RX-1 owners: Is your aperture circular??

Mine looked almost exactly like yours... So with the camera on I spun the aperture ring between 2 and 22 around 20-30 times and it is starting to look much more round, not that it was catastrophic to begin with.

I've been thinking about ordering an RX-1 and this concern about the non-circular aperture blades bothers me a bit. I awoke this morning to find Amazon had (has) the RX-1 in stock so I went ahead and ordered with one day shipping for $3.99 (easily returned if need be).

However, I am still concerned about the a-blade issue. I went thru the somewhat painful experience of being an early adopter of the X100 with its sticky aperture blade issue so you can understand my concern.

What I would like to know is if this non-circular a-blade rendition on the RX-1 is normal or not. So far, everyone who has chimed in on this question has said their blades look like this. So far, no one has indicated that their blades are "near perfect circular" as stated in the Sony features brochure.

So which way is it ?

Does anyone have an RX-1 with nearly perfect circular aperture blades as illustrated in the photo at this top of this thread ?

thanks,

Charles

Okay, here's a writeup on the almost circular RX-1 aperture and shows a photo of, perhaps, what it SHOULD look like

http://sonyalphanex.blogspot.com/2012/10/sony-dsc-rx1-specs-revised-and-misc-info.html

same situation on mine.  perfect until f8.

in my case, i am sending it back as my sensor has a couple of oil spots.

chiumeister wrote:

same situation on mine. perfect until f8.

in my case, i am sending it back as my sensor has a couple of oil spots.

Chiumeister... Any chance you quickly moved your aperture ring back and forth quickly multiple times? I'm trying to assess whether such action may cause those spots.

I know I did and soon after found my spots (the first time I checked for spots) so wonder whether there is any relation as such action causes many bits in the lens to flail around (but I doubt it)?

On Monday Laredo received my camera, on Wednesday (yesterday) I received my confirming email they received it. But now I wait. Certainly I will not have my camera for Christmas but am now hoping for New Year as I will be leaving for downtown Chicago on the 30th and would love to have the camera with me.

Still I debate would it have been better to get an exchange from the vendor? It would have cost return shipping money and then I would have no gaurantees with the replacement quality so think I did the right thing, if all is fixed properly (and I get it back next week).

teseg wrote:

On Monday Laredo received my camera, on Wednesday (yesterday) I received my confirming email they received it. But now I wait. Certainly I will not have my camera for Christmas but am now hoping for New Year as I will be leaving for downtown Chicago on the 30th and would love to have the camera with me.

We'll be in downtown Chicago for X-Mas (probably walking around downtown on the 24th). A little better timing and we could have had a Michigander's RX1 photowalk in Chicago.

Mine are good only from f/2 - a tick above f/5.6. At f/5.6, I can see the circle disappear and not come back until f/22. I don't often shoot past f/8, but f/5.6 and f/8 are both affected. Hmmm.

Wouldn't the primary impact of slightly out-of-round aperture blades be the shape of bokeh balls? In which case ideally the large apertures are round. Any other potential visual impacts? I can't imagine by f5.6 and above there is any chance of noticing the impact of slightly out of round aperture blades.

In summary, I would love for someone to show me an example with an RX1 where the slightly-off circle aperature negatively impacted the resulting picture... Because really, this should be the concern.

Sensor spots, color-cast, decentered lenses, these are real issues that can be clearly identified in a resulting image... I'm not so sure I've seen an example from the RX1 where the aperture circle has impacted IQ, but would be very interested in seeing if it does exist.

teseg wrote:

Sensor spots, color-cast, off centered lenses, these are real issues that can be clearly identified in a resulting image... I'm not so sure I've seen an example from the RX1 where the aperture circle has impacted IQ, but would be very interested in seeing if it does exist.

On macro-like shots, I can generate the bokeh balls even at f/5.6. I'll try taking a photo here in a bit with the room darker and the x-mas tree lights on in the background.

I have noticed an effect that I see often in the bokeh balls that I don't think is supposed to happen. I even saw it on the very first shot I took:

Notice the swirly lines in the bokeh ball just the right of the snowman? I see those lines in bokeh balls often. Here is a less pronounced version in the day time:

Don't Worry

I keep meaning to see if this is happening on other RX1s in the photos on Flickr.

I, too, have seen bokeh ball swirls in pictures others have posted in Flickr with this camera. Not sure it can be attributed to the aperture circle though. Not sure what causes that.

sean lancaster wrote:

teseg wrote:

Sensor spots, color-cast, off centered lenses, these are real issues that can be clearly identified in a resulting image... I'm not so sure I've seen an example from the RX1 where the aperture circle has impacted IQ, but would be very interested in seeing if it does exist.

On macro-like shots, I can generate the bokeh balls even at f/5.6. I'll try taking a photo here in a bit with the room darker and the x-mas tree lights on in the background.

I have noticed an effect that I see often in the bokeh balls that I don't think is supposed to happen. I even saw it on the very first shot I took:

Notice the swirly lines in the bokeh ball just the right of the snowman? I see those lines in bokeh balls often. Here is a less pronounced version in the day time:

Don't Worry

I keep meaning to see if this is happening on other RX1s in the photos on Flickr.