Mechanical versus electronic shutter

[carl_b]

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Although I'm shooting with the electronic shutter for most situations, the little "beep" doesn't synch with me. I know the shot was taken, but I just don't feel it.

 

Going to switch back to mechanical, even though it's unnecessary wear most of the time.

 

I wish there was a "snick" sound that could be switched to instead. Some might think cheezy, but it would probably suffice for me.

[scott kirkpatrick]

If you use the viewfinder, doesn't the little blink that occurs tell you that the shot has been taken?  It works for me.

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[helged]

If you use the viewfinder, doesn't the little blink that occurs tell you that the shot has been taken? It works for me.

Thumbs-up for an option to have some sort of sound for shooting with the electronic shutter. Particularly when shooting in high continuous mode. The light signal is ok-ish for static subjects/shooting, but otherwise not. In my experience, that is...

[carl_b]

I use the viewfinder often, but the blinking light is something I’d associate with a movie mode. So a lot of the time I wonder if I’ve launched movie mode inadvertently.

[scott kirkpatrick]

On the subject of using the electronic shutter full time (which I tend to do), I just got an LED desk lamp and tested it for banding with the electronic shutter.  There was none at any shutter speed from 1/30 to 1/10,000 sec.  This was a lamp with about eight pairs of LEDS arranged in a circle of 8 cm diameter to provide 430 lumens output.  The power source is 10 volts DC, generated by a little brick 2x4x4cm in size at the electric socket.  I mention it because the lamp, which comes with a clamp and flexible gooseneck and is inexpensive, looks like it will be useful for any sort of product or small object photography.  By contrast, illumination by any of the single coiled low-power fluorescent tubes, which fill our house, causes bands of light and dark across the scene from 1/100 sec to all faster speeds.  With several fluorescents, this sometimes fills in, but I have to test.

 

At the lamp store yesterday, I learned that ceiling fixtures are now blue (6000K) LEDs, while the desk lamps and table lamps tend to be 3000K.  Has anyone had experience with the ceiling units?  

Edited March 19, 2018 by scott kirkpatrick

[LocalHero1953]

I have replaced the compact fluorescent ceiling lights in our kitchen with LEDs - all around 3000K. These are GU10 mini spot fittings. Those on offer varied between 2700-3200K, and are described as 'warm white'. 6000K is described in some catalogues as 'daylight white'.

 

Having done some reading up on flicker issues, it seems to come down to how much the current is buffered to smooth it out, whether AC or rectified. Traditional incandescent light bulbs have inherent buffering because of the thermal capacity of the element (it can't heat up and cool down 60 times a second). Fluorescents and LEDs depend on the quality of the inbuilt circuitry to smooth out the rectified DC. Cheaper (and older) ones have little or none, so flicker more.

Edited March 19, 2018 by LocalHero1953

[scott kirkpatrick]

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How much light (lumens or watts equivalent) do your ceiling panels put out?  And do they show any banding? 

 

LEDs run on DC, with voltages much less than the power line AC voltage, so there are opportunities to fold the 110 or 220 down to about 10 volts with little or no interruption and only small power losses.  The low weight of the little brick on mine suggests that it is done with diodes, not a transformer.  As far as I can tell, besides the ballast to start a fluorescent, there is nothing modifying the power line voltage in their path, so any smoothing of the light pulses would come from the length of the glowing tube.

[jaapv]

It depends. Leds do not neccessarily run on DC. They will conduct only forward biased which means that on AC they will flicker on and off with the current frequency. The solution is to use a full-wave bridge rectifier, but as that will only invert half the wave, they will still pulse at double the wave frequency. That can be rectified to full DC, but cheaper electronics will not have that extra damping.

 

 

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[scott kirkpatrick]

The brick that comes with my little LED lamp says that it outputs 10 v DC, though a simple cable.  And it doesn't get hot, so I don't think there is a load resistor.  I'd expect to find just a bridge to make the signal all positive, and then diodes and capacitors.  I'll ask one of my colleagues who owns a scope to see what it is doing.

[jaapv]

Probably a Thyristor in there to control the voltage.

[Jared]

I'm actually a little surprised that there is no apparent problem from the flickering.  Full wave bridge rectifiers are generally enough that humans won't notice the flickering, but most LED's respond so quickly to changes in voltage that the flickering is still there, even at 100Hz or 120Hz.  It's possible to reduce it/avoid it with a well designed power supply, but that is rare for a cheap desk lamp.  

 

Frankly, the biggest issues with LED flickering are with dimmable LED's that generally work off pulse width modulation.  They vary the amount of light output by lowering the percentage of time that they are "on".  

[scott kirkpatrick]

That made me check my battery-powered, adjustable, dimmable photo grade LED panel.  I set it at mixed lighting, lowest level and shot at 1/10,000 sec.  No flickering bands seen.

 

Screen Shot 2018-03-19 at 9.50.16 PM by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr CL 35/1.4@1.4, 1/10000 sec

[jaapv]

That is obviously a panel that uses fully rectified DC

[scott kirkpatrick]

It's powered by two Canon-style Li Ion batteries.  I was seeing if Jared's concern that the light levels were reduced by pulsing the LEDs rapidly off and on were relevant to this panel. The brightness control has a range of 4-6 stops.

Edited March 19, 2018 by scott kirkpatrick

[danielfrimley]

Although I'm shooting with the electronic shutter for most situations, the little "beep" doesn't synch with me. I know the shot was taken, but I just don't feel it.

 

Going to switch back to mechanical, even though it's unnecessary wear most of the time.

 

I wish there was a "snick" sound that could be switched to instead. Some might think cheezy, but it would probably suffice for me.

You mention concerns about mechanical wear, I wonder what the MTBF of the shutter is?

[mikbau]

It's powered by two Canon-style Li Ion batteries.  I was seeing if Jared's concern that the light levels were reduced by pulsing the LEDs rapidly off and on were relevant to this panel. The brightness control has a range of 4-6 stops.

Just curious - what brand/model is that light?

[scott kirkpatrick]

Just curious - what brand/model is that light?

FotoDiox

[stevegaskin]

What are the pros and cons of using the different shutter options - mechanical vs electronic?

[jaapv]

Very few, an electronic shutter will be silent, faster if needed and presumably reduce wear on the mechanical shutter - I have never seen significant wear on any metal shutter- but it will produce rolling shutter effects.

As I like a camera to say "click" I have never used the electronic shutter on the CL.

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[LocalHero1953]

The main reasons for using electronic shutters are the total silence, and the faster exposures that they can achieve compared to mechanical.

The problems of electronic shutters as implemented with current technology are because it is actually reading the sensor over quite a long interval: 1/20s or so in most cases (the Sony A9 is faster). This causes problems with light sources that vary on that time scale (e.g. fluorescents and some LEDs), and with the equivalent of motion blur - fast moving objects are distorted across the frame.