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Posts Tagged ‘LensRentals’

Lensrentals tears down a Canon RF 100-500mm F4.7-7.1 lens to solve the mystery of a cracked element

22 Jan

Roger and Aaron are back at it again for Lensrentals, this time with a teardown of a Canon RF 100–500mm F4.7–7.1 lens with a little secret inside.

As Roger tells it, Lensrentals has come across ‘several’ copies of Canon’s RF 100–500mm F4.7–7.1 lens with a cracked element inside. He believes this crack occurs during shipping, but notes that ‘if you’ve ever rented from [Lensrentals], you know how we pack […] Nothing should break in shipping.’ As such, he did what he usually does when he can’t get an answer from the outside, he tore the lens down (with the help of Aaron, of course).

The large crack, seen through the rear elements of the lens. Click to enlarge.

Upon taking a closer look, Roger suspected the cracked element was inside the image stabilization module of the lens, due to the crack appearing to move when the lens was shifted around. He explains that while Canon was known for physically locking down IS units in its EF lenses, that practice has become less commonplace with RF lenses due to improved engineering measures. Naturally, he assumed this lack of lockdown could be the culprit for the cracked element in shipping.

As it turns out though, that wasn’t quite the case.

Roger and Aaron went through the usual routine, starting at the front of the lens. Despite easily removing the filter barrel and front optical group, they hit a roadblock with the light baffle inside. So, ‘like the cowards [they] are,’ Roger and Aaron turned the lens around and started to take it apart from the lens mount side.

A close-up view of the ribbon cables neatly tucked away inside the barrel of the lens.

Along the way, the pair ran into the usual array of screws, ribbon cables and sensors. But it wasn’t all that bad to take apart, thanks to the lens’ modular construction. Roger particularly appreciated how Canon managed to integrate almost all of the ribbon cables into the barrel of the lens, meaning there was little need to trace and mark down where every cable was supposed to be routed to:

‘I get accused every so often of being a Canon fanboy (or Sony, or Sigma, etc.). I’m not, but I’ll readily admit I’m a Canon lens construction fan; these are a pleasure to work on compared to most brands.’

A comparison of how the internals of the lens look when zoomed out versus zoomed in. Click to enlarge.

With the rear barrel off, Roger and Aaron took a look at the intricacies of the zoom section of the lens. Roger notes ‘everything moves in an impressively complex fashion’ and is almost overbuilt in some areas. Specifically, Roger points out that the front barrel moves along six heavy-duty rollers (as opposed to three in most other zoom lenses), each of which has custom-fitted nylon bearings to ensure the tightest fit possible while still offering a smooth glide. To this, Roger says ‘This is why nice things cost more; a lesser lens has three same-size small nylon bushings over screws.’

A close-up of one of the nylon bushings precisely fitted to the guide rail. Click to enlarge.

Another detail Roger noticed is that the two optical groups responsible for zoom operate independent of one another. That is, rather than both optical groups extending together with the barrel, the rear zoom optical group moves into the barrel, but isn’t doing so at the same rate as the front optical group.

From there, it was on to the inner barrel to see if the duo could get to the broken element. Before getting to the IS module though, Roger noted the use of springs to hold the rear baffle in place. He says Canon has been using more and more tensioning springs in its lenses over the years, ‘which suggests they originally thought it was a good idea, found out they were correct and increased usage.’ This particular lens has ‘over a dozen springs.’

A look at the tensioning springs used to hold the rear baffle tight. ‘It’s a complex little bit of engineering for a baffle,’ says Roger. Click to enlarge.

Eventually, Roger and Aaron hit the IS module, which Roger describes as ‘a pretty robust unit.’ He elaborates:

‘In older lenses, we sometimes saw IS units that were encased in a ‘cage’ of plastic bars, which broke sometimes. This is not that at all, it’s heavy-duty interlocking plastic shells with multiple screws and tension springs. We could (OK, we did) shake the heck out of it. It just rattled a bit, but there was nothing but solidness here.’

A close-up view of the ‘robust’ IS unit inside the RF 100-500mm F4.7-7.1 lens. Click to enlarge.

However, as you can see in the above image, there was no crack in sight. So it was on to more disassembling to get to the problematic element. After removing countless cams, spacers, screws and more, Roger and Aaron were able to find the cracked element — a thin, single element that sits right behind the aperture assembly and is also the forward focusing element.

Note the aperture assembly in front of the cracked element. Click to enlarge.

Still confused as to how the element cracked, the pair measured and tested everything around the element and determined there’s no way it could’ve impacted anything inside the lens. So, what could’ve caused it to crack? Roger doesn’t really know.

In his conclusion, Roger says:

‘My first thought, given that it’s winter, was perhaps temperature shock, moving from sub-zero trucks to warm indoors or something. But I’ve asked several people more knowledgeable than I and none think that’s a possibility. The ones that cracked are all early copies from a similar serial number range, perhaps there were some flawed elements early on. Maybe it’s just a statistical anomaly; we have a lot of copies and stuff happens. Or maybe it’s something we do or something with shipping. Nobody else has reported this. It’s worth looking into further, there are a number of things we’ve noticed before anyone else just because we have a lot of gear and a lot of repairs and inspections. But it may be an oddity that never happens again.’

Whatever the case, Lensrentals has sent all of its data and broken lenses to Canon, who already has a team assigned to more thoroughly investigating the issue. Roger says ‘Canon is always proactive about investigating these things and [is] one of the few companies willing to publicly say when they actually have a problem.’

Broken element aside, Roger says the rest of the teardown is what he’s come to expect from Canon RF L series lenses:

‘It’s filled with very robust construction, neatly and clearly laid out in a modular manner. It’s a very well-built and sturdy lens with cutting edge technology.’

To conclude, we’ll let Roger’s Rule of Broken Parts speak for itself: ‘the hardest to get to part is the one that’s broken.’

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals’ most popular gear: Canon once again dominates with Sony, Nikon far behind

01 Jan

It’s the end of the year and that means Lensrentals has once again rounded up a list of the most popular camera bodies, lenses and accessories rented from Lensrentals and LensProToGo customers in 2020. Although this year has been, shall we say, different than most, the macro-level look at the most popular rental gear hasn’t changed much. That said, there are a few interesting trends emerging based on the 2020 data.

As it has been since 2017, the Canon 24–70mm F2.8L II lens takes the top spot of the most popular item to fly off Lensrentals’ shelves. Following it is the Canon 5D Mark IV, Canon 70–200mm F2.8L IS II, Sony a7 III and Canon 70–200mm F2.8L IS III. It isn’t until sixth place that we see a change of places. Instead of the Ronin-S, Canon’s 35mm F1.4L II lens snatches up sixth place.

A list of the most popular individual pieces of gear for 2020. Click to enlarge.

As has been the case for a number of years now, Canon absolutely dominates the list of most-rented gear. Canon holds 7 of the top 10 (70%) items and 13 of the top 20 (65%). Lensrentals also note Canon easily took the top spot for new releases in 2020, suggesting people seem more comfortable renting newer Canon gear compared to new offerings from other brands. To that end, Lensrentals’ data also shows that RF mount lenses rent at eight times the rate of Nikon Z mount lenses—a rather staggering statistic considering the new mirrorless mounts were released at the same time and have roughly the same number of lenses available for both mounts.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but there’s been significant growth in mirrorless camera and lens rentals. This backs up essentially all other data showing the migration away from DSLRs is undoubtedly happening. Another interesting trend is third-party lenses, such as those offered by Sigma and Tamron, are on the rise.

An ordered list of the most popular brands by rental market share. Click to enlarge.

All in all, across the board, the top five rental brands are Canon, Sony, Nikon, Sigma and Blackmagic, respectively. The only change in the top five compared to 2019 is Blackmagic, which overtook Panasonic for the final spot.

The full blog post from Lensrentals is a great read, so be sure to visit via the link below to ingest all the data there is to offer.

The Top Rented Photo and Video Products of 2020

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Part II: Lensrentals investigates the Canon EOS R5’s heat emission

10 Sep
Image credits: Photos published with kind permission from Lensrentals.

Following up on the Canon EOS R5 teardown, Lensrentals has published a follow-up piece investigating the heat emission of the Canon R5.

Before digging into the investigation, it’s worth covering some basics. Electronics in cameras produce heat while operating and to ensure full, uninterrupted operation, heat must be controlled. You can remove heat from critical areas in a camera ‘by conduction (flowing through nearby materials), convection (circulating through gas or fluids), and radiation (which mostly occurs at high temperatures).’ Based on his experience tearing down the Canon EOS R5 with Aaron Closz, Roger Cicala knows that the R5 is tightly sealed, which is great for keeping water out of a camera but not ideal for releasing heat from inside the camera. This means that convection, circulating heat through air, ‘doesn’t play much of a role.’

Cicala avoids discussions about chip operating temperatures, the thermal flow of different substances in a camera, firmware cycles and the like, as they are not his area of expertise. Instead, he focuses on the basic issue of how heat generated by the operation of a fully assembled Canon R5 camera exits the camera. At some point, especially when doing an intensive task such as recording 8K video footage, the camera will overheat and the heat either needs a suitable exit path or the camera needs to shut down. You can learn more about different usage cases and how long the R5 can operate being shutting down by checking out our Canon R5/R6 overheating test.

Lensrentals’s initial testing methodology involves using a Canon R5 camera running version 1.0 firmware recording 8K video to a CFx card. The camera was then run until it reached a temperature cut off while the team used industrial thermometers to monitor the heat of the camera and see where heat was exiting the R5.

With a lens attached, with all covers closed and with the LCD folded against the camera body, the R5 ran for 18 minutes on a table before getting a temperature warning. Lensrentals found that the hottest part of the camera was the back behind the LCD with a temperature of 43°C / 109°F. The thumb rest was slightly cooler at 40°C / 104°F and the bottom plate around the tripod socket 38°C / 100°F. The test was run again with the LCD moved to the open position and the camera was a few degrees cooler but was unable to record for a longer duration.

Next, Lensrentals ditched the thermometers in favor of a FLIR IR camera. Cicala has long suspected that the lightweight material used for camera chassis and shells aren’t good conductors of heat. With a removed R5 shell as the test subject, it turns out Cicala’s assumptions were right. He says, ‘The shell material doesn’t spread heat especially well…Obviously, it does pass heat out of the camera to some degree, but it sure doesn’t act as a heat sink or anything.’ Cicala continues, ‘Even exposed to air, it was over 10 minutes before [the shell] cooled down to room temperature. This kind of poses the question that if heat isn’t getting out of the shell very well, then how does the heat get out?’

With the FLIR IR camera, the team redid the original recording test, and lo and behold, the warm spot found by the thermometer is immediately evident in the FLIR IR image. Cicala overlaid an image from the R5 teardown and no surprise, the hot spot is located above the camera’s processor and SDRAM cards.

Cicala is careful to point out, ‘This is NOT an image with the back off. It’s an image of inside of the camera overlaid on the heat image to correlate location.’ Image credit: Lensrentals, 2020

The front of the camera showed a bit of warmth and the top of the camera remained quite cool. Cicala wondered if the heat from inside the camera might rise through the air inside and reach the top plate, but as the teardown showed, there’s very little empty space inside the R5. The viewfinder also acts to block some heat transfer.

When taking apart the Canon R5, Lensrentals noted that there’s a heat sink connected to the metal tripod plate. The FLIR IR image shows that the bottom of the camera does get quite warm. In the image below, captured at thermal cut-off, you can see the metal screws that go into the tripod plate heating up. The tripod socket itself, for some reason, remained quite cool.

As the camera heats up to the point where it needs to shut off, heat is showing in the FLIR IR images in numerous places. The metal lugs for the camera strap get very hot, the front of the camera is now quite hot, especially around the lens mount area, and the area near the card slot door also heats up considerably. The hottest spot of the camera during testing proved to be the CFx slot itself, at nearly 48° C.

After upgrading the R5 to firmware version 1.1, recording times before cut-off increased, but so did the operating temperatures of the camera. Of interest here is that the I/O ports connected to the main PCB itself got ‘quite hot,’ but the ports attached to the sub-board didn’t seem to heat up much at all. The image sensor itself also quite hot, nearly 50° C. An anonymous friend of Lensrentals read the internal temperature from a raw image captured during the temperature testing. That image showed an internal temperature of 61° C, which is hotter than the CFx card slot, meaning that somewhere inside the camera is hotter than the hottest temperature Lensrentals measured during testing.

After testing, Lensrentals has a few interesting conclusions. Heat does not leave the R5 very well, and it seems to exit primarily via metal parts of the camera body. Further, the camera is hotter inside than at its hottest exit points. Cicala writes, ‘If [the R5] doesn’t get heat out very well, it certainly can’t be expected to cool down quickly after it turns off from overheating. Cooling the outside of the camera should help a bit, but it’s not going to be very efficient.’

There are some steps you can take to possibly help the camera stay cooler, such as leaving the LCD opened away from the back of the camera, opening the HDMI port cover (remember, this port is attached directly to the main board), and saving to SD cards when possible, which is of course not possible when recording 8K video. However, Cicala doubts that these steps will make a significant difference. Perhaps more effective steps would be to remove the lens, open the shutter and open the memory card doors will help. These aren’t steps you necessarily should have to take in order to use a camera the way you want to.

More enterprising individuals may opt to try minor modifications. Cicala says, ‘Some people intend to do more aggressive things to extend recording time. It would certainly be possible, with some minor modifications, to connect the metal heat sink plates to the outside world. You might do so by just exposing the bottom tripod plate and attaching a sink to that. Of course, you lose weather sealing, but it would be simple to try.’

Maybe removing the weather sealing and opening parts of the camera would help, but to really fix the overheating issue, someone will have to figure out a way to improve heat transfer from inside the camera, as there appears to be a thermal bottleneck deep within the R5. Cicala provides a humorous image as to what a ‘redneck 8K video camera’ might look like after modifications.

For many more images and to read Cicala’s full speculation about whether the Canon R5 can be ‘fixed’ and whether it even needs fixing in Canon’s eyes, read the full article on the Lensrentals blog.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals tears down the Canon EOS R5 and finds interesting sealing and thermal flow

09 Sep
Image credits: Photos published with kind permission from Lensrentals.

Since Canon announced the 8K-capable EOS R5 mirrorless camera, there has been heated discourse online about the thermal flow inside the camera and its propensity to overheat. Curious photographers have been wondering what the inside of the EOS R5 looks like and what sort of design features Canon has implemented into its latest high-resolution full frame camera. Wonder no more as Roger Cicala and Aaron Closz at Lensrentals have disassembled a Canon R5 to see what’s going on inside.

In terms of thermal design, when tearing down the R5, the duo found multiple heat sinks and thermal pads. For a photo camera, there is a lot of heat sink inside the EOS R5. However, compared to a video camera, the R5 features ‘not even a fraction of what’ is seen in a video camera.

Cicala speculates that it’s possible the camera has been designed to allow heat to exit through the top panel of the camera, as the connection of the top panel to the main body does not feature the same level of sealing found in the connections between the body and the bottom and side plates.

You can see some of the sealing along the edges where the side plate attaches to the main body. Image credit: Lensrentals

Speaking of sealing, after having removed the camera’s grip, battery door, bottom plate and side plates, Cicala and Closz found an impressive level of sealing throughout the camera. The battery door has weather resistant gaskets around the edge and the bottom of the battery door compartment itself is a soft gasket material.

Along the bottom plate, Canon placed a ‘soft rubber gasket along the entire mating edge of the pieces.’ This provides a ‘greater seal area’ than what is usually seen in disassembled cameras at Lensrentals headquarters. The same sealing gaskets found here are also present where other body parts are sealed together, such as along the sides of the camera.

Of the weather sealing in the EOS R5, Cicala writes, ‘When we took these pieces apart, you feel the suction when they disengage. That’s not something we’ve seen in other cameras. The thing about weather sealing is it only takes one weak place to leak, but this sealing seems to be a step up from anything we’ve seen before.’ This is certainly a promising find for prospective R5 owners.

While there are gaskets around the I/O ports on the R5, Cicala notes that the HDMI and digital out ports are part of the main printed circuit board (PCB). This means that users should be careful to not damage these ports, as it will result in an expensive repair. On the other hand, the tripod plate and tripod mount itself are both replaceable parts and not soldered anywhere. This is great news for the team at Lensrentals, as they regularly must take apart cameras to make repairs like this before sending them out to new customers.

Moving to the back of the camera, the R5 has more dials than the EOS R but maintains an identical wiring arrangement. There’s a new flex design on the LCD side and you can even see a mark made by a Canon tech in the image below.

On the back of the circuit boards, there is a notable difference between the EOS R5 and the EOS R. The new camera has ‘immensely more intense and dense circuitry.’ In the image below, the green sub-board ‘appears to be about DC power conversion.’ On the left black board, the large white chip is a Wi-Fi chip.

Located beneath the green sub-board is either an aluminum heat sink or an electronic shield. Cicala notes that ‘electronic shields tend to be quite thin, but this is a manly piece of aluminum, 0.98mm thick. I speculate it’s more about heat than electronics. Notice I said ‘speculate.”

When removing the main PCB, Cicala and Closz found a large aluminum heat sink on the underside of the board. There is a layer of insulating tape over the sensor as well. There is also a thermal pad located underneath the CPU, which Cicala speculates means that Canon is directing heat from the four SDRAM chips located around the CPU to one heat sink and the heat from the CPU itself to a different area.

After removing the circuitry, the Lensrentals team was able to inspect the image stabilization system and image sensor arrangement. The sensor assembly is held in place by three screws. To ensure that the image sensor stays perfectly parallel to the lens mount, Canon uses shims to make tiny adjustments. The EOS R used spring tension screws instead. Cicala assumes that ‘the vibration of an IBIS unit could loosen them over time’ and notes that ‘every IBIS camera we’ve opened uses shims.’

Once the circuitry and image sensor/IBIS unit has been removed from the R5’s body, there’s not much left besides the shutter assembly. Lensrentals don’t take apart shutter assemblies as they are incredibly labor-intensive to rebuild and if anything is not lined up perfectly, the shutter timing will be off and only factory software can be used for recalibration.

The sensor is mounted directly to the IBIS plate. Some cameras use screws and plastic tabs to support the sensor, which Lensrentals has seen result in fractures. ‘On all the edges of the Canon unit, the sensor is mounted directly to the IBIS plate; no tabs. That doesn’t mean it can’t break, of course, or glue comes loose. But this seems sturdier to me,’ says Cicala.

Summing up the findings, Cicala writes that the R5 is ‘pretty thoroughly filled up, there are lots of parts and not much air.’ The new weather sealing method found in the lower two-thirds of the camera ‘seems to give a really, really tight seal.’ The IBIS unit ‘is very compact but well-engineered.’

With respect to thermal flow, Cicala believes there are a pair of separate heat sinks. One of them is located under the voltage board and the other between the main PCB and sensor assembly. Both heat sinks include thermal pads to direct heat. There may also be a heat sink in the tripod plate, although it’s unclear. Cicala says, ‘In a small photo camera, there’s not a lot of ventilation/convection current to let the heat out. This camera is better sealed than most; I doubt there’s very much ventilation at all. Somebody should look into that.’

For many more images and details, head to Lensrentals’ full teardown.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals tears down a $10K Fujifilm GFX 100 corroded by saltwater

01 Sep

What happens when even a splash of saltwater makes its way inside a $ 10K Fujifilm GFX 100? Just ask Roger Cicala, Founder of Lensrentals.

For their latest teardown, Roger and his trusty teardown assistant Aaron took apart one of Fujifilm’s medium format cameras that had been damaged during a rental, wherein it was used inside a dive housing. Fuji Service told Roger a ‘repair [was] not possible,’ and the insurance claims were already paid out, so the dynamic duo took it upon themselves to salvage what components they could.

That is not how a PCB should look.

The general rule of water damage, according to Roger, is ‘it’s always worse on the inside.’ And, unfortunately, in the case of this GFX 100, that tidbit proved to be true once again. While the outside looked mostly unscathed, the inside was riddled with corroded screws, flex ribbon cables and solder points.

A literal hands-on look at the massive sensor inside the GFX 100.

Roger and Aaron salvaged what they could — namely the LCD panel, hot shoe and a few other pieces — but as much as the teardown was about getting any functional pieces, it was also about being able to take apart a $ 10K camera without the risk of damaging it.

In the words of Roger, ‘The IBIS unit looks like it could stabilize a small child, and certainly is strong enough to support this big sensor.’

In that vein, Aaron and Roger came across plenty of interesting engineering decisions and components inside the camera. From the robust IBIS assembly to the spring-mounted shutter mechanism, the GFX 100 proved to be as well-engineered as Roger had hoped for a camera of its size (and price). That said, the weathersealing wasn’t quite as impressive as is suggested, so whether it’s freshwater or saltwater, don’t press your luck too much when out in the rain or near the sea.

You can read and view the full teardown on the Lensrentals blog.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals tears down the Canon 600mm F11 IS STM

25 Aug

Roger and Aaron of Lensrentals are back with a new lens teardown, the Canon 600mm F11 IS STM. While it’s not the lens Roger usually goes for (he’s a self-proclaimed connoisseur of ‘high-priced wide-aperture lenses’), this lens fills a niche in the photography world and both Roger and Aaron were interested to see how exactly Canon packs a 600mm focal length into a compact body that weighs just 2lbs.

Before any screws are removed, Roger breaks down the new gapless diffractive optics Canon uses inside the lens. Instead of the first-generation of Canon’s diffractive optics technology, the 600mm uses gapless diffractive optics, which Roger says is ‘basically market lingo for ‘instead of an air space between the DO elements, we invented some special glue.’

An illustration from Canon showing the difference between the first-generation DO optics and the second-generation ‘gapless’ DO optics.

It wouldn’t be a Lensrentals teardown without a few hiccups along the way and this proved no exception. Due to the unique extending-barrel design of the lens, the teardown proved to be a bit more of a learning curve.

The twist-and-lock ring used for extending and locking the lens in place for used being removed.

After getting through the rear lens mount, it was onto the extending section of the barrel. Canon uses a series of metal guides to stabilize the lens when extended. Roger notes these were ‘quite solid pieces of metal going the length of the lens.’

A close-up look at the guides that run along the length of the lens and provide structural integrity when extended.

As you would expect for such an interesting design, the ribbon cables inside were a bit more challenging to trace out than the typical Canon lens. Roger and Aaron made it halfway through the lens before eventually offering up ‘some 4-letter prayer words to the high priests of Canon engineering, because, well, nothing was coming apart.’

So, rather than risking further damage, the duo turned the lens over and started tearing it down from the front of the lens. As was expected after seeing the initial flex cable running down the lens, the electronics of the lens proved to be much different than what’s often seen inside Canon glass, with interesting angles, plenty of tape and even flex solder being used. Despite the differences though, Roger notes that the lens is very much a Canon lens in the optics department.

A close-up view of the front-most element, which in this case is the diffractive optics group.

The duo had gotten as far as they could before Roger was due to leave, so they wrapped it up. In Roger’s summary, he notes that the lens’ electronic construction was very different for a Canon lens, while the optics had a ‘very Canon look, with numerous optical adjustments/compensations using their new, large eccentric collars.’ Roger says he’s convinced these new larger collars are used ‘because Canon is doing automated optical adjustment of subgroups during assembly.’ He adds that ‘nobody else is adjusting to this degree or in this manner.’

You can check out the full teardown in all its glory over on the Lensrentals blog.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals discovers cracked sensor mounts inside some of its Sony a7-series rental fleet

12 Jun
Photo credits: All photos and illustrations (except for this one), kindly provided by Lensrentals.

As promised, Lensrentals is back with part two of its flange-to-sensor measurement test, this time testing photo-centric cameras instead of cine cameras.

As Roger and his team meticulously pored over the measurements of every compatible camera they had on hand (the testing rig only had mount options for Canon, Sony and MFT cameras), they discovered a concerning percentage of Sony a7-series cameras had suffered from an unexpected and consistent failure of a key component.

Although Roger starts off his blog post with his Canon measurements, we’re going to begin with Sony, as that’s where the surprising and concerning discovery lies. In total, the Lensrentals team tested 487 various Sony full-frame and APS-C mirrorless bodies. To those concerned the in-body image stabilization (IBIS) would affect the flange-to-sensor distance, Roger has the following to say:

‘First let me mention that we asked and answered the obvious question “does the IBIS system change the flange-to-sensor distance.” We took some cameras, measured them, put a lens on, focused it on various things to run the IBIS, and measured again, about a dozen times each. Each camera had identical measurements every time.’

An overview of the flange-to-sensor distance measurements of all Sony cameras Lensrentals tested. Note the scale on all of these charts: this chart is -0.1mm to +0.1mm.

With that debate wrapped up, Roger presents the overall findings for Sony mirrorless cameras (seen above) before further dividing up the Sony camera bodies, grouping the Sony a9 and Sony APS-C cameras together and grouping all of the a7-series camera bodies together. Roger grouped the data this way because the a9 and APS-C models ‘look[ed] marvelous,’ with minimal variation, while the a7-series showed rather dramatic variations, particularly with their outliers.

This is the a7-series chart, showing the a7R III (blue), a7R IV (red) and a7 III (yellow). Note the unusual number of outliers on the very extremes of the chart.

After testing each unit, Roger pulled 28 outliers for further inspection (5.75% of the Sony cameras tested). While a few of them needed to have the lens mount screws tightened or entirely replaced to correct their flange-to-sensor distance, there were a number of units that stood out as ‘large outliers.’ Upon closer inspection, Roger and his team discovered a number of these units had a more unexpected and more serious issue: there was a fracture between the sensor mount and stabilization system.

The arrow points to a fractured sensor-to-IBIS mount inside a Sony a7-series camera.

As you can see in Lensrentals’ a7R III teardown, Sony mounts the sensors to a plastic plate that attaches to the IBIS system via three screws. In two of the ‘large outlier’ units the plastic plate the sensor is mounted to had fractured; two others had screws that had wiggled their way out; one had what appeared to be a ‘metal fatigue type fracture’ in the mount; and one had a ‘displaced fracture of the sensor frame’ that was serious enough to pop off the retaining clip.

The arrow points to the tab where the retainer clip is supposed to be secured to.

While these are all serious issues that raise concerns, Roger says he was amazed to realize ‘the cameras really didn’t show much disfunction.’ He elaborates:

‘If you had just shown me the pictures above I would have expected error messages, horrible images, something dramatic. These were renting regularly, customers were happy with them, our 64-point tech inspection was passed before and after each rental.’

Even after hours of stress testing by Lensrentals’ most experienced techs, the only complaints they had with these broken units were the same minor complaints a few renters had pointed out in the past, including ‘Seems images might be a little soft on one side,’ or ‘maybe the stabilization isn’t quite as good as it should be.’

Roger says it appears as though a single broken mount (remember, there are three screws holding the sensor to the IBIS unit) doesn’t appear to have much affect on overall operation, but suggests if two of the mounts were to break it would be likely to cause noticeable issues.

Roger says the crack in this image displaced the mount by about 0.5mm, but despite this dramatic displacement, the center of the sensor shifted much less than that.

Wonky mounts and fractured components sound scary, but in total, less than 2% of Lensrentals’ Sony camera stock was found to have lens mount issues and only 1.6% suffered from the sensor mount problem. That’s not an insignificant number of cameras given how large the rental fleet is, but considering these are rental cameras and it took hours of intense inspection of the outlier samples to notice even the smallest impact on image quality, it’s hard to say how serious the issue really is in practical terms.

Wonky mounts and fractured components sound scary, but in total, less than 2% of Lensrentals’ Sony camera stock was found to have lens mount issues and only 1.6% suffered from the sensor mount problem

Still, though, any kind of failure like this is concerning and both Roger and DPReview have contacted Sony to inform them of Lensrentals’ finding and request comment on the matter.

With the Sony camera data out of the way, it’s on to Canon cameras. Within the data, Roger discovered a few interesting tidbits. First, the flange-to-sensor distance in photo cameras doesn’t vary any more than in Canon’s cine cameras. Second, of the 11 cameras (out of 478 Canon DSLR cameras tested) that Roger pulled for closer inspection due to variations, all of them were either 5D IV or 1DX bodies, i.e., pro bodies.

A chart showing the variation of the Canon DSLR cameras Lensrentals tested, with the outliers highlighted. Again, note the scale of this graph: this chart is -0.1mm to +0.04mm.

Upon further inspection of the most affected camera bodies, Roger discovered each of them had a history of a drop or required ‘significant internal work’ after being rented out at one time or another. He also notes it makes sense these cameras are more susceptible to damage when bumped or dropped due to the tendency for these cameras to be used in harsher conditions and with longer, heavier telephoto lenses, which could more easily bend the mount ‘because force proportional to mass and all.’

Roger concludes his data with a breakdown of variation in 138 Micro Four Thirds cameras: 82 Panasonic units, 36 Olympus units and 20 Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K units.

A breakdown of the various Micro Four Thirds camer models Lensrentals tested.

Overall, the variation between units proved to be relatively minimal, with only five cameras being outliers. Of these five cameras, four had been sent back to the factory to have their sensors replaced and one had a shutter replacement. Roger notes five other Micro Four Thirds cameras also had their sensors replaced and were within the nominal variation range, so don’t assume all cameras with sensor replacements will have abnormal flange-to-sensor distance measurements.

In wrapping up, Roger concludes that while it might’ve been seemed unnecessary to measure the flange-to-sensor distance of still cameras, it proved just as useful as it was with cine cameras. The team found fixable issues in roughly 2% of its still camera fleet thanks to the testing and, in Roger’s own words, ‘To me, that’s a huge thing […] Huge enough that we need to get a second Denz tool for the photo techs since the first one is already monopolized by the video people.’

Read the full article at Lensrentals.com

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals bought a $10K machine to test the flange-to-sensor distance of more than 2,500 cinema cameras

04 Jun

Roger Cicala and his team over at Lensrentals have made the most of their COVID-19 downtime by spending the past few months painstakingly measuring the flange-to-sensor distance of more than 2,500 cameras to see just how much variation there is from cinema camera to cinema camera (even identical models).

In the first of a two-part series on the testing and results, Roger breaks down why flange-to-sensor distance is important, details ‘how accurate is possible,’ explains how the Lensrental team went about testing and shares the first bits of data from the meticulous testing of popular cinema cameras.

This is what using a $ 10,000 Denz Flange Depth Controller looks like.

To achieve this testing, Roger invested in a Denz Flange Depth Controller, which costs about $ 10,000 and can measure flange depth to the nearest 0.01mm. Even after receiving the new equipment, he and Aaron spent a month confirming its accuracy before eventually training ‘Poor Ben’ on how to use the machine.

Over the following weeks, Ben ended up measuring and re-measuring the flange-to-sensor distance of more than 2,500 cameras worth roughly $ 10M (yes, million).

The red circles denote Canon Cinema cameras that had more variation than is to be expected for the flange-to-sensor distance.

For this first part of the series, Roger breaks down the spread of Canon Cinema Cameras, Sony Cinema Cameras, non-Canon EF-mount cameras and Blackmagic cameras to show just how much variation the models and individual cameras had. To his surprise, there were a few outliers, but as always, Roger seems to have gotten to the bottom of it and has learned through this testing that the Lensrentals team can and will be able to better screen these less-accurate cameras so everything going out their doors is up to snuff.

You can check out the full breakdown on the Lensrentals blog, linked below. Part two will be out in the near future and will address the flange-to-sensor distance of ‘SLR style’ camera bodies.

Lensrentals: The Great Flange-to-Sensor Distance Article

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals tears down Nikon’s $10,000 Nikkor AF-S 120-300mm F2.8 lens

15 May
Aaron of Lensrentals uses his new, specialized driver to carefully remove screws from the Nikkor AF-S 120-300mm F2.8 FL ED SR VR lens.

Roger and Aaron at Lensrentals are back again with another lens teardown; this time, the Nikkor AF-S 120–300mm F2.8 FL ED SR VR lens.

While no reason is needed to take apart another lens to see what goodies lurk within, Roger specifically notes he chose this lens because he wanted to see if the new modern design of Nikon’s Z-mount lenses is being carried over to newer F-mount lenses as well. In the introduction paragraph of his teardown post, Roger says:

‘We were interested to see if newer F lenses would pick that up, or if they would continue in ‘classic’ format. While it’s pure speculation on my part, I thought that if F lenses were starting to pick up Z characteristics, it would, perhaps, signify a unified approach going forward. If not, maybe then Nikon is maintaining separation of the Z and F design teams.’

Roger notes Lensrentals only has ‘a few of these,’ almost all of which have been rented out. However, one came in with dust inside and although it wouldn’t affect the image quality of the lens, Roger thought it’d be a perfect opportunity to do a teardown. Plus, ’t customers like to receive really sparkly clean lenses, and we didn’t want to deal with the inevitable “I can’t believe there’s dust in this $ 10,000 lens” complaint,’ he says.

The disassembly started in the front, as that’s where the dust was located. The first notable observation is that Nikon has made the front filter barrel fairly easy to remove—and therefore replace—as it slides out after removing half a dozen screws and a bit of tape.

From there, it was onto removing the first group of lenses, which Roger believes consists of 3–4 elements (Nikon is yet to publish an optical diagram for this lens yet). After a brief moment of concern that the dust was lodged between these elements, he and Aaron discovered the dust was instead on the next group of lenses—the optical zoom group. As you might expect for a 120–300mm F2.8 lens, this group has quite a bit of travel in it.

Upon diving further into the lens, Roger found the answer to the initial question he had for this teardown. When looking underneath the rubber grip of the zoom optical group, he saw an aluminum cover; a discovery that made him ‘sad.’ He elaborates:

Note the clear plastic tape and aluminum shielding beneath the zoom ring rubber.

[The aluminum covers are] what Nikon uses to cover old-time position-sensor brushes, which means this lens has ‘classic’ brush position sensors, not newfangled optical sensors. They work just fine, don’t get me wrong, but this is a strong hint we’re not going to find new ‘Z- style’ electronics inside this lens.

At this point, no further assembly could be done from the front of the lens, so he and Aaron turned it around and started taking off the rear bayonet mount, which was ‘thoroughly weather resistant with both hard rubber and foamed rubber gaskets.’

From there, Roger and Aaron break it down all the way to the aperture assembly, carefully maneuvering through a messy array of soldered wires, ribbon cables and enough glue that it might just give Roger nightmares. In wrapping up the teardown, Roger says:

‘We had seen what we most wanted to see. The lens is well built in the old, classic Nikon F way. Obviously, we don’t think that’s pretty, and it’s not fun to work on. But it’s been an effective method of manufacturing for decades. The moving parts are solid, the chassis and assembly are solid, the weather resistance is as good as anything, maybe better.’

While the teardown was done, Roger also ran an optical test on the lens to see how this copy performed. He notes ‘there will be better or worse copies’ out there ‘but given the price of the lens, I assumed it should be clearly better than the Sigma 120–300mm F2.8 lens.’

His assumption ended up being correct, with the MTF curves looking much cleaner than the Sigma (which he notes is a great lens in its own right) and ‘at least as good as, perhaps better than’ Nikon’s own 300mm F2.8 lens.

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 300mm F2.8G ED VR II Average MTF vs Nikkor 120-300mm F2.8 FL ED (@300mm) Average MTF Sigma 120-300mm F2.8 DG OS HSM Sport (@300mm) Average MTF vs Nikkor 120-300mm F2.8 FL ED (@300mm) Average MTF

When all was said and done, Roger concludes that ‘Roger’s Law,’ which states ‘that Zooms Are Never as Good as Primes has at least one very expensive exception. At one of its focal lengths. This zoom is ‘prime good’ at 300mm.’ Other lessons learned include that the 120–300mm F2.8 is incredibly well-build and ‘spectacularly good optically, particularly at the long end.’

You can see more images and read a more detailed breakdown of Roger’s thoughts over on the Lensrental blog post.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals survey: 19% of professional photographers are considering a career change due to COVID-19 pandemic

23 Apr

Lensrentals has published the results of its COVID-19 pandemic survey that’s attempting to gauge how the ongoing pandemic has been and will continue to affect the work and outlook of professional photographers and videographers (defined as making the majority of their income from photo and video work) around the world, many of whom are self-employed.

Over 1,000 self-labeled professional photographers and videographers responded to the survey, which was specifically designed ‘to focus on the main source of income per participant to gain an understanding that will align with the unemployment resources for each state,’ according to Lensrentals. While many of the resulting data points from the survey were —such as 96% of respondents stating their income and/or work has been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic—there was one stand-out data point.

According to the results of the survey, 18.6% of respondents said they are considering leaving their respective industries due to the loss of income caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, 18.4% of photographers and 20.4% of videographers who took part in the survey said they are actively considering leaving their line of work. Seeing as how it was simply a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question, it’s difficult to gauge how likely it is these particular respondents will follow through on their considerations, but roughly one out of every five professionals is a rather serious number.

Other less-surprising data points include 74.5% of respondents saying ‘all or almost all’ of their jobs (defined as >80%) have been cancelled for the month of April with 59.7% and 20% of respondents saying the same for the month of May and June, respectively.

To read a more detailed breakdown of the numbers, head on over to Lensrentals’ blog post. In the closing paragraph, Lensrentals links to numerous resources its compiled the help creatives amidst the ongoing pandemic and social distancing initiatives.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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