FZ18 Question

[happy_peasant]

With my FZ7, if the Aperture was set at 8.0, the maximum shutter speed was 1/2000. This held true throughout the zoom range. With my FZ18, I just noticed that at full wide angle and Aperture 8.0 the shutter speed can be 1/2000, but if I start to zoom it drops to 1/1600, and if I get up towards the high end of the zoom range it drops to 1/1300 maximum. Do all FZ18s do this or do I have a flaw in mine? Even if they all do it I think it is a flaw actually.
Thanks,
Steve

And a low grade duck shot for your time. Taken in snow so not that crisp but if the weather is nice these guys are way out in the lake.

[genece]

Mine seems to work the same way....

[penolta]

It is not a defect - that is the way the lens is designed. The specifications list this lens as f2.8-4.2. As the aperture decreases, so will the shutter speed. Most longer zooms are variable aperture designs these days, with the aperture decreasingtowards the long end. Constant aperture zooms are much more expensive to make, and can be larger and heavier as well.

Your female Common Merganser looks like she is having a bad hair day! :-)

[happy_peasant]

penolta wrote:

It is not a defect - that is the way the lens is designed. The specifications list this lens as f2.8-4.2. As the aperture decreases, so will the shutter speed. Most longer zooms are variable aperture designs these days, with the aperture decreasingtowards the long end. Constant aperture zooms are much more expensive to make, and can be larger and heavier as well.

Your female Common Merganser looks like she is having a bad hair day! :-)

It may be the way the lens is designed, but it is different then the FZ7 lens. If the FZ7 was at f8 the shutter speed could be 1/2000 no matter where the zoom was. So I think having a decreasing shutter speed on this camera is a step backwards. However, it has quite a few steps forward so I can't complain. I just wanted to make sure it was not just my camera.

And yes, she is having a bad hair day. Mergansers do that often. I love them for it as I have bad hair days all the time too.

Thanks for comment, and Gene, thanks also.

[genece]

It does seem to be backwards.......but it seems to give back the 2/3rds of a stop you give up with the lens.........3.3 to 4.2.

The tech part is over my head but it seems to be designed that way.

Do you think you will ever miss the 2/3 stop?

[happy_peasant]

genece wrote:

Do you think you will ever miss the 2/3 stop?

Probably not overly much. A few times I used 1/2000 for flying gulls. But the reason I noticed this the other day was trying to shoot manual on snow and ice and being over exposed in the glare, and when I tried to increase shutter speed I could not.