Spyro P. wrote:
this last one of Sean's reviews has left me scratching my head a little bit TBH.... how can a camera ever make any significant amount of noise with its aperture blades
The aperture blades on many mirrorless cameras constantly adjust to the ambient exposure. This happens on the X100 and apparently also on the X-Pro1. The difference appears to be that with the X100, the blades are practically silent when doing this but on the X-Pro 1, they apparently are loud enough to even disturb your subject before the actual exposure. That's a HUGE deal if your buying the camera and plan to use it discreetly. The irony is, the actual focal plane shutter on the X-Pro1 is apparently very quite for a focal plane shutter. I guess one might hope that this aperture blade issue is a singular defect on Sean's lens. If not, that's pretty bad.
I just subscribed to Sean's review and read a bunch of his other lens reviews. He seem to be pretty even-handed and not afraid to criticize or praise a lens for its performance. So I am looking forward to reading more of his thoughts on XPro-1, especially his thoughts on the lenses.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
The aperture blades on many mirrorless cameras constantly adjust to the ambient exposure. This happens on the X100 and apparently also on the X-Pro1. The difference appears to be that with the X100, the blades are practically silent when doing this but on the X-Pro 1, they apparently are loud enough to even disturb your subject before the actual exposure. That's a HUGE deal if your buying the camera and plan to use it discreetly. The irony is, the actual focal plane shutter on the X-Pro1 is apparently very quite for a focal plane shutter. I guess one might hope that this aperture blade issue is a singular defect on Sean's lens. If not, that's pretty bad....Show more →
It would seem then that using alt lenses would eliminate the problem (and also eliminate AF). The very quiet shutter sounds promising, but it's still uncertain how well one can MF alt glass with the EVF...
rscheffler wrote:
It would seem then that using alt lenses would eliminate the problem (and also eliminate AF). The very quiet shutter sounds promising, but it's still uncertain how well one can MF alt glass with the EVF...
True. I doubt focusing will be too bad with alts since you will have the immediate magnification feature at your thumb while looking through the finder. The question is...when will the adapters show up! Sean has said he will be testing alts on the X-Pro1 by the way. Given that you can set the optical viewfinder framelines of the X-Pro 1 to match most common rangefinder focal lengths, it actually could make a decent alt platform, particularly since it's AA free - it just sucks that the viewfinder magnification with wides is about half that of say a Leica M9 (and even significantly lower than the X100).
Tariq Gibran wrote:
The difference appears to be that with the X100, the blades are practically silent when doing this but on the X-Pro 1, they apparently are loud enough to even disturb your subject before the actual exposure.
I know, thats what he said. I just dont see how that's possible, unless his subjects have spider hearing
Tariq Gibran wrote:
The aperture blades on many mirrorless cameras constantly adjust to the ambient exposure. This happens on the X100 and apparently also on the X-Pro1. The difference appears to be that with the X100, the blades are practically silent when doing this but on the X-Pro 1, they apparently are loud enough to even disturb your subject before the actual exposure. That's a HUGE deal if your buying the camera and plan to use it discreetly. The irony is, the actual focal plane shutter on the X-Pro1 is apparently very quite for a focal plane shutter. I guess one might hope that this aperture blade issue is a singular defect on Sean's lens. If not, that's pretty bad....Show more →
I don't think aperture blade noise will be much of a problem in Av or M modes.
jcolwell wrote:
I don't think aperture blade noise will be much of a problem in Av or M modes.
Actually, I believe it is. I think that whatever mode the camera is in, the aperture blades constantly readjust to keep the Live View screen the same brightness and then stop down to the "preset" aperture only at the moment of exposure. From what I've heard, this could be a deal-breaker for this camera for those who plan on using it in quiet settings.
I'll probably subscribe to Sean Reid's site to see what he says (I used to be a subscriber; let it lapse when I sold the Leicas, but he's apparently reviewing a lot of Fujis and other digitals now).
Spyro P. wrote:
I know, thats what he said. I just dont see how that's possible, unless his subjects have spider hearing
Since he describes the noise as "chattering" or something similar, I'm guessing it must be louder than what you are thinking. I know the x100 was practically silent when doing this so it does sound odd. We need to learn if it's an isolated case or if other 34 1.4 lenses, as well as the other lenses, exhibit the issue.
RalphJ wrote:
Actually, I believe it is. I think that whatever mode the camera is in, the aperture blades constantly readjust to keep the Live View screen the same brightness and then stop down to the "preset" aperture only at the moment of exposure. From what I've heard, this could be a deal-breaker for this camera for those who plan on using it in quiet settings.
I'll probably subscribe to Sean Reid's site to see what he says (I used to be a subscriber; let it lapse when I sold the Leicas, but he's apparently reviewing a lot of Fujis and other digitals now). ...Show more →
Have you heard/ read about this aperture noise issue elsewhere? Sean's account was the first I had heard about it.
RalphJ wrote:
Actually, I believe it is. I think that whatever mode the camera is in, the aperture blades constantly readjust to keep the Live View screen the same brightness and then stop down to the "preset" aperture only at the moment of exposure.
As I recall the X100 does the blade jitterbug as described in every mode, not just A mode. I left my camera in M mode most of the time, using AEL/AFL to initiate focus more often than not. Blades jitter until the half-press.
My uneducated sense is that constant blade movement may represent an early point of failure and I always wondered if the lubricant in the X100 plus the blade jitterbug had something to do with the onset of Sticky Aperture Blade problems in affected cameras. Even Zack Arias's camera finally fell victim, by the way.
Irrational fear or not, I don't like it and am sad to learn that the native X mount lenses feature the blade jitterbug dance too.
michaelwatkins wrote:
As I recall the X100 does the blade jitterbug as described in every mode, not just A mode. I left my camera in M mode most of the time, using AEL/AFL to initiate focus more often than not. Blades jitter until the half-press.
My uneducated sense is that constant blade movement may represent an early point of failure and I always wondered if the lubricant in the X100 plus the blade jitterbug had something to do with the onset of Sticky Aperture Blade problems in affected cameras. Even Zack Arias's camera finally fell victim, by the way.
Irrational fear or not, I don't like it and am sad to learn that the native X mount lenses feature the blade jitterbug dance too....Show more →
I sort of had the same suspicion with regard to the connection between SAB and the constant dance of the aperture blades. Considering shutters are rated for so many thousands/ hundreds of thousand cycles, it does seem that the constant movement of those aperture blades would be a point of failure.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
True. I doubt focusing will be too bad with alts since you will have the immediate magnification feature at your thumb while looking through the finder.
No doubt everyone's experience with the X100 in manual focus mode is different but I found it difficult to nail focus on the X100 using the lens in MF mode, and I'm not even taking into account the movement of the focus-by-wire ring. My best recollection is that the X100's EVF didn't provide enough clarity for me to achieve focus reliably. I find the GXR's EVF (using magnify only) somewhat better in this regard, and the Sony EVF much better still. Both cameras focus assist/peaking modes improve the situation greatly, for me.
As the X-Pro 1 apparently has the same EVF, I fear that the same lack of clarity while magnified will frustrate finding focus, but maybe a real MF lens with the much better focus ring action will tend to null this issue (for me) out a bit. Hopefully Fujifilm implements a focus peaking assist before the M lens adapter is released.
michaelwatkins wrote:
No doubt everyone's experience with the X100 in manual focus mode is different but I found it difficult to nail focus on the X100 using the lens in MF mode, and I'm not even taking into account the movement of the focus-by-wire ring. My best recollection is that the X100's EVF didn't provide enough clarity for me to achieve focus reliably. I find the GXR's EVF (using magnify only) somewhat better in this regard, and the Sony EVF much better still. Both cameras focus assist/peaking modes improve the situation greatly, for me.
As the X-Pro 1 apparently has the same EVF, I fear that the same lack of clarity while magnified will frustrate finding focus, but maybe a real MF lens with the much better focus ring action will tend to null this issue (for me) out a bit. Hopefully Fujifilm implements a focus peaking assist before the M lens adapter is released....Show more →
I did no have a problem at all with the ability to ascertain if the subject was in focus using the EVF + magnification on the X100 personally.
I doubt if anyone will notice this, but not notice the focal plane shutter and AF motors.
Yeah, it does not sound that loud but the fact that it is constant and continuous could be noticeable/ annoying in a quite environment. It is odd that it's even audible as it is not on the X100.
RalphJ wrote:
Actually, I believe it is. I think that whatever mode the camera is in, the aperture blades constantly readjust to keep the Live View screen the same brightness and then stop down to the "preset" aperture only at the moment of exposure. From what I've heard, this could be a deal-breaker for this camera for those who plan on using it in quiet settings.
I'll probably subscribe to Sean Reid's site to see what he says (I used to be a subscriber; let it lapse when I sold the Leicas, but he's apparently reviewing a lot of Fujis and other digitals now). ...Show more →
Interesting. I would not normally use it in LiveView mode.
Actually Sean has added an update to his rolling review with some real life indoor shooting and he mentioned that the aperture was rarely adjusting itself because the light was relatively constant.
jcolwell wrote:
Interesting. I would not normally use it in LiveView mode.
Is that even an option? EVF, LCD and most of the info - such as live histogram - come from this even in OVF mode. I'm not sure (I don't remember with the X100) if you can even disable this aperture dance when the camera is on (except for half pressing the shutter button perhaps).
I think as long as the meter is active (and the total EV changes enough while it is), the aperture will open/close/chatter/be-deafening like that. That's the way things worked on my X100.
