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Aperture on Summilux with Panasonic G1

peterv

New member
Hi all,

after reading enthousiastic comments on this forum I decided to treat myself and buy a PanaLeica 25 mm.

It arrived two weeks ago and I tried it on a Olympus E3 with good results. After a long wait my M4/3 adapter arrived and I finally was able to put it on my G1. I updated the firmware and all was fine.

Yesterday I shot some 200 photo's and I think the lens is outstanding. Very sharp and though bulky, not too heavy for me on the G1.

Today I noticed something I don't recall from yesterdays shoot. There is the sound of the aperture closing and opening when I move the camera to and away from a window or other lightsource. I can see the aperture closing and opening as I move the camera towards and away from the window. Now all the time it's in aperture priority mode on f1.4 and when I release the shutter the aperture opens and the exposure is fine.

My question is: Is it normal for the aperture to open and close like this? Shouldn't it stay on f1.4 if it's set to that aperture? Is it some kind of protection for the sensor so as not to get too much light in? Perhaps the kit lenses show this behaviour too, but the noise of the aperture moving is much less? Do other Summilux owners notice the sound of the aperture opening and closing? It's quite loud, much louder than the sound of the AF motor.

Thanks, appreciate your thoughts,

Peter
 

Terry

New member
Are you sure it is the aperture or is Pre AF? When I first got mine every time I moved the lens and it was pointing at something new it was trying to refocus and I turned that off on the menus and it completely solved what I was hearing.
 

peterv

New member
Thanks Terry,
Yes I'm sure. I too have the pre-AF turned off. As I mentioned above this sound is from the aperture mechanism. I can also see it moving while making the sound.
 

scho

Well-known member
Yes, just tried this with my copy and it does the same.

Hi all,

after reading enthousiastic comments on this forum I decided to treat myself and buy a PanaLeica 25 mm.

It arrived two weeks ago and I tried it on a Olympus E3 with good results. After a long wait my M4/3 adapter arrived and I finally was able to put it on my G1. I updated the firmware and all was fine.

Yesterday I shot some 200 photo's and I think the lens is outstanding. Very sharp and though bulky, not too heavy for me on the G1.

Today I noticed something I don't recall from yesterdays shoot. There is the sound of the aperture closing and opening when I move the camera to and away from a window or other lightsource. I can see the aperture closing and opening as I move the camera towards and away from the window. Now all the time it's in aperture priority mode on f1.4 and when I release the shutter the aperture opens and the exposure is fine.

My question is: Is it normal for the aperture to open and close like this? Shouldn't it stay on f1.4 if it's set to that aperture? Is it some kind of protection for the sensor so as not to get too much light in? Perhaps the kit lenses show this behaviour too, but the noise of the aperture moving is much less? Do other Summilux owners notice the sound of the aperture opening and closing? It's quite loud, much louder than the sound of the AF motor.

Thanks, appreciate your thoughts,

Peter
 

scho

Well-known member
Yes, just tried this with my copy and it does the same.
I should add that this aperture opening/closing in response to shifting light source seems to be inconsistent. Sometimes it does this and other times not. Firmware or hardware bug in the 25 lux? My two kit lenses do not seem to exhibit this behavior or at least I haven't detected it. Weird :confused:
 

Jonas

Active member
Hi all,

after reading enthousiastic comments on this forum I decided to treat myself and buy a PanaLeica 25 mm.
(... ...)
Thanks, appreciate your thoughts,
Peter
Hi Peter,

When using the lens in "normal" (or oldfashioned?) way with the optical view finder it is wide open, right? When I turned on Live View on my E-510 the lens stopped down, perhaps to somewehre around f/3.5-f/4 as I judged it just by looking at the aperture blades. Why? I have no idea really. It forced me to press the DOF preview button to check the DOF while in Live View.

Now our G1 cameras are constant Live View cameras... With the kit lens we are already closed down a fair bit... Maybe the camera is set to stop down if the light is bright? Depending on the brightness level it may stop down sometimes when turning it from a dark target and towards something bright, sometimes not.

This is just an idea, I don't have the lens now and can't try it for myself.

regards, /Jonas
 

peterv

New member
Thanks for the replies everyone!
I had been afraid there was something terribly wrong with my copy. Thanks for the input!
I was just driving home in my car and had time to think about this, and I kind of came to the same conclusion as Jonas. I think the camera needs to close the aperture in order to be able to use the contrast auto focus and/or other features. Perhaps the f1.4 fully open is too bright for the sensor, and the G1 puts on sunglasses if it needs to. :cool:

Now this is all speculation on my part, and if anyone has a good technical explanation for this 'feature' I'm sure all Summilux owners would like to know more about this.
Perhaps this is a firmware bug after all, how can we be sure... Tomorrow during daylight I'll try this with the kit lens and the camera on high ISO and see what happens... Could it be that the kit lens does this all the time, but we just don't notice because it's much more quite?

Anyway, I'm really very happy with the image quality of this lens. Hope to soon be able to post some pics in the 'Fun' thread.

Peter
 

peterv

New member
I should add that this aperture opening/closing in response to shifting light source seems to be inconsistent.
Perhaps this happens because the G1 only makes the aperture close at times when there is too much light when pointed at a bright(-er) lightsource.

I will try to see if the kit lenses also show this behaviour as soon as I get the chance.

BTW, Carl, your reports and pictures helped convincing me that the Summilux is worthwile. Thanks again, Peter
 

scho

Well-known member
Perhaps this happens because the G1 only makes the aperture close at times when there is too much light when pointed at a bright(-er) lightsource.

I will try to see if the kit lenses also show this behaviour as soon as I get the chance.

BTW, Carl, your reports and pictures helped convincing me that the Summilux is worthwile. Thanks again, Peter
Peter, I think you may be right about this lens behavior in response to bright light, but it can be annoying when it happens while trying to get a shot. I also want to thank you for pointing out this issue on the forum. Hopefully it can be corrected via firmware. The 25 lux is a great performer on the G1, despite this minor problem.

Regards,
Carl
 
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