[cats_five]

But you have saved it as a JPG to get this result and it's what you've done to get there that IMHO is the problem. I have opened it with Photoshop. It opens in ACR first, I clicked the 'Open Image' button, then converted to 8-bit colour and saved as a JPG. Nothing else, no editing, no sharpening, not resizing, and the result has a perfect sky. There is nothing at all wrong with the camera, the memory card or the file format, it's all in the processing.





Original size:
All sizes | SHOT2187 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[lockheed]

But you have saved it as a JPG to get this result and it's what you've done to get there that IMHO is the problem. I have opened it with Photoshop. It opens in ACR first, I clicked the 'Open Image' button, then converted to 8-bit colour and saved as a JPG. Nothing else, no editing, no sharpening, not resizing, and the result has a perfect sky. There is nothing at all wrong with the camera, the memory card or the file format, it's all in the processing.

Sorry to say but the banding is still there, even in the full size flickr image. It is less noticeable, but appears clearly in the upper10-15% of the photo. Or is it just this crappy lcd display I have at work?

[cats_five]

Sorry to say but the banding is still there, even in the full size flickr image. It is less noticeable, but appears clearly in the upper10-15% of the photo. Or is it just this crappy lcd display I have at work?

Think it's your screen. The sky isn't even from top to bottom but I can't see any banding here on a good-quality IPS screen.

[simico]

I can't see any banding on the full size pic. And I'm viewing it on a crappy monitor. I can see some faint noise in the middle area of the sky, but no banding at all.

[lockheed]

Sorry to say but the banding is still there, even in the full size flickr image. It is less noticeable, but appears clearly in the upper10-15% of the photo. Or is it just this crappy lcd display I have at work?

Well, looking the same flickr photos now on my iPad I can see no banding at all, nor the large pixelation in 100%. Very strange. At work (Win7 64bit, 32 bit colors, Dell P2210 display) these faults are clearly visible

Damned if I know why this happens.

[Quicksand]

Wikipedia says the Dell P2210 is a 6-bit color monitor, which means there are only 64 shades of blue going from black to full-on-blue.

Sadly, that's not all that unusual with cheap LCD monitors.

[Jewelltrail]

But you have saved it as a JPG to get this result and it's what you've done to get there that IMHO is the problem. I have opened it with Photoshop. It opens in ACR first, I clicked the 'Open Image' button, then converted to 8-bit colour and saved as a JPG. Nothing else, no editing, no sharpening, not resizing, and the result has a perfect sky. There is nothing at all wrong with the camera, the memory card or the file format, it's all in the processing.





Original size:
All sizes | SHOT2187 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Cats, trust me, I want to believe you. Thank you for all of the help and everyone else here too. Here is my question: If it the processing which causes the problem, how come it only happens here & there, with no rhyme or reason?


edit: BTW, I use an old CRT monitor, which I prefer to the new LCDs.

[cats_five]

If it's the processing I suspect it's happening a lot more but only some pictures show the result. Can you describe, exactly, how you processed to produce the banded sky? What software, what steps? So that someone else can reproduce the banding?

[Jewelltrail]

If it's the processing I suspect it's happening a lot more but only some pictures show the result. Can you describe, exactly, how you processed to produce the banded sky? What software, what steps? So that someone else can reproduce the banding?

I take a pic in Raw. I open the file in Raw with Faststone and save as a jpg. It is that simple. Even before I save as a jpg, the banding is in the viewable raw with Faststone.

This does not happen with every shot, in fact it comes & goes--most annoying and peculiar. I can take 100 landscapes with the same lens & sky conditions, come home and open them with Fastone, and some will have the banding, and some will not. It can happen in DNG or PEF.

[JohnBee]

Sorry to say but the banding is still there, even in the full size flickr image. It is less noticeable, but appears clearly in the upper10-15% of the photo. Or is it just this crappy lcd display I have at work?

Definitely the screen, viewing on a CRT here and the sky is smooth as butter.
Not saying this was the same as the OP posted(banding was visible on CRT too), but in this case, its more likely the screen.

[cats_five]

I take a pic in Raw. I open the file in Raw with Faststone and save as a jpg. It is that simple. Even before I save as a jpg, the banding is in the viewable raw with Faststone.

This does not happen with every shot, in fact it comes & goes--most annoying and peculiar. I can take 100 landscapes with the same lens & sky conditions, come home and open them with Fastone, and some will have the banding, and some will not. It can happen in DNG or PEF.

OK, having downloaded Fastone and had a little play I'd say that is where your problems are. I altered the RAW settings (F12) and when I reloaded having choosen the 'slow' versions, it no longer displays the banding when the image is shown full-screen. You also want to look at the JPEG quality it's showing at the bottom of the 'save as' dialog - the default seems to be 90 and it saves a lovely smooth image. However if you go into the Options for the JPG Save As and fiddle with that quality, you can make the banding come back.

NOTE: Altering the settings didn't seem to improve things until I reloaded it.

[Schraubstock]

Hi
Mysteriously, I had the pixellated steps appearing in some of the clear and bright blue sky portions of some of my shots (taken with the K-7) also. At the time I remembered that the previews on the camera screen as well as the thumbnails showing on computer are actually highly compressed JPGs. I shoot raw and did not worry about it because I knew once the raw files are converted to an 8 or 16 bit per channel colour space this problem would disappear. (And it did)

Than I started to wonder why some pictures taken only seconds apart of the same sky display this phenomenon and others do not. So I started to experiment and quickly found out that (from my front door) if I point the camer in a certain direction to the sun (bright sunny day) the sky would be pixllated but if I turned on my heals away from the first shooting position by approx. 90º the sky was rendering perfectly. I could reproduce this (with the K-7) from my front door on a clear and sunny day every time.

So I think this phenomenon, which by the way seems to be to a certain degree lens dependent has, as far as the K-7 is concerned, a lot to do with the position of the sun relative to the camera sensor plane.

Now I have the K-5 and from the same position at my front door I can not replicate this strange phenomenon.

Greetings from sunny Melbourne

[Jewelltrail]

OK, having downloaded Fastone and had a little play I'd say that is where your problems are. I altered the RAW settings (F12) and when I reloaded having choosen the 'slow' versions, it no longer displays the banding when the image is shown full-screen. You also want to look at the JPEG quality it's showing at the bottom of the 'save as' dialog - the default seems to be 90 and it saves a lovely smooth image. However if you go into the Options for the JPG Save As and fiddle with that quality, you can make the banding come back.

NOTE: Altering the settings didn't seem to improve things until I reloaded it.

Cats5--thank you, once again, for the amazing & generous effort you have given me here. I did check settings for jpg save, which were @ "90," but I upped them to a 96. The banding still there, but the good news is I'll be loading CS 4 soon, and the problem, hopefully, will be all gone.

Schraubstock Hi
Mysteriously, I had the pixellated steps appearing in some of the clear and bright blue sky portions of some of my shots (taken with the K-7) also. At the time I remembered that the previews on the camera screen as well as the thumbnails showing on computer are actually highly compressed JPGs. I shoot raw and did not worry about it because I knew once the raw files are converted to an 8 or 16 bit per channel colour space this problem would disappear. (And it did)

Than I started to wonder why some pictures taken only seconds apart of the same sky display this phenomenon and others do not. So I started to experiment and quickly found out that (from my front door) if I point the camer in a certain direction to the sun (bright sunny day) the sky would be pixllated but if I turned on my heals away from the first shooting position by approx. 90º the sky was rendering perfectly. I could reproduce this (with the K-7) from my front door on a clear and sunny day every time.

So I think this phenomenon, which by the way seems to be to a certain degree lens dependent has, as far as the K-7 is concerned, a lot to do with the position of the sun relative to the camera sensor plane.

Now I have the K-5 and from the same position at my front door I can not replicate this strange phenomenon.

Hi Schraubstock! Thank you for this very interesting explanation. What you have written seems to best describe what I have been experiencing, off and on, for a few years now. I am grateful you took the time to relay your experience here--thank you for your help. BTW, which lens caused the problem for you?
And THANK YOU to everyone else who reached out to help me--mucho appreciate.

[Schraubstock]

Jewelltrail

I use the Tamron AF 24-135mm f/3.5-5.6 SP AD Aspherical (IF) most of the time. It is an absolutely stunning piece of glass with very little (if any) faults. Except for the strange phenomenon which seems to occur with this lens as explained above. It does not bother me at all because I know it has no detrimental effect on the quality of the photos I take. The only other lens, of a total of nine I own, where I have noticed this is the SIGMA DC 18-50mm 1:2.8 EX.
Its a beautiful lens in any other respect.

Greetings from sunny Melbourne

[simico]

I open the file in Raw with Faststone and save as a jpg

Check your settings in Faststone. Seems like yours is set to save the embedded low quality preview jpg and not the processed raw data - no wonder you get banding if you save the low quality preview jpg.