He did check it on his original Fujifilm GFX100, and also there he says the banding has been fixed, as you can read here. FujiRumors already told you here that Fujifilm secretly fixed it via firmware update. Now Jim’s test finally confirms that.
Also, he confirms what we already told you back in 2017 here: the huge medium format GFX sensor is made of four small sensors stitched together. However, to be clear, this will not create any problem in your images.
The GFX 100S sensor is not 4 small sensors stitched together. The lithography is stitched. It’s analogous to creating a pano by stitching. The result is on one piece of paper. In the GFX case it’s one piece of silicon.
We already reported here, how Matt Granger could not see any PDAF banding on the Fujifilm GFX100S, which is something that annoyed him on the original GFX100.
Now Jim Kasson received his GFX100S, and immediately tested it out.
And indeed, after a 5 push shadow recovery and also a +100 shadow recovery, here is what he says:
Good news! There appears to be virtually no PDAF banding, and not much banding of any description.
While this is an excellent news, he also adds that the 16bit version “doesn’t appear significantly better” than the 14 bit version. It is a bit better, but not that much. Also, some in the Fuji community say that the 16bit files seem to have better black tones with lower chroma noise.
According to information we have received, Fujifilm also fixed the banding issue via firmware update on the original GFX100. Fujifilm never said this explicitly, but hide it behind the standard phrase “fix of minor bugs“. But this is just something I can’t confirm right now.
the black line in the center part has been manually added by Bill from Photons to Photos
Fujifilm GFX100
For years, mirrorless cameras lagged behing DSLRs in terms of autofocus speed.
In order to catch up, companies started to incorporate phase detection pixels on their sensors, and modern cameras have phase detection pixels spread all over the sensors, very much to the delight of photographers, who enjoy fast autofoucs, eye autofocus all over the frame and reliable subject tracking.
But no technology is perfect, and so also phase detection has its downside.
When pushed to the extreme (meaning extreme shadow recovery for example), sensors with phase detection pixels can show some banding.
This has been documented with Nikon, Sony and so forth, and of course Fujifilm is no exception. They all use the same Sony sensor at the end of the day :).
It looks like also the Fujifilm GFX100 is (unsurprisingly) showing the same banding issue, when its RAW files are pushed to the extreme.
In fact, the Fujifilm GFX100 sensor has
a total of 3.78 million phase detection pixels
7,776 PDAF pixels every 18 lines
The more phase detection pixels a sensor has, the more you can use phase detection also in lower light.
Bill Claff from Photons to Photos has published a Fujifilm GFX100 sensor heatmap (via dpreview), showing a short black line every 18 rows (see image above).
Should we panic?
I guess not. Or we could just throw any modern mirrorless camera into the garbage that uses phase detection pixels (unless it’s X-Trans ;) ).
It’s, as always, a tradeoff.
Do you want faster autofocus? Or do you want RAW files that even when pushed to its limits and beyond don’t show banding?
The Solution
First off: Fujifilm is fine tuning the firmware for the Fujifilm GFX100, and of course they are aware of banding. They are working to optimize sensor readout and the final firmware will show, how much banding the camera will really have.
But in any case, there is partially a solution to that, even without optimized and final firmware.
As I told you already months ago, Fujifilm is working to bring pixel shift multishot into the Fujifilm GFX100.
The original goal was to have it ready for GFX100 launch, but it needs a bit more time of development.
But pixel shift mulitshot will come, and as we have seen from other phase detection mirrorless cameras offering this feature, pixel shift reduces or even eliminates banding completely.
So, as long as you are shooting static subjects on a tripod and use pixel shift multishot, you won’t have any issues with banding.
In my opinion, the Fujifilm GFX100 pushed the boundaries in its class (MF) much more than the Sony A7rIV did in its class (FF), and therefore the Fujifilm GFX100 deserves to be called camera of the year.
Here is another major Fujifilm GFX100 roundup, focussed on Matt Granger’s GFX100 comparison with the Phase One and Jim Kasson’s excellent ongoing technical analysis of the Fujifilm GFX100 virtues and shortcomings.
DPReview published their full Fujifilm GFX100 review.
It’s not a perfect camera, but from the image quality point of view, it is simply the best camera DPReview has ever tested.
Senior editor Barney Britton says:
“The GFX 100 is the first medium format camera I’ve ever used – film or digital – which doesn’t feel like a compromise. In almost all respects, the GFX 100 handles like a professional DSLR, but with all of the benefits of mirrorless, plus excellent 4K video capabilities and the unimpeachable image quality offered by a cutting-edge sensor. It’s not perfect, and it’s not cheap, but if I was a working professional photographer I’d buy a GFX 100 in a heartbeat.“
Compared to other high resolution cameras:
“Having said that the GFX 100 significantly outperforms full frame cameras, we should still consider the Panasonic Lumix DC-S1R, since it’s able to shoot and combine multiple shots in order to offer resolution and light capture (and hence tonal quality) comparable to a larger sensor. But, while it does so in a smaller, lighter body and doesn’t have any phase detection elements to limit its usable dynamic range, its multi-shot mode only gets its best results when tripod-mounted, and applied to static subjects (and its use of electronic shutter limits its use with strobes). For most high-res applications, the GFX is the simpler, stronger, and yes, more expensive option. […]
If you need the quality it brings, the Phase One will outperform the Fujifilm, but if you can put up with the (sensational) image quality of the Fujifilm, then its smaller size, image stabilization, increased battery life, attractive JPEGs and video capabilities make it a much more flexible tool for considerably less money.“
