The Superzoom which actually DOES it

trog100 wrote:

i have tested and shot the same shutter shock sequence with various body/lens combinations.. some bodies produce a more severe form of it than others.. it goes from a slight softness at its best to blurry double imaging at it worse.. shutter speeds below 1/400th of a second.. it follows a curve as to how bad it can be.. different body lens combinations produce different curves..

bodies tested G3 GX1 GX7 G6 GM1 and my sons oly and lenses tested.. lenses tested pz14-42.. later 14-140.. 45-200.. 100-300.. 12-32.. old 14-42.. new 14-42.. 15mm prime.. 20mm prime.. the little 35-100 plus few more..

my tests started off looking for centre sharpness but ended up looking for shutter shock when the mechanical shutter is used..

all bodies (except the GM1) show it with some lenses.. the GX7 and GX1 seem the worse out of the bodies i have tested.. the smaller faster later generation lenses suffer from it the worse.. larger older lenses dont seem to show it..

it there its real its repeatable.. my tests have been done at the shorter end of long zoom lenses and the longer end (32 to 40mm-ish) of the shorter zooms.. with two identical images (way more than two in my case) blur with the mechanical shutter is there with the electronic shutter it isnt.. but as i say some lenses dont seem to suffer from it some do.. the ones that do show it with all bodies except the little GM1..

what i am seeing is repeatable blur or softness with some lenses.. the kind of thing that could be put down to other things.. my own view is that shutter shock is responsible for many less than perfect images.. way more than people want to admit to..

there are two ways of avoiding it with a lens that suffers from it.. avoid shutter speeds less than the magic 1/400th or use the electronic shutter option if available.. i have yet to find a less than sharp electronic shutter image i can produce less than perfect mechanical shutter images at will..

the 14-140 is a very nice lens.. its does suffer badly from shutter shock.. once you know it can be avoided..

trog

Adrian Harris wrote:

trog100 wrote:

optically its very sharp but mine suffers badly from shutter shock on on my GX7..

once i realised the cause of some less than perfect images i realized just how good the lens actually was..

trog

Hi Trog (and everyone else)

I have a GX7 and a Mk1 14-140 Panasonic Zoom lens. ... and often get 'unexplained' blurry photos.

I am well aware of what shutter shock is - and what it is caused by, but on a GX7 this can not physically happen when electronic shutter is switched 'on' as there is no mechanical shutter or parts moving.

I do however feel that Panasonic's 'in lens' stabilisation is poor - in that it is under-damped. I have three Pannasonic lenses and all when 'swung' into action take a fraction of a second to 'settle down' before a blur free shot can be taken.

Interestingly the unstabilised Olympus lenses I use on the GX7 do not suffer from this, which I assume is down to the GX7 then using its own inbuilt stabilisation, which in my opinion is excellent. ....Sadly we can not switch the GX7 to use only its inbuilt stabilisation for Panasonics own lenses.

When you said 'optically its very sharp but mine suffers badly from shutter shock on on my GX7..' Are you suggesting that you still get the odd shutter shock blur even when using electronic shutter?

I ask, because I do frequently get the aforementioned unexplained blurry images especially at the long end of my MK1 14-140, even when held really steady and on burst mode - which shouldn't shake the camera at all?

PS: My MK1 14-140 is staggeringly sharp at the wide end right up until about the 100mm mark, but after that is softens off to only just acceptable for non critical images.

PS. AdamT, thank you for your report and feedback.

Adrian

Thank you Trog.