Hi. I am trying to find a way to keep the lens aperture locked at a certain F value during time lapse shooting. Under normal circumstances the lens opens up to the widest aperture between each shot, and closes to the desired aperture for each shot. In general, lenses don't close to exactly the same aperture each time, resulting in slightly flickery footage. I'm hoping there is a simple firmware patch or upgrade that can be used to achieve this, but I have yet to find one, apart from the Dragonframe firmware upgrade. Unfortunately, this is very expensive and aparantly requires sending your camera off to be installed. It includes a mass of functionality aimed at stop-motion footage creation that I don't need. An aperture lock is such a fundamental requirement for time lapse photography I'm amazed the aperture lock isn't a standard feature on all Canon cameras. My camera is the EOS R5 with 50mm or 100mm lenses. If anyone knows how to achieve the lens aperture lock, please let me know. Some people have suggested partial disengagement of the lens but then the camera will not fire. Holding down the depth of field button doesn't work either. Thank you very much for your time.
I would suggest using an old manual lens with a suitable adaptor, of course this will mean you have to focus manually as well.
Hello Ray, Yes, that's an idea, but would still mean spending out on a different lens. I have several lenses I like to use for my time lapses, so I'm still holding out for some kind of firmware based solution. Thanks for taking the time to send your suggestion.
What do you mean by lenses don;t stop down to the same aperture every time? F8 is if F8., I think everyone shooting time-lapse is manually dialing in manual aperture using manual or aperture priority, I guess I don't see the problem on why you would automate this in a firmware update seems its been working for 20 years for DSLR users. Now there is the issue of slight variations in automated exposure, again manual mode is the key but if the light changes slightly you need to compensate, your variation you mention will happen even with the manually dialed settings as light shifts slightly, not because the aperture ring is not stopping down right. You need to balance this across your images in LR or something before compiling the video.
Hi johnsey. Thanks for your reply. I obviously didn't make myself quite clear when I said lenses don't stop down to exacly the same apperture for each shot, because they don't... I mean they really don't! There is a variation. F8 is not always the same F8. But don't just take it from me. Have a look at this
I guess i wasn't aware of the inaccuracy of the lens stopping down. I find it interesting that some firmware hack/upgrade would make a mechanical change of stopping down more accurate than canons firmware, but I probably wound not consider this route as the ideal fix. My concern is that if anything is calculated automatic, such as ISO or white balance even, you will have small variation anyway because the camera will do a new exposure calculation each time the shutter button is pressed on electronically triggered. Hence this doesn't change my thoughts that the issue is more of a post processing issue as even identified in the video you shared. I do think the lens rotate is a great hack that as a canon shooter can be taken advantage of, if I did these sort of videos it probably would be something i thought of.
Follow up .... Ok i did some digging on this dragonframe, they offer software for video/stopmotion etc... And they partnered with canon and for 100$ canon will upgrade select cameras or they can be purchased with the firmware pre installed with your features for focus peaking and aperture lock. https://www.usa.canon.com/explore/s...AL_aZqUjnlItbRKCYfi5Nl2qWDfu3j_FxIRkTPOafuGyu
Hi Johnsey. Sorry, I didn't see your follow up. Only just come across it now. Thanks for your thoughts all round. Unfortunately dragonframe isn't really an option. The price, whilest more than I'd like to pay isn't the big issue, it's having to send the camera off to be done, that's the problem. I live in England and am not prepared to send my camera off to the States, and be without it for that long. I'm coming to the conclusion that my best option is to use deflicker during rendering. It's not ideal because it doesn't completely fix it but it is acceptable. Cheers.
Did you call Canon UK and confirm they would have to ship it to the states? It is a bit odd they can't do a firmware update at their UK repair facility.
