US00678 Posted May 9, 2021 Share #1 Posted May 9, 2021 Advertisement (gone after registration) Hi there, I've recently got a Sum SL 35 for my SL2, while I was testing it I've noticed that, differently from the 24-90 (or a couple of Lumix zoom I use), the lens is not able keep up with the serial shooting (burst) at Med and Low speed. It seems that the re-focusing between the shots reduces the shutting speed, setting the camera in MF or moving to High speed works fine. Considering that also this lens is presented as "AF System with Dual Syncro Drive -From zero to sharp in no time" it seems, at least my lens, not so fast. While I'm waiting for an opinion form Italian Customer Care, is anyone experiencing a similar behaviour with Sum SL 35 or any other SL lens? 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted May 9, 2021 Posted May 9, 2021 Hi US00678, Take a look here Summicron SL 35mm does not keep up with medium speed continuous shooting. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
scott kirkpatrick Posted May 9, 2021 Share #2 Posted May 9, 2021 Check the fine print to see when the camera shifts from offering AF-c while shooting continuously to only focusing on the first frame of a burst. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slender Posted May 9, 2021 Share #3 Posted May 9, 2021 (edited) I think OP said "medium" and "low" modes.... that should be with the SL2 range offering continuous AF-C (up to 6ims). "fast" and "very fast" do not anymore, indeed. Top of my head, if my memory serves me right on SL2: Single: AF-S + AF-C on all frames Low (3fps?): AF-S + AF-C on all frames Medium (6fps): AF-S + AF-C on all frames Fast (11fps) AF lock on the first image Very Fast (20fps) AF lock on the first image "Duo" synchro drives contains the answer: there are 2 AF motors for 2 lens groups to move to get the focus. The Vario 24-90 (and I believe all the other SL zooms) only has one tiny wheeny lens element to move for focusing... therefore it should logically be a bit faster than the "dual" motor lenses.... so depending on the complexity of the action/movements + illumination/contrast of your subject + how you fine tune your AF-C (Tracking?Zone?Body?Runner?Pets?Wildlife?TeamSports?) you may not always be able to get the lens+camera pairing to focus-lock-shutter-focus-lock-shutter....etc up to what the camera can do in ideal conditions= up to 6fps in AF-C for SL2, and strangely 5fps for SL2-S. Across various AF platforms I used, I frequently concluded zooms are a bit faster at AF than primes... simpler focus action+narrower aperture/larger DOF should play in their favor compared to primes. Edited May 9, 2021 by Slender 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott kirkpatrick Posted May 9, 2021 Share #4 Posted May 9, 2021 And if I read his post carefully, he seems to find, not that AF-C stops but that it isn't fast enough to allow the claimed fps rates, so they slow down. Part of the advantage that modern zooms enjoy is that they do internal focus with many tiny elements, only the smallest of which have to move. The SL Summicrons also have many elements, but move two of them, which are quite small, with two motors. because of the need to create what amounts to a "floating element" for correction of spherical aberration at very close focus distances. The difference in focusing speed should not be great. By contrast, older designs, such as the S lenses. move massive slabs of glass around to focus, and it feels more like shifting a small building on its foundations. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slender Posted May 9, 2021 Share #5 Posted May 9, 2021 (edited) Sure, that is what I understood... but I surely must have interpretated your first comment as an invitation for OP to "check out the AF-C limitations lock" with higher&highest frame rates. My bad? In my (limited) experience with the 35f2SL, AF-C was a bit more rattling and surely less than super-smooth-dead-silent-perfection the 24-90 and 90-280 got me used to. Then again I use AF-C very rarely as AF-S is so fast and sure for me 90% of the time... and I aim to get a SL50Lux so it's all relative/subjective. So in definitive, yeah; to get 5 or 6 perfectly focus locked images per second with your SL2s or SL2, on top of favorable conditions and familiarity with your camera set-up, I can imagine it's not unreasonable to say attaining this number in real life would be "easier" with 24-90/90-280 than with the f2 primes... and worse still the 50 1.4. Also I believe you can ask your camera to prioritise either "shutter action" or "focusing".... do you want 3fps in perfect focus or 6fps with mixed results?.... you can influence that too with this setting. Edited May 9, 2021 by Slender 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slender Posted May 9, 2021 Share #6 Posted May 9, 2021 Not a page turner but that can help some perhaps. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
US00678 Posted May 10, 2021 Author Share #7 Posted May 10, 2021 Advertisement (gone after registration) An update from my side that can be useful for the community... I "recorded" with my iPhone the sound of the bursts, a bit empirical test, but it seems to me to give a good idea of the difference. The conditions are identical (manual exposure 1/800 f5, 100 ISO, same card, same battery, same camera, etc. etc.), in the first case the machine is in MF, in the second in AFs (no differences for iAF or AFc). Setting Mid speed burst and MF my SL2 takes about 25-26 shots in 5 sec, in AFs 15-16 (from the phone with which I recorded it is easy to count them since there is the recording graph). With the Low speed and AFs 18 shots in 10 sec. So the performances are reduced to just under 2fps in Low speed, and about 3fps in Mid speed. I've provided the info above to the Italian Customer Care and they passed them to the "SL technicians". They stated there should NOT be any reason for such different performances, but a lens or camera issue. So it seems a defect, I'll perform a "swap test" tomorrow by the local Leica Store moving my lens to another SL2 body and another SL 35f2 to my camera to hopefully clarify where the issue actually is. I'll let you know... 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
US00678 Posted May 11, 2021 Author Share #8 Posted May 11, 2021 I went to the Leica Store here in Bologna this morning, actually the guys were not fully convinced at the beginning, but the swap test killed any doubt. My SL2 with a brand new SL Sum 35 worked perfectly, their SL2 with my lens had the same issue, now the lens will be moved to Wetzlar to fix the autofocus. I've bought a lot of used stuff both in the Leica stores (Vienna, Milano, Bologna, Munich) and on Ebay and I never had an issue of a defective item, this time I went to the store to buy a new one and they offered me this lens sold just few months before and looking perfect, actually also working flawlessy... but the burst (discovered totally by chance) The good thing is I'll have a fully serviced lens, the bad it'll take 20 days, at minimum. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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