Electronic shutter tips

[FMB]

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Hello everybody. Please don't be ungry with me if this post is repeated but I'm positive many people will be happy to review the secrets of this type of shutter.

Could you clarify to us, technical ignorants, who is this master of speed?

Where, when, how to use it?

Subjects and objects in motion, camera shake, what are the pros and cons of using it? What is definitly forbiden and clearly adviced to do with it??

Thank you all.

 

Francisco

[Steve McGarrett]

I think it's useful for silent shooting and to help hand-holding with slow shutter speed (no moving parts that can generate vibrations during the exposure).

 

However (Sony A9 aside) it's advised against using it with high-speed moving subjects (sports photography etc.), because sensor's readout it's not fast enough to cope with the subject motion (artifacts) and/or with some type of artificial lighting (banding).

 

Other users will add more SL-specific informations, as I own the camera since just a few days...

[fenixv8]

Shooting wide open in bright conditions where the subject is not moving. 

[Dr. G]

Where is the option to disable the mechanical shutter for silent shooting?

[Steve McGarrett]

Where is the option to disable the mechanical shutter for silent shooting?

 

Camera menu, 2nd page, Electronic Shutter -> Always On.

 

You need firmware 3.0 though, otherwise you only have Off and Extended options.

[dancook]

Other than as mentioned the "rolling shutter effect" due to the slower sensor readout, which makes moving subjects bend.

 

Beware of banding in some artificial light.

[LocalHero1953]

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I use the electronic shutter wherever I want the the camera to be silent - indoors or outdoors, natural or artificial light, static subjects or in movement.

The important thing is to be aware of its limitations, and switch to mechanical when you have to (or just don't use the camera).

 

The only way to check if a particular form of artificial lighting is going to cause banding is to try it and see. Some lighting works using the mains frequency, so all lights on the same power circuit are likely to be in sync, so all shots are likely to be affected. I suspect some other modern lights have their own frequency generators, so several lights illuminating a scene may actually be out of sync. This means that shots of a scene lit by several lights may be fine, or at least acceptable; close up shots of one area lit mainly by one light may be problematic.

 

You can avoid banding by using an exposure longer than the frequency at which the lights operate, but this may not be practical. Nevertheless long exposures (1/60s?) seem to be less affected than shorter ones (1/250s).

 

Incandescent lights (old fashioned light bulbs, some theatre lighting and some other types) do not produce light which fluctuates with mains or other frequency, so don't cause problems.

 

I don't have much experience of movement artifacts, because I tend to use the electronic shutter indoors for concerts, theatre and dance, where I am usually  using slow shutter speeds but trying to avoid motion blur: I wait till the end of a spoken, musical or dance phrase or movement and catch people when they are momentarily still.

Edited December 13, 2017 by LocalHero1953

[Dr. G]

Camera menu, 2nd page, Electronic Shutter -> Always On.

 

You need firmware 3.0 though, otherwise you only have Off and Extended options.

 

Thanks,  I just got the SL and it's running 2.2.  I need to update.

[FMB]

Thanks for your comments, very useful and summing up good advices.

 

Francisco

[scott kirkpatrick]

Some things worth knowing about electronic shutter behavior:  The picture is taken by sweeping the sensitive area across the chip as a moving strip, just as a mechanical focal plane shutter does.  Mechanical shutters are by now pretty quick.  The maximum speed at which flash synchronization is possible is usually between 1/100 and 1/200 sec.  (At higher speeds, the usual flash duration of less than 1/1000 sec will illuminate only the portion of the chip which happens to be under the focal plane shutter's narrow opening.)  After a mechanical shutter has swept across the chip, the chip and camera electronics still have to extract the image data, usually working a line of pixels at a time, and process it.  Few of today's cameras can shoot more than ten full frames per second, so an electronic shutter which has to both expose and extract its image from this slower-moving strip will show the artifacts of the older, slower, mechanical focal plane shutters.  These include images of moving objects or from a panning camera that slope from top to bottom, and banding when a light source which looks smooth to the human eye turns out to actually fluctuate in intensity.  Fluourescent lights are the worst offenders, as they pulse at twice the mains frequency, thus at 100 or 120 times per second.  I am not sure about LEDs, but since they are driven by DC voltages derived from the AC power supply, their output should be smoothed.

 

There is such a thing as a "global" electronic shutter, in which the exposure is triggered and completed electronically at the same instant all across the chip, and then held until the extraction process can complete, but AFAIK this is not available as yet in consumer cameras.

 

scott

[Chuck Albertson]

You should also note that if you intend to shoot time exposures, the electronic shutter in the "always on" mode (firmware 3.0) will only give you 1 sec. as the longest exposure time. So switch it to "off" or "extended" for longer times.

[Steve McGarrett]

You should also note that if you intend to shoot time exposures, the electronic shutter in the "always on" mode (firmware 3.0) will only give you 1 sec. as the longest exposure time. So switch it to "off" or "extended" for longer times.

 

And it gets worse at higher ISOs (ie. from 6400 on the longest time available is 1/30s)

[ramarren]

I have the electronic shutter set to take over only for shorter exposure times. See no reason to use it otherwise ... the SL shutter is so quiet most people never hear it fire anyway. I'd turn it on full time only in the odd situation where I needed to do some shooting while a sound recording was in progress, but that's a pretty rare situation.