PMW-350 kit lens iris noisy

[Paul Gale]

Anyone else have a noisy iris ring?

Mine makes a kind of rattling noise when under auto control - not sure if it's a physical rattling or the motor or gearing.

I'm pretty sure it's duff but wanted to check it's not an inherent fault.

[Paul Gale]

the other thing i've noticed is that the iris doesn't close down when the camera powers off - IIRC all my other cameras and lenses do this. By design???

[Paul Cronin]

Paul I will have to look at that since I have only used manual iris.

[Paul Gale]

thanks.

I know at least one other user doesn't have this issue.

[Paul Cronin]

Mine seems fine Paul. How loud is it? Do you hear it when recording in a quiet room?

[Thierry Humeau]

Yep, I noticed this on my camera too. It would definetely be picked up by the camera mic in a silent room and the faint grinding noise seems to be a bit more pronounced when the lens is on its longest focal length. That said, I very rarely use auto iris and if I did, it would most likely be in an uncontrolled and noisy environment so I don't think it would be an issue but it is a bit puzzling indeed.

T.

[Paul Gale]

Hmmm, odd then.

I've got a replacement coming - so will see if it's any different or whether it's a 'feature' across all of them.

[Paul Cronin]

Paul I agree with Teierry,

I noticed noise yesterday in a quite studio but agree I would never use auto iris in such a controlled environment. So I don't see it as a problem at all.

[Paul Gale]

Thanks Paul.

Sure - I wouldn't use auto iris either in that environment.

BUT, my concern is whether there's actually anything wrong with the lens or if this is the same on all of them. If it is faultly, why put up with it, whether or not it's going to make a difference shooting.

Cheers,

Paul.

[Paul Cronin]

My thought is it is a cheap lens and I expect this type of problem. It seems to have very nice optics but servo motors could be lower grade and this could cause the problem. Either way for me I am just going to move forward and not worry since other lens I have looked at don't have the problem., and they will be the main lens I use on the camera.

[Alister Chapman]

The one I have is noisy too. I would not call it loud, but there is more noise than I would like. It's most noticeable when the Iris is making big changes across several f stops, smaller adjustments are much less noticeable. I hadn't picked up on it before as for most shots I don't use auto iris. The only time I do use it is following aircraft across cloudy skies at airshows and then any noise is drowned out by the aircraft.

It's there, I don't like it, but at the same time for me it's not an issue. If I had spent $10k on the lens... then that would be a different story.

[Tom Roper]

Sure it isn't the auto focus? Mines dead silent spinning the iris ring, but I can hear the servo motor when auto-focus is switched on.

[Alister Chapman]

No, it's the iris ring, no doubt. It makes a kind of mechanical noise like gears meshing as you do big auto iris swings.

[Alister Chapman]

OK I spent some time looking at this and I think what is happening is that the drive servo is either a stepper motor or driven using PWM which makes the motor "step", stopping and starting very quickly and this is creating the rattle during fast iris changes. During normal everyday iris adjustments mine makes no noise, it's only really when the iris is going from fully open to fully closed etc. Turning the Iris speed down in the Iris 2 menu also makes the noise go away.

[David Hart]

I'm also finding the noise that you are hearing is down to the motor vibrating on the gears and maybe lack of noise damping maybe due to cheaper parts? if you touch the ring lightly with you finger the noise is greatly reduced, at the end of the day its a good cheap lens. if this became a problem for me I would have an external mic plugged in.
I'm using A13x4.5 and A22x7.8 lenes from my SD cameras that i'm testing on the 350 to see if I need to upgrade to HD glass, this obviously is a costly move.

On a different subject, does anyone find the camera LCD display a little too bright? Maybe it could do with a lower setting?