EP1 clicking sound?

[Tullio]

OK, just just received the EP1 (body only) I purchased on eBay. I attached the 14-45mm and noticed that as I move the camera from dark to bright (and vice-versa), I hear this clicking sound. It also makes the clicking sound when the camera locks focus. I tried the 45-200mm and it makes the same sound, so I don't believe it's the lens. When I attach a MF lens to it, there is no clicking sound. Is this normal on the EP1 or is the camera defective? Thanks.

 

[PeterB666]

It seems to be a characteristic of all the Panasonic G lenses when mounted on the Olympus Pen cameras. The noise you hear is the aperture opening and closing. For some reason the aperture will close down when the lens is 'at rest' and opens up for metering/autofocus and of course taking the picture.

Other than being slightly irritating (why does Panasonic make such noisy apertures), think of this as a feature.

BTW, I have the 20mm and 45-200mm lenses.

 

[Tullio]

Thanks, Peter. So, how come I don't hear a sound with the same lenses mounted on the G1? I'd think the clicking sound would be there despite the body (unless the lenses behave differently on the Pana body).

BTW, I found the EP1 AF to be very acceptable in low light conditions with the Lumix lenses, despite the fact that so many people have stated otherwise. Perhaps the AF is slower with the Zuiko 14-42mm.

The other question I have is, should I turn IS off on the Lumix lenses since the EP1 has an in-body IS? Does it hurt if I lave it ON? I'm afraid I'll forget to turn it back ON when I move the lens to the G1 body and end up missing shots because the lens IS was off.

 

[vincechu]

Hey there, I also get the same noises with the 14-45mm with my G1 when i do the same things, so I guess its the lenses which are making the noises.

I don't own a EP1 so cant help with the other question sorry.

 

[PeterB666]

Thanks, Peter. So, how come I don't hear a sound with the same lenses mounted on the G1? I'd think the clicking sound would be there despite the body (unless the lenses behave differently on the Pana body).

BTW, I found the EP1 AF to be very acceptable in low light conditions with the Lumix lenses, despite the fact that so many people have stated otherwise. Perhaps the AF is slower with the Zuiko 14-42mm.

The other question I have is, should I turn IS off on the Lumix lenses since the EP1 has an in-body IS? Does it hurt if I lave it ON? I'm afraid I'll forget to turn it back ON when I move the lens to the G1 body and end up missing shots because the lens IS was off.

I cannot comment on the G1. I don't have one.

The AF speed is fine but it could be better. Performance wise I find the Olympus 14-42mm acceptable, the Panasonic 45-200mm a bit better and the Panasonic 20mm slow but bearable. Lack of an AF assit lamp in the E-P1 is a little bit annoying as my previous camera had a laser holigram sort of thing and could focus in total darkness. I don't mind using lenses via manual focus and have set up my E-P1 so that there is one button to toggle between autofocus and MF and I have set the AEL/AFL button to push autofocus while on MF which makes it conventient to get a focus and bypass refocusing when pressing the shutter button which is set to only do an AEL lock on a half press.

The instructions say to use one or the other. I use the in-camera IS only as I switch between legacy manual focus lenses, my Olympus 14-42 and Panasonic lenses. The 20mm doesn't have AF anyway so this arrangement is easy.

I guess with the G1 you need to get into a routine of checking to see if the IS is on or not. I cannot offer any other solution.

 

[Tullio]

Hey there, I also get the same noises with the 14-45mm with my G1 when i do the same things, so I guess its the lenses which are making the noises....

Thanks for the response, Vince.

That's interesting...I don't hear anything at all with my G1, reason why I was intrigued by it when I moved the EP1 around and heard the clicking noise. I'll play with it a bit more. If the noise is coming from the lens, then it must be some setting on the EP1 that triggers it otherwise I'd hear on both cameras. Does that make sense?

 

[PeterB666]

With the 20mm f/1.7, the lens likes to be at f/2.8 in poor light when the camera isn't doing anything in particular. In bright light it stops down even further as so does 45-200 (well there is no f/2.8 there).

I don't know if this is being compelled from the camera or this is some sort of programming in the lens itself. The aperture movements are noisy in the Panasonic lenses, I have never heard such noisy aperture mechanisms.

Some have proposed that the idea is to prolong the life of the sensor by limiting the amount of light it receives. As the shutter is always open except briefly at the beginning and end of a shot, that sounds reasonable.

The theory sort of falls down as when you power off the lens, the aperture opens right up. It could be that without power, nothing is likely to get overloaded and it doesn't matter.

My guess is the behaviour is controlled by the camera and as Olympus doesn't have any fast lenses in MFT, it isn't seen as an issue. Operationally, it isn't an issue.