aperture "actuations"?

[Livinthalife]

Okay, this MAY sound stupid to some of you, but I, once again have a little too much time on my hands...

The aperture of lens. The metal blades, every time you click the shutter button, the shutter opens, the blades close to the desired F stop. This is a mechanical movement. has anyone ever experienced a lens with a stuck aperture or faulting aperture? The shutter of the camera will die after so many actuations, what about the lens? The lens has to be pin point accurate when moving those blades too. Can this also ever get out of cal? The problems I hear about lenses, is AF stopped working or some thing else. NEVER heard a problem about the aperture blades. Anyone want to explain why this system is so flawless? Thanks!

-Curious andy

[asylumxl]

aperture blades on old lenses do often get stuck. thats my 2 cents, sorry i cant tell you any more.

[Livinthalife]

aperture blades on old lenses do often get stuck. thats my 2 cents, sorry i cant tell you any more.

Well it's a start :) I'm thinking that old lenses may have used real metalblades, while the newer lenses are some ultra thin metal that can bend a bit so there is no real friction or something....things are jsut so different now with cmaeras and lenses.

[gasrocks]

If you always just shoot with your lens wide open, they will not wear out ever.

[nyy]

Yeah I think part of that is because people often try to shoot as wide open as possible without sacrificing IQ. As a result, you don't put too much wear on the blades. Obviously that's not always the case, but speaking from personal experience, I mostly shoot between f2-f9.

[Livinthalife]

If you always just shoot with your lens wide open, they will not wear out ever.


Speaking of which, this is another question. When shooting at 1.8 with the 50, how come you can see the pentagonal shape of the blades (in the bokeh)if your already shooting wide open.

[asylumxl]

Speaking of which, this is another question. When shooting at 1.8 with the 50, how come you can see the pentagonal shape of the blades (in the bokeh)if your already shooting wide open.
my 50s bokeh is perfectly round at f1.8 :)

[Livinthalife]

my 50s bokeh is perfectly round at f1.8 :)


Hold on...I think you maybe right... I found this link, but it doesn't say what Fstop. But it would make sense...I thought there was something else to it....hmmm here is that link anyways. http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=183879&highlight=50+1.8+bokeh

now back to my orignal Q! ;)

[Livinthalife]

Thought this was interesting as well. Inside a lens!

http://www.photoscene.com/sw/tour/inside.htm