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I recently got a Sigma 100-400mm for my Sony A6500 and love it so far. But I noticed that the aperture ring makes noticeable noise on power ON and power OFF. See Google Photos album of two videos showing this.

Is the noise expected? And how do I prevent mechanical wear, is it possible to switch off this action for power ON/OFF?

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Yes. That is to be expected. I cannot find the noise to be exceptional in any way. Any tap on the focus button, or any release would pretty much do the same.

Note that the focus and aperture behavior on many Sony cams differ from AF-C to AF-S. AF-S always opens up the aperture and then steps down to the set aperture to make AF in low light more precise. While AF-C keeps the aperture set to the target aperture. So you could influence the amount of aperture actuations a bit - but on the other hand, the lens is built to work on the aperture. Usually the shutter of your camera will die long before the aperture actuators do.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I also followed up with Sigma tech support and they said the same thing about the actuation sounds being normal. But glad to know shutter will give out first before blade movements! \$\endgroup\$
    – radj
    Commented Sep 10, 2020 at 15:59
  • \$\begingroup\$ You may also hear the in lens stabilizer firing up on switching on. In your video it seemed to be deactivated though. It was kinda hard to see. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kai Mattern
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 6:50
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    \$\begingroup\$ Yes I disabled stabilizer and auto-focus to isolate where the mechanical noise could be coming from. \$\endgroup\$
    – radj
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 10:06

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