Lose f-stops when zoomed in?

B

Bokes

Well-known member
Shot a short film this past weekend and was having a strange problem.
Shooting in manual:
Whenever I would zoom in the get focus I was unable to dial certain f-stops.
For instance if I was set to 1.7 on the wide- I would zoom in and the f-stop would change to 2.8 and not let me open back to 1.7 until I zoomed back out.
I would only let me open to 2.4 or OPEN.
Why?
We were shooting manual. We checked several times. (unless we missed something?)
 
No problem, that's the way these zoom lenses work. F/1.6 is the widest open you can get, but only at full wide angle. At full telephoto the most-open it can be is f/2.8. All the small cameras work the same way.
 
Yeah exactly what Barry said. If you have any experience with photography, you'll notice that most SLR zoom lenses will list multiple apertures such as Canon's 17-85 f/4 - 5.6

The minimum aperture will vary based on the zoom length.

HTH
 
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