Why does changing aperture cause lag in live view or video on some lenses?
Asked 2/28/2014
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On a Canon 70D, pressing the depth-of-field preview button in live view causes a noticeable pause while the camera stops down the lens. During video, some lenses also cause a visible hiccup when the aperture changes. I first noticed this with the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8, and later also with lenses like the Canon 50mm f/1.8 and 55-250mm. However, the Canon 40mm f/2.8 STM seems to change aperture more smoothly during video.
Why does this happen? Is it mainly the camera reacting to the sudden exposure change, or do some lenses/aperture mechanisms support smoother aperture transitions than others?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
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I think the depth-of-field preview should not be used during live recording (why would you do that anyway?).
Although I can only guess, the most probable reason is that when you press the DOF preview button, the aperture changes very quickly. (This is what is approximated with a step-function in electrical engineering.) Now, the system must respond to that change, but how should it respond? Should it gradually change amplification to arrive from a dark image to the correctly lit? Or should it try to do this as fast as possible, potentially creating an overshoot that will oscillate around the final value? The usual approach is a slower tracking of light intensity - basically you do not expect sudden light intensity changes anyway, and so the AGC, the automatic gain controller can slowly change to the new value.
This is the same as if you go out from a very dark room to bright sunlight. Your eye will get gradually used to the outside light, but it takes awhile before it can operate normally.
Now if you are in Live view, the amount of light is calculated in pure software. When it drastically changes, you need processing power for the AGC algorithm, and probably that just temporarily preempts the recording task.
You can try this easily: get a piece of black paper, and meanwhile recording, just put it before your lens. If I am correct, this will do the same phenomenon you described, proving that this is not a lens-specific problem, it is just too much change in lightness...
In general, why would you change aperture during a recording? Unless you are creating a live DOF change, it is pretty much unneeded... Take multiple takes with different aperture, that is the usual way...
Originally by user24785. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user24785
12y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
A brief lag is normal when aperture changes suddenly in live view or video. When the lens stops down, the sensor instantly receives less light, and the camera must adjust exposure processing/gain to compensate. That response is usually damped rather than instantaneous, so you see a short pause or brightness transition.
Lens design also matters. Many still-photo lenses are built to move the aperture quickly to a target value, not to ramp smoothly during recording. That abrupt change can make the interruption more obvious in video. Some lenses, such as STM models, may appear smoother in movie use, but this behavior is lens-dependent and not all lenses handle video aperture changes gracefully.
So the effect is likely a combination of both:
- the camera reacting to a sudden exposure change in live view/video, and
- different lenses changing the aperture with different smoothness/speed.
In practice, depth-of-field preview is expected to cause this, and changing aperture during recording often produces visible stepping or lag unless the lens/camera combination specifically handles smooth movie exposure transitions well.
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