The need for quiet??

[mechawombat]

What is this desperate need for quiet lenses and shutters.

Lately all I hear from some people is how great their gear is because it is so quiet. Seriously!

Now I can understand if you are a wedding photographer. There is a need for that, but I really cannot see the need for it went I am shooting a landscape or most things I shoot??

Am I missing something??

[ameerat42]

Hmm! Does that make you slap-happy?

Now landscapes. So there you are out on the plains - let's make it in Africa - and you shutter startles a rhin
At the very least a thousand birds (like and even ) fly out from the trees raising Cain in the process.
(Worse! It's a flock of plovers flying sideways.)
Or down by the river a croc chews off your camera strap!!! You run! A snappy retreat?

Surely, you can see the practical applications of a quiet shutter?
m.

[ricktas]

Maybe it is not such a photography thing, but a life thing. I love the quiet and solitude of going on a shoot by myself, where the only noises I hear at a location are nature. The water lapping the shore, the birds in the scrub. It is a time for me to enjoy my photography and appreciate the 'silence'. I work in an industry where all day everyday there is noise, this has given me a huge appreciation of quiet.

[mechawombat]

Yes but is lens AF noise that bad?? I had some ask me if I use the quiet mode on my D7000. I think its plenty quiet without it TBH.

All I want from a lens is HIGH IQ.

When I am outdoors in the thick of it and I want to drink it all in, The camera is off. Might be for 1 min or an hour but still AF noise or the shutter are comforting to me when I shoot.

[ricktas]

I agree, but if I was to seek out a quiet camera and lenses, that would be my reason. Other than that the camera sounds I generally find that I block out and cannot really ever recall thinking, gee that was loud, etc, anyway

[Steve Axford]

When you have waited patiently for a platypus to come close, you look straight at him a bare 3m away and carefully press the shutter release, and bingo - the noise frightens him and you don't see him again that day.
Then I appreciate quiet cameras.

[arthurking83]

quiet af in lenses is vital for good video.

Otherwise you have to use an external mic setup to get the sound recording device away from a whirring camera body.

If the video is serious or semi serious the use of external sound recording is almost a dead cert .. but for a bit of fun video the ZZZZing of a lens focusing in video is a bit more serious than just annoying.


I agree about the Landscapes bit tho .. the quietness of the tools have little significance other than to not displease the operator.

But you got to remember that not everyone buys a camera to shoot only landscapes.

Photography also is used at concerts, theater, and all manner of events where strict quietness is enforced.

if my gear were quieter, then this could only be regarded as a good thing .... but only if there is no compromise in other aspects of the workings and features of the devices I use.

[mechawombat]

Oh how I know of the platypus dilemma. The d7000 solved the noise bit over my Sony but I did not buy my nikon for its quietness.

Granted as I said in my OP I can see the need for quietness in many areas of photography.
But why is it so important to shoot portraits and snapshots and bragging about it. Just seems like a stupid thing to worry about for joe schmo.

I will give you 2 examples that I thought were stupidly stupid.

I was at World Time Attack Challenge ( A motorsport event) When one of the guys was complaining of how noisy his telephoto lens was.
Did not matter that the subjects we were shooting were making 110+ decibels as the passed with WOT.

Second was another proclaiming how much better his gear was because it has a quiet motor in the lens. We were shooting in a garden and he was saying listen hardly a peep. I laughed as I manually focused with no sound at all.

Just seems like a stupid thing for these guys to proclaim about

[arthurking83]

Yeah, I get where you're coming from.

Of course having a whisper quiet lens at a motorsports event is vital to professional photography!

I suppose having the quiet gear is handier than not .. D300 is a real clunker and has no quiet mode itself.
I think I remember one specific instance where I wished I had a truly quiet camera .. dare I say a Canon!! ... at my kid's school concert .... in 6 or 7 years of them .. only once tho!!

The other aspect of the noise in DSLR's is that the noise generated by the specific mechanicals can't be a good long term prospect for the durability of those mechanicals.

For there to be noise from those components .. ie. mainly in the form of the reflex mirror .. this implies that a noisy mirror slapping itself into submission, 100,000 times during it's life, is hitting against something harder than it otherwise could be.
I suppose there's also going to be some noise generated by the solenoid that physically operates the mirror as well.
But I'm wondering if in making the camera more quiet, it actually helps to make it both more stable(less prone to mirror slap vibration) and more durable. That is, instead of crashing to a rest on some padded rest stop, if the mirror were designed so that it never touched anything solid on it's upward travel before making it's way down again. The solenoid would only rest the mirror onto the padded rest stop when the camera was set to live view mode.
The shutter itself is quite the quiet device .. all you should hear is a snick noise .. but of course the D300's(and other early liveview capable Nikon cameras) have the most retarded implementation of Liveview, where the mirror slaps upward and downward something like 37 times just for a single microsecond of exposure!

[ricktas]

Some people just like to whinge and whine (like their gear), he probably had nothing else to complain about at the time.