S5 Jpeg banding/posterization cause...: L-mount (Panasonic/Sigma/Leica) Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review (2024)

Since switching to Panasonic from Fuji, I have noticed more banding/posterization in the ooc jpegs than I noticed in my Fuji ooc images under similar shooting conditions. I usually shoot raw + jpeg, but I do like the convenience of ooc jpegs most of the time. I am trying to determine if the cause is intrinsic to my display, the editing program, or to the OOC jpeg itself.

Below are a full-sized export of the OOC Jpeg with no editing, a full-size export of a jpeg from unedited raw, a screenshot of the raw file displayed on my Lenovo 2560x1440 8-bit monitor (connected to my Mac Mini M2, using ON1 Photo Raw 2022), and finally the OOC jpeg filenotviewed/exported from ON1.

My questions:

1. If you have a 4k and/or 10-bit monitor, can you see the banding in the first OOC jpeg image, and/or in the jpeg of the unedited raw image? If DPR also adds some compression to the full-size jpeg this might be a fruitless question. Basically though I'm trying to figure out if my 8-bit monitor is now an issue with viewing Panasonic files, vs rarely seeing an issue with my Fuji files.

2. Could this be an issue with the editing program? I don't use Lightroom; I purchased ON1 2022 a couple of years ago and am lukewarm about it. Not sure it's a good fit with Panasonic; it has a profile for the camera but not for the 14-28 or the 70-300, and it doesn't get updates anymore. I trialled DXO's Photolab 7 and Filmpack 7 and really gelled with both programs, but at $370 USD for both it's not an expense I can justify at this time. I know there are usually sales in the fall though, so we'll see... I do export full-sized jpegs at 100% quality in sRGB.

3. Jpegs: yes, I do like shooting jpegs. Coming from Fuji I was using customized film simulations to get certain looks out of camera. I have been experimenting with the S5 jpeg settings, including custom white balances/shifts and other adjustments. I have been happy with the colours I've been getting, but in certain lighting conditions I'm just seeing more banding. So, could it be possible that the pixel density difference between the full-frame 24mp sensor and the 26mp APS-C sensor is a factor that affects banding? My former Fuji camera (X-T3) pixel density was considerably higher than that of the S5, and I'm wondering if that deals with gradients better? I'm not going to switch back as I'm now $4000 CAD into my new system, but I would appreciate insight into this specific issue. Thanks for taking the time to read all this

Out-of-camera JPEG no editing, viewed with banding in ON1 and exported as jpeg

RAW file no editing exported as jpeg from ON1

PNG screenshot of the raw file displayed in ON1

* After all the above, I am including below the OOC jpeg file straight from the camera (notviewed or saved/exported with ON1). When I open it with MacOS Preview, I see no banding. Can you? The same file shows banding when viewed in ON1, even before saving/exporting. I don't have th trail of DXO Photolab any more so I can't investigate this as much as I'd like to

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I downloaded your OOC JPEG to my Macbook Pro (recent model) and viewed it on the laptop's native Retina screen in both Preview or Capture One. I'm not sure of the bit depth of the screen.

At first I did not notice any banding, however, if I maximize the Clarity slider (which is something I would almost never do, even to a raw file) while in Capture One I can see banding in the sky - particularly above and to the right of the lighthouse tower. Now that I know it's there, I can still perceive it if I back the Clarity back down to zero, but it's very subtle when viewed that way.

It's possible that Fuji uses less compression on their JPEGs than Panasonic - after all, Fuji is known for their OOC JPEGs.

I could put a Fuji OOC JPEG through the same test if you give me access to one.

georgehudetz wrote:

I downloaded your OOC JPEG to my Macbook Pro (recent model) and viewed it on the laptop's native Retina screen in both Preview or Capture One. I'm not sure of the bit depth of the screen.

At first I did not notice any banding, however, if I maximize the Clarity slider (which is something I would almost never do, even to a raw file) while in Capture One I can see banding in the sky - particularly above and to the right of the lighthouse tower. Now that I know it's there, I can still perceive it if I back the Clarity back down to zero, but it's very subtle when viewed that way.

It's possible that Fuji uses less compression on their JPEGs than Panasonic - after all, Fuji is known for their OOC JPEGs.

I could put a Fuji OOC JPEG through the same test if you give me access to one.

Thanks georgehudetz, I found some Fuji jpeg files that one would think would show some form of banding. I viewed them in ON1 and Exposure X7 and could see very little to no banding in them. Similarly I used MacOS Preview and could not see banding. So it makes me wonder if the greater pixel density of the smaller 24/26mp sensor is helping minimize the gradient steps more visible in the 24mp ff sensor files; pure conjecture on my part as I am no expert on compression when comparing sensor sizes.

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I loaded the third image into Capture One and maxed out the Clarity slider and didn't see any banding. So, anecdotally for these two images, the Fuji OOC does resist banding better than the Panasonic - by a small margin (my assessment, obviously).

Others may comment, but I don't think it has anything to do with pixel size. Probably, it's more about how much compression (or how high the "quality" is) the two manufacturers choose to use in their JPEG creation engine. Perhaps Panasonic chose "90" to Fuji's "95" (on a scale of zero to 100). Or perhaps it's some other fine-tuning within the JPEG engine.

But I don't know for sure.