What are the situations that you think would benefit from a change to this behavior? Also, have you figured out exactly how long the lag is? I agree that eliminating the lag would be an improvement, but I'm not convinced that it is critical.
I think the full version of the "serenity prayer" you quoted earlier is appropriate here:
"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."
People are taking strong positions based on their guesses as to whether aperture lag can be fixed.
Virimati is right to ask Fuji if they can fix it. Gava is right that it can be dealt with in most situations by half pressing the shutter in advance (which I nearly always do anyay when using AF, to get confirmation of focusing)
Clearly if it can be fixed it should be. As near as I can measure it (by the basic means of starting a stop watch as I press the shutter and taking the time of the one where I felt I precisely hit the mark of the aperture blades reaching the set position) I think it takes .5 of a second for the full dance. Note that is not an average of several attempts - most attempts showed a longer time than that, mostly .7 to .9 seconds, because of my reaction time after seeing the aperture in place. The .5 is the time I measured when I anticipated the blades being in place and felt that I had got it spot on). A part of that (probably between .1 and .2 seconds) would be attributable to the blades moving ito their set position at the end of the dance. Whether that can be fixed (by allowing the aperture to be set when the user sets it) is a different question to whether the dance can be fixed.
That .5 seconds affects grab shots. Most of the time of course you have already missed those moments by the time you can press the shutter. But sometimes you haven't, and those are the shots you miss due to aperture lag. Also in situations where you don't want subjects to react to the camera. Again, sometimes they would anyway even with no aperture lag, but other times that .5 seconds makes the difference. With no mirror to raise, it is only aperture lag which prevents the X100 outperforming DSLRs in this area (when using MF).
One odditity when I look at the issue now is that my camera no longer seems to be behaving as it did when GordonL first raised it here two months ago. In intermediate lighting conditions, it now only rarely does a half dance (going to one of the two extreme positions but not the other before going to the set aperture). Sometimes now in light as low as EV 11 it does the full dance. More often, it just goes from its stopped down position to it's set aperture without any fuss, proving that it can.
The change may be an unannounced part of the FW. Or more likely there are many more factors determining what it does in different conditions than I had supposed. Certainly the average EV of the scene is not the only factor determining what it does. The angle to the sun (or other bright light source) seems just as important.
If it can't be fixed - then the X100 is still my favourite camera. Obviously no one camera is best in all circumstances for all purposes. But I'm hoping that it can be fixed so that it will be better yet.
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Apteryx
