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Author Topic: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(  (Read 6703 times)

marcio_napoli

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Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« on: October 02, 2013, 12:44:25 pm »

Hi!

Long time poster on other forums, but first time poster here.   ;D


If anyone can help me out, I'd love some imput.

In 2012, after lusting for 5 years, I've bought my first digital back, a Leaf Aptus 5  22mp. Paid a small fortune, and needless to say, all DBs are tremendously expensive here in Brazil.


I LOVED the IQ from this back, till 5 months ago, when the back (all of a sudden), started presenting shadow banding.


It's that pattern:

ISO 25:  shadows start to band after 2 - 3 stops push in Camera RAW (CS6).

ISO 50: shadows band after 1 stop.

ISO 100: shadow banding without any shadow lifting.  (important note: banding here is worse than a 5d mark II)

ISO 200: forget it.  Worse than any cell phone out there.


My digital back became an ISO 25 camera, and one that I have to "baby" the shadows exposure, or else I'd better shotting with a P&S or a Canon Rebel.


I've contact my local dealer, and they made me send RAW files for 3 months, wich were them sent to Phase One's analysis.  It took 3 months before recognizing the problem!

They kept saying my back was operating under "expected / normal performance".    Such a lie.  >:(     BS !!!!!!!!!


After 3 months, I've convinced them to send it in for factory calibration.   It's been past 2 months since, and still wasn't even send to Phase One factory.   (my back is still under the local dealer's care, in their assistence room).


Guys, has anyone ever seen something like that?

Can a digital back present shadow banding all of a sudden? It just happened overnight.     


I guess my A/D converter suffered some form of failure, as I doubt it's sensor related problem.

But, can an A/D converter present such problems overnight?



And when my back returns (hopefully this year :( ),   if the problem is still there (a plausible possibility), how can I deal with Phase One to honor their duties?

Anyway,  I've totally lost confidence in them.


Love their DMF cameras, but their customer relationship is worse than lepper.


Any advices?

Thanks a lot for your thoughts
 

Marcio Napoli
www.marcionapoli.com
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MrSmith

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #1 on: October 02, 2013, 02:17:35 pm »

Pushing 1-2 stops? Working in 8bit? It's hardly surprising you have banding. Your monitor could also show banding that will not be there in print.
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marcio_napoli

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2013, 03:14:43 pm »

Hi,

I really appreciate the reply, but I can't go through this process again :)  Not after 3 months proving it's defective.

I'm pretty sure what I'm doing with this back.


It was totally banding-free (does that word exist?) until somepoint in May.  After that sudden point, it became a 5d II regarding to banding. (much worse, actually)

I can only assume A/D converter has degraded somehow, and is introducing banding. I'm no sensor engineer, but I believe the A/D converter is throwing in some electrical interference, which is causing the banding.


About the 2 stops lifting, my old Nikon D200 can do that without any problem.  It will sure introduce (random) noise, but not a hint of banding or any nasty pattern.

Files from that back are 16 bit, and yes, I know that lifting 2 stops at ISO 25 is not something I'll routinely do.

But, really?? Do I really have to accept an expensive piece of kit (paid 22 grand in local currency) to have banding at ISO 50 or 100 ???

Is it acceptable that a 22 k camera becomes an ISO 25 only camera?? Not even ISO 50 ??  While a Canon Rebel can do much better than that?


Thanks for the reply, but I'm sure Phase One has to act, and not be saying lies (regarding "it's working as expected") for 3 months. 

I've paid for this back. It's in the warranty.

It should be fixed without any questions or delay from them.


They should just act with professionalism.


Marcio Napoli
www.marcionapoli.com
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TMARK

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2013, 03:29:17 pm »

My Aptus 54s never had any banding, but then again neither did my three 5D3s.  I never used it over 100iso.

I've only experienced banding in digital cameras in my Leica M 8/9s.  Usually battery or card related, like battery being under 70% charge or using cards that write too fast.  have you shot tethered and experienced the issue?  What about cards? The slower the better, for these older electronics.

T
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #4 on: October 02, 2013, 03:38:31 pm »

Hi,

Can you post an example of the banding?

I wouldn't really except banding in the shadows. MFDBs are not very tolerant of underexposure and I would not underexpose on my P45+ or use it above base ISO.

That said, I often expose for the highlights, resulting in a dark image, but I have never seen banding

Best regards
Erik


Hi!

Long time poster on other forums, but first time poster here.   ;D


If anyone can help me out, I'd love some imput.

In 2012, after lusting for 5 years, I've bought my first digital back, a Leaf Aptus 5  22mp. Paid a small fortune, and needless to say, all DBs are tremendously expensive here in Brazil.


I LOVED the IQ from this back, till 5 months ago, when the back (all of a sudden), started presenting shadow banding.


It's that pattern:

ISO 25:  shadows start to band after 2 - 3 stops push in Camera RAW (CS6).

ISO 50: shadows band after 1 stop.

ISO 100: shadow banding without any shadow lifting.  (important note: banding here is worse than a 5d mark II)

ISO 200: forget it.  Worse than any cell phone out there.


My digital back became an ISO 25 camera, and one that I have to "baby" the shadows exposure, or else I'd better shotting with a P&S or a Canon Rebel.


I've contact my local dealer, and they made me send RAW files for 3 months, wich were them sent to Phase One's analysis.  It took 3 months before recognizing the problem!

They kept saying my back was operating under "expected / normal performance".    Such a lie.  >:(     BS !!!!!!!!!


After 3 months, I've convinced them to send it in for factory calibration.   It's been past 2 months since, and still wasn't even send to Phase One factory.   (my back is still under the local dealer's care, in their assistence room).


Guys, has anyone ever seen something like that?

Can a digital back present shadow banding all of a sudden? It just happened overnight.     


I guess my A/D converter suffered some form of failure, as I doubt it's sensor related problem.

But, can an A/D converter present such problems overnight?



And when my back returns (hopefully this year :( ),   if the problem is still there (a plausible possibility), how can I deal with Phase One to honor their duties?

Anyway,  I've totally lost confidence in them.


Love their DMF cameras, but their customer relationship is worse than lepper.


Any advices?

Thanks a lot for your thoughts
 

Marcio Napoli
www.marcionapoli.com
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torger

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2013, 02:37:16 am »

Please post some images showing the banding, it will be helpful to see what the problem is. Generally the noise profile of a MF CCD sensor is rather nice, ie randomly distributed without any bad banding issues, if we by bad mean what you can see on a typical Canon camera (eg 5D mark 2). If it's as bad or worse as a Canon 5D mark 2 when you run your Aptus at ISO 25, then there's definitely something faulty. Some backs do show some slight banding, but not so it disturbs and I have never seen anything as bad as my Canon.

At other than the base ISO the performance can drop drastically for some backs, not sure how the Aptus 22 behaves though.

Phase One/Leaf support can be very troublesome to deal with, I've been through a year-long support issue with my Leaf back (it went in four times), but it did turn out fixed in the end. If you want to shoot medium format all the time you need a medium format backup back, because support can take ages. You also need to be stubborn and not give up until they've met their promises.
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ced

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #6 on: October 03, 2013, 08:00:36 am »

Put up a raw file and let some others confirm yes/no with their software/setup tools.
I would like to try this too so put it where we can download the .mos file uncompressed but zipped and maybe even a cropped tiff that shows your result and what bugs you.
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eronald

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #7 on: October 03, 2013, 08:26:05 am »

Phase one support is as good as your dealer. If your dealer is good it will be really great, if your dealer is bad the experience will be horrid. Either try and ship the thing back to the factory direct or name and shame the dealer until warranty service occurs. My experience with banding (a P45+)  was that Phase will do just about anything they can to make a problem go away rather than supply a replacement. Interestingly enough, the customers of the dealers who post on this forum seem to get really good service. This is probably because these guys have good relations with the mothership, and also because they know the product so well they diagnose and solve minor hardware or software issues on the spot.

Edmund
« Last Edit: October 03, 2013, 08:38:11 am by eronald »
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #8 on: October 03, 2013, 08:45:05 am »

+1

Erik

Put up a raw file and let some others confirm yes/no with their software/setup tools.
I would like to try this too so put it where we can download the .mos file uncompressed but zipped and maybe even a cropped tiff that shows your result and what bugs you.
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Juanito

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #9 on: October 05, 2013, 12:30:32 pm »

I had a shadow banding problem with a Leaf back however it's impossible to know if it's a similar issue without seeing a file. Is it new or used?

ced

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #10 on: October 05, 2013, 03:06:10 pm »

Looks like marcio vanished off the face of the earth...
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HasseyOwner

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #11 on: November 11, 2014, 06:32:52 pm »

Hi guys and gals, greetings. Like the original poster from a year ago, I'm also a 'once in a blue moon' visitor, usually from search engines looking up answers, and thus my visit. I don't know if his problem is mine, as I'd also like to see his problem images, but this is one of mine and sounds similar (thus keeping this old tread alive, it comes up on search engines still). I'd call is streaking, but 'banding' works. Magenta (purple) steaks, always vertical, and quite intermittent (the worst kind, huh?).



Some research shows it happens to both Leaf Aptus 65 and 75 models, on Hassy's. Mine is a 500 CM.

I shoot with four prime Zeiss lenses:
40mm (CF) 'wide angle'
80mm 'normal lens'
120mm (CF) 'slight telephoto'
250mm 'long lens'.

What I've noticed so far:
Sometimes all is fine, but then the streaks start happening. I change lenses, all's well, then put it back on, and sometimes it's fine, but sometimes the streaking continues.
So many times I can't stop it from happening and have been tying to find a remedy as of late (I've only used the camera twice, for a Cuba series back in May of 2013 and recently in Argentina, May of 2014).

I've done a bit of research, and see it's not only my Leaf Aptus that's having this problem.
I see someone reported seeing it on a Leaf Aptus 75 they were testing, over on the Leaf Aptus website:

It never happens with the 120, CF lens!

It does seem to happen more with my 250 mm longer lens, and it's intermittent. I've got the whole system, lenses, back and camera, all in the repair shop, giving all a CLA (clean, lubricate and adjust), which I must do every few years (every year or two when I did three trips a year, now I'm only on the road once or twice per, and always 3 to 4 weeks).

So, I've got a feeling the connection from the lens to the back (sync cord) could be the problem. But then again, when I first took it in to Professional Photographic Repair in San Diego the repairman ran a test on conductivity of the synch button and said conductivity on all four lenses was fine. Hummm?

So I'm thinking it might still be the fact that the earlier lenses, not being CF's, might not have the ability to give it enough signal, even if it reads fine?


Thanks in advance if you know what's going on and will report back here.
MS

PS Never shoot less than one second exposures.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2014, 06:36:09 pm by HasseyOwner »
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Doug Peterson

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #12 on: November 11, 2014, 06:50:08 pm »

Shutter is mechanically lagging. The circuit to the flash sync port is closing prior to the cessation of light. The light is therefore hitting the sensor during its readout, causing this issue. This is not uncommon with older 500 series lenses.

This is wholly unrelated to the issue discussed on this thread, which mostly seemed to be that the OP's dealer provided very poor support when his camera started showing an electronics issue.

Have the shutter replaced, or serviced by a service team that understand the flash-sync/shutter-performance requirements for good operation with a digital back (rather than film).

Or work with your dealer on some of the work arounds (since you do long exposures they are more manageable) including manually starting and stopping the digital exposure and firing the mechanical exposure independently during this exposure.

NickT

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #13 on: November 11, 2014, 06:51:07 pm »

Let's not call this banding.

This is streaking or ghosting and is caused by a timing/sync issue. Sorry I cannot provide more information as I'm not a leaf user but used to see this years ago when I still used V system (with an Imacon back).
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NickT

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #14 on: November 11, 2014, 06:51:51 pm »

What Doug said :)
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HasseyOwner

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #15 on: November 11, 2014, 06:56:57 pm »

Thanks guys.

Never had this problem with the film, and have shot thousand of negs before buying this digi back.
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NickT

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #16 on: November 11, 2014, 07:09:10 pm »

Well you wouldn't have this issue as it just sits there waiting for some light... A digital sensor need to be told what to do :)
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HasseyOwner

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #17 on: November 11, 2014, 07:24:35 pm »

Shutter is mechanically lagging. The circuit to the flash sync port is closing prior to the cessation of light. The light is therefore hitting the sensor during its readout, causing this issue. This is not uncommon with older 500 series lenses.

This is wholly unrelated to the issue discussed on this thread, which mostly seemed to be that the OP's dealer provided very poor support when his camera started showing an electronics issue.

Have the shutter replaced, or serviced by a service team that understand the flash-sync/shutter-performance requirements for good operation with a digital back (rather than film).

Or work with your dealer on some of the work arounds (since you do long exposures they are more manageable) including manually starting and stopping the digital exposure and firing the mechanical exposure independently during this exposure.

I had a feeling I might need to get the newer CF lenses after seeing the two I have work fine with this back.
Thanks again,
MS
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Bernd B.

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #18 on: December 31, 2014, 09:08:05 am »

This is for HasseyOwner:

Have you tried to set your back to "Large Format" instead of "Hasselblad 500" in the settings of your back?

This often solves a lot of problems.

Next step: have you tried a different sync cable?

Good luck! And please let us know about the result.

Bernd
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HasseyOwner

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Re: Need help! Shadow banding on a Leaf Aptus back :(
« Reply #19 on: December 31, 2014, 02:46:37 pm »

No, I did not hear/read that setting it to large format would possibly be a fix. Thanks. I've just purchased a newer 250 CF* (Excellent condition for only $300) and it seems to work just fine. That was to replace one of the two older ones I have that was giving me fits. I've only shot a few frames so I'll have to see, but so far it's taking one second exposures just fine. The 80mm will be next, unless this works.

I'm now trying to get the new Capture One 8 program to see the back on tethered. It doesn't. I read where a lot of guys had that happen, it see the camera but does not allow importing of images.
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