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The intracies of modern camera lens repair (2024)

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Re: The intracies of modern camera lens repair (2024)

#41

Post by mahmoudhossam »

CobaltFire wrote: post #15
dylan604 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would this be a good idea to break away from the norm of what has been done before? The mechanism of updating the lens through the camera exists. Why reinvent the wheel? It only increases the BOM for the lens to include the USB and the electronics involved.

Because third party lenses cannot leverage the camera body to update. Sigma has a dock that allows updates to their lenses in this fashion however.

Only for their old "Art" lenses, the modern "Contemporary" lenses can leverage the camera body update mechanism and only need a file on the SD card containing the firmware update.

Re: The intracies of modern camera lens repair (2024)

#42

Post by Gigachad »

CobaltFire wrote: post #15
dylan604 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would this be a good idea to break away from the norm of what has been done before? The mechanism of updating the lens through the camera exists. Why reinvent the wheel? It only increases the BOM for the lens to include the USB and the electronics involved.

Because third party lenses cannot leverage the camera body to update. Sigma has a dock that allows updates to their lenses in this fashion however.

You can update sigma lenses through Sony camera bodies but it requires running a program on your desktop with the camera plugged in and it’s a bit of a pain. Especially on macOS where it requires enabling kernel extensions.

Would have been nice if Sony just let you drop a file on the sd card to load an update.

Re: The intracies of modern camera lens repair (2024)

#43

Post by Gigachad »

kamranjon wrote: post #9
clnhlzmn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because to control the autofocus motor and other features it makes sense to have a microcontroller in the lens. If you have a microcontroller in the lens you have software in the lens and if you have software in the lens you're going to need to update it. You could argue that the camera should do firmware updates but the manufacturers for (semi) open mounts like the ones Tamron is making lenses for don't want to have…

There have been plenty of motorized lenses in the past that relied on the micro-contoller inside the camera body for control. What does having the controller live on the lens permit that the pattern we've used for years doesn't afford?

You don’t _have_ to update lenses. The updates pretty much just fix edge case autofocus issues usually with specific cameras and settings. Before update mechanisms you just had to deal with it or buy a new lens.

Re: The intracies of modern camera lens repair (2024)

#44

Post by Gigachad »

esafak wrote: post #16

This is the kind of thing I'd love to see robots take over. Companies don't want to service these things much; the labor is too costly. They could just distribute the repair manuals and we could get robots to do it.

How it currently works is if your stuff breaks, you don’t pay someone to fix it, you just sell it as is on Facebook marketplace and people who love fixing stuff as a side hustle buy it off you, fix, and then resell as a working item.

That way someone can specialise in just fixing Xboxes for example and make a nice profit.

Getting robots to do this would be incredibly difficult because it’s too custom and too fiddly. They don’t even use robots for most of the work originally manufacturing these lenses.

Re: The intracies of modern camera lens repair (2024)

#45

Post by servo_sausage »

exmadscientist wrote: post #10

The TPS62140's 30ns propagation delay is not enough to blow a fuse. The first rule of fuses (which many modern engineers do not understand!), is that fuses are not there to save your parts, and they simply will not do that. Fuses exist to prevent fires. Even a fast fuse is very, very slow compared to semiconductors. I've seen transistors blow up to "protect" fuses . They're for stopping fires and preventing the slaug…

It's a scale problem; fuses can be set up protect components or machines in a car or factory context; and often this is what is taught (or what people have first hand familiarity with). It just doesn't scale down to semiconductor level.

Re: The intracies of modern camera lens repair (2024)

#46

Post by schobi »

toast0 wrote: post #31
josephg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only true for photography. For some reason, cinema lenses are still - for the most part - purely mechanical. For film and TV, most camera operators still focus manually - often via gears attached externally to the lens. Coming from modern photography, manual focusing is inconvenient and difficult to learn. But there's something very old-school cool about cine lenses. They feel great.

Autofocus is very nice for photos, especially when it works. Autofocus in moving pictures isn't so great. It might be nice when you're not filming, but while filming, a focus change should really be intentional; auto focus isn't that. Might depend on what you're filming though.

Well.. The automatic part comes from the camera directing the settings mostly. The lens would be motorized focus/aperture.

For motion picture cinematography, I've seen remote controlled focus anyway. I don't see why you could not have a good motor built I to the lens and remote control it. If the external motor focus is quick and precise enough, then the internal motors should be as well.

Re: The intracies of modern camera lens repair (2024)

#48

Post by defrost »

bananaflag wrote: post #47

"Someone" should correct the typo in the submission.

If you mean dang or tomhow the fastest way to have that actually done would be to email hn@ycombinator.com (which _anybody_ could do).

If you mean the submitter, they only get a short interval of time to make such changes ... shorter than the six hours it has been up already.

Re: The intracies of modern camera lens repair (2024)

#49

Post by Lammy »

CobaltFire wrote: post #15
dylan604 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would this be a good idea to break away from the norm of what has been done before? The mechanism of updating the lens through the camera exists. Why reinvent the wheel? It only increases the BOM for the lens to include the USB and the electronics involved.

Because third party lenses cannot leverage the camera body to update. Sigma has a dock that allows updates to their lenses in this fashion however.

I suppose it depends on the system? I have updated Sigma, TAMRON, and XiaoYi lenses on my Panasonic and Olympus MFT bodies, as well as Panasonic and Olympus with each other: https://support.jp.omsystem.com/en/support/imsg/digicamera/d... (Sadly not an exhaustive list. I have firmware for several more lenses stashed away in my archive, but the upgrade mechanism is the same.)

Re: The intracies of modern camera lens repair (2024)

#50

Post by Sharlin »

mahmoudhossam wrote: post #41
CobaltFire wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because third party lenses cannot leverage the camera body to update. Sigma has a dock that allows updates to their lenses in this fashion however.

Only for their old "Art" lenses, the modern "Contemporary" lenses can leverage the camera body update mechanism and only need a file on the SD card containing the firmware update.

"Contemporary" lenses aren’t more modern that "Art". The monikers were introduced at the same time, along with "Sports". Rather, "Art" is Sigma’s high-end line, similar to Canon’s "L". "Contemporary" on the other hand is a somewhat euphemistic term for "consumer" or "affordable".
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