Focus motors running continuously in 12-40/2.8?

Hello,

I've had an E-M1 with the 12-40/2.8 lens for almost a year now and I'm liking them both very much. This week I noticed that with the camera on when I turn the zoom all the way to 12mm, I can sometimes hear almost continuous relatively low level sound that seems to originate from the lens. It sounds a bit like an active hard drive that is writing data to disk, stopping every now and then for a while and then continuing.

My guess is this sound is coming from the focus motors, I don't think there's anything else in the lens that could be making these kinds of sounds by itself? When I hold my ear close to different parts of the camera, it is clear these sounds are strongest at the lens and not the camera body. These sounds always stop as I move the zoom ring away from the wide edge. When I turn the zoom back to 12mm, the sound usually starts again. The camera can lay flat on a stable table without being touched and produce those sounds for a minute or more. Then again in some cases the sound stops with no apparent reason as to why. It doesn't seem to matter what mode the camera is in, i.e. reviewing photos, in the menu or regular shooting mode. Also it doesn't matter whether the lens cap is on or not.

At the same time I have a feeling the autofocus doesn't work as reliably at 12mm than at other zoom levels. Most of the time it works like normal, but when the lens is making the sounds described above I sometimes get the green light and audible focus beep when the image is very badly out of focus, very visible even from the screen/viewfinder. Sometimes it doesn't reach a focus lock after trying for a few seconds, even though there are clear vertical features within the focusing bracket to focus on. I'm using the regular size central square with no face detection, haven't tested other configurations.

A few weeks ago I updated the firmware, body to 3.0 and lens to 1.1. I'm not sure whether the sounds described above were there before the update, at least I hadn't noticed them if they were. The humm from the IBIS when the shutter is half-pressed I noticed a long time ago, this sound I described above is not the IBIS. The IBIS sound is louder than the sound the lens is making, when it's making it.

Anybody else ran into these issues? The camera+lens combination is still under original Olympus warranty for a little while, I guess I should send it in for service?

 

Meant to post in Olympus cameras, sorry about the wrong forum. Please move it, thanks.

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I observed this behavior first in S-AF and that's what I've been using while trying to figure this thing out. Now I tried C-AF and the motors seem to be running the same way there too in 12mm end, without the shutter release being pressed. Full-time AF has also been off the whole time.

I guess I could try resetting all camera settings and that way make sure I'm starting from a "known good" settings base. I wish Olympus had provided a firmware feature to save/restore settings from a memory card or some other external source.

 

Did a full reset, no change in the activity of the lens motors, they just keep chugging away.

 

The IBIS sound is a stable hum, this is not that. I got a chance to try my lens on another EM-1 body and another 12-40/2.8 lens on my body, the strange sound followed my lens. I called Olympus and described the situation. They emailed me a shipping label and now my lens is on its way to repair. Thanks for the debugging help!