they would pass the info on to Tokyo...

[k|dFrY]

Speaking on behalf of my k10 and experience only, I've noticed that my banding problem typically occurs when using the following settings: shooting in RAW, low light situations coupled with high ISO parameters. (ALL three scenarios have to be present)

Normally, the only areas that I see the banding occur are the dark black areas of my photos. Oddly enough, this issue is hit and miss with me. This problem does not seem to surface when shooting in any of the two jpeg modes.

Indeed, I am running the latest firmware.

[Joshua Hakin]

I experienced an annoying banding problem with a Nikon D200 i bought a year ago...
But I dont want to run into the same kind of problems with a new camera.
My typical pictures are at 100 iso tripod f=8 (11 with the K10d?) shutterspeed between 1/30 -3sec
       

If you are shooting at ISO100 then you have nothing to worry about... in fact ISO100 on this camera is awesome!
I have the problem only at 1600ISO where it shows in the shadow areas. I eagerly await hearing what benjikan may find out for us.

But once again ISO100 is fantastic and there's no problem... maybe up to ISO400 too, but I haven't shot at that yet to try it.
Also note, the Nikon D200 banding was something different, from what I've seen anyway.

[Bronek]

I can see (again) that people confuse two things: banding and pattern noise. While banding can only occur in long exposures and has been fixed in firmware 1.1, pattern noise can still be seen under extreme conditions for pictures taken with "shorter" (less than 1s, I'd guess) times. The difference between the two is:
- banding are very thin stripes of colour and can be seen on very few cameras
- pattern noise is, well, noise that is not quite random and its dots appear to form loose stripes. I'd guess that all cameras have it, if you push hard enough (my *ist DS exposes much worse noise artifacts than my K10D, when pushed by the same degree)

[Joshua Hakin]

Thats right.
We are referring to the vertical pattern noise, as per the threads title.

[k|dFrY]

Thanks Bronek! I see the two different threads now. I appreciate the clarification! I'm still learning! 

[Bronek]

Cato, I cannot tell for sure, but I'd be surprised if your K10D won't produce clean shadows, in its optimal (ie. lowest) sensitivity. This is exactly where this camera excels. In my own private testing, K10D produced much better blacks (and colours, too) than *ist DS, but I do not print in large format.