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New Firmware for Seven Panasonic Lenses

pikme

New member
What a confusing news release from Panasonic - I think there are really only 4 lens updates; the others already meet the "HD" standard.

Too bad they didn't update the 20mm f1.7 - it would be great to have that lens focus faster and less noisily. Maybe that will come later.
 

kwalsh

New member
I doubt it, the 20mm f1.7 seems to have a noisy motor.
That could be, an probably is the case.

As a curious aside though, it is nearly impossible to distinguish a noisy motor from a quiet motor controlled by fast but noisy servo loop. In the later case you really can make the "motor" silent with new software/firmware. I've seen servo controlled motors go from sounding like they have grit inside them to perfectly silent once the control loop is properly tamed. In theory you could even change the control loop based on the camera mode, fast but noisy for stills and slower but silent for video.

That said, the 20mm probably is just a noisy motor and its performance is probably limited by the size of the lens group it has to move to focus.

Ken
 

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
I will try the 20 anyway; if you are micing externally (which you almost always have to do for decent sound) that relatively tiny sound will be inaudible, I feel.
 
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