[dr5chrome]

Hello all.

Having an issue with my K1. Ive only been at digital for a few years so its possible I have something set wrong, but as I know it, all is set correctly.

The attached is an area of one image [cropped]. Youll note the banding in the deep shadow area. I have it brighten up for this example. At nonreal density you can still see the banding, so the original image comes this way.

I never had these issues with film. On film The dark shadow area has a smooth gradation.

Is it the camera? My settings?.. How do I get a smooth gradation in the dark shadows?

Thanks! dw

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[Stefan Jr]

I had gradation-issues with my K1 too. But could never figure out "a fix".

Changed back to a APS-C (KP) - and the gradations were much better again.

Hope you solve it, looking foreword to following this thread.

[Medex]

Hello all.

Having an issue with my K1. Ive only been at digital for a few years so its possible I have something set wrong, but as I know it, all is set correctly.

The attached is an area of one image [cropped]. Youll note the banding in the deep shadow area. I have it brighten up for this example. At nonreal density you can still see the banding, so the original image comes this way.

I never had these issues with film. On film The dark shadow area has a smooth gradation.

Is it the camera? My settings?.. How do I get a smooth gradation in the dark shadows?

Thanks! dw

Do you shoot JPEG?

[Class A]

Youll note the banding in the deep shadow area.

Was it a very high ISO shot?
A combination of extremely high ISO, brightening in post, and strong cropping could produce some banding (might be better referred to as "quantisation issue" in this case).

It could also be a camera profile issue. If you can, try another camera profile (in a RAW developer).

If the image was shot as a JPEG, you shouldn't wonder at all since that format does not support smooth colour gradations, in particular not after cropping and brightening.

Changed back to a APS-C (KP) - and the gradations were much better again.

Just to be clear, this issue has nothing to do with APS-C vs FF (or KP vs K-1).
Perhaps you have used a slightly problematic camera profile for the K-1?

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Last edited by Class A; 01-23-2023 at 06:43 PM.

[Fogel70]

I believe this is a limitation of the 8-bit JPG image data. Which usually leave only a few gradients for the dark shadows.
Capture images in RAW and processing them in 16-bit before saving them as jpg usually give a much better result.

[Bob 256]

As mentioned, this is a digital compression artifact and won't happen with film. It's not to be attributed to the K-1 as all digital cameras will do the same thing under the right circumstances (which, in this case, you have come across). Less compression means better rendition but larger file sizes, so you have to compromise anytime you shrink files by using it. Also, at its base, digital representation of anything uses quantization. It's like representing a thickness with sheets of paper. You can't use half a sheet thickness, so there's always some error from the thickness you're trying for (unless you just happen to hit it dead on with a certain number of sheets). If you have a pile of 1000 sheets, you can make fine adjustments in the thickness, but if you're only dealing with a 10 sheet thickness, you can't make fine adjustments anymore, hence the reason you see this issue in the darkest areas of your photo (sometimes referred to as "posterization" since it resembles that effect of old).
Use of higher quality JPEG (there are different "quality" levels available in most cameras), and RAW as suggested above will lessen this problem. Also, don't try to stretch the shadows too much in post processing - kind of like moving those sheets of paper further apart but you still only have 10 to work with.

[dr5chrome]

yessir.. but not all the time. This particular image was jpg

Do you shoot JPEG?

---------- Post added 01-23-23 at 12:15 PM ----------

nosir.. 100iso. This shoot was a darker image, but on purpose. In studio with strobe. The setting i think was on "Natural"

dw

Was it a very high ISO shot?
A combination of extremely high ISO, brightening in post, and strong cropping could produce some banding (might be better referred to as "quantisation issue" in this case).

It could also be a camera profile issue. If you can, try another camera profile (in a RAW developer).

If the image was shot as a JPEG, you shouldn't wonder at all since that format does not support smooth colour gradations, in particular not after cropping and brightening.


Just to be clear, this issue has nothing to do with APS-C vs FF (or KP vs K-1).
Perhaps you have used a slightly problematic camera profile for the K-1.

If anything, FF is able to support smoother gradations than APS-C and the K-1 sensor has no banding issues.

[MarkJerling]

I believe this is a limitation of the 8-bit JPG image data. Which usually leave only a few gradients for the dark shadows.
Capture images in RAW and processing them in 16-bit before saving them as jpg usually give a much better result.

This! +1.

[Class A]

This particular image was jpg

This explains the artefacts you are seeing.

JPEG is a low-bit format which achieves phenomenal data reduction (compression) for natural scenes but

1. is an inherently lossy format (the more aggressive the compression, the more artefacts you'll see), and
2. only uses 8 bit per colour.

If you want to avoid or at least strongly reduce the issue you have encountered, choose the PEF or DNG format. This should give you a lot more headroom in editing.

As Bob 256 described, however, at some point quantisation will always become apparent, particularly in the shadows.
In the original linear representation there are eight values available to represent the lowest three stops whereas there are 57344 values available for the highest three stops.
This is alleviated to some extent by applying a display gamma transfer function which shifts some of the representation capacity to the lower end, but in the very darkest tones, you'll always see steps, if you brighten the image sufficiently.

[dr5chrome]

...thanks all.. because time is the most valuable thing.

dw