Mechanical versus electronic shutter

[photogray]

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I was interested to see if my kitchen's new LED ceiling fixture would be a problem with the electronic shutter. This was shot with the 18-55 at 1/1250 f 3.5.

 

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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.

Life is not simple with LEDs.  I got some time with an oscilloscope to see what waveform my cheap desk lamp's brick puts out.  I was expecting 10 volts DC with some amount of ripple or spikes, but in fact it was putting out +- 10 volt AC square waves at a 50% duty cycle, with a big spike to 13 volts in the middle of each "square."  Then I read the fine print on the brick, which said "use only with LED lamps."  So the bridge and smoothing circuitry is somewhere upstream in the lamp housing.

 

I hope some standardization of large household and office ceiling panels will make this less of an issue, although such settings seldom require high speed electronic-only shutter speeds.  I like the electronic shutter, so I guess I'll have to test often.

Edited May 18, 2018 by scott kirkpatrick

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[colonel]

The electronic shutter only shows light effects if it is used with a certain frequency of flouresecent lighting

 

The advantage of a silent shutter in most street situations is undeniable

 

I hardly ever use the mechanical shutter

 

Once Sony’s General Electric shutter patent is implemented it will be the end of the mechanical shutter

 

If you want, say “click” when you press the button

[scott kirkpatrick]

Kirk Tuck notes on his VisualScienceLab blog that he can't shoot silently under theater LEDs, which have eliminated electric smoothing in favor of getting more light out of the units.  He gets horrible banding at 120 Hz, so uses the mechanical shutter on his GH-5s.  I would suspect the LEDs that power wedding party lights which gyrate under remote control are making the same tradeoffs, but I haven't worked with either yet.  Be warned.  I find that long tube flourescents are ballasted or in some other way smooth out the light emission so that I haven't had problems with banding under office lighting with the electronic shutter on CL or SL.

[scott kirkpatrick]

I didn't realize that outdoor lighting can be LED, but...

 

C1080026 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr

[hoppyman]

As a practical matter, I found in my home that mixed light from the downlights and ambient did result in the rolling shutter effect. I had thought that was a video issue only previously

[ramarren]

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I've never needed a shutter to be absolutely silent and still can't quite accept that I should spend so much time and effort worrying about my light sources and their interaction with an electronic shutter such that I would find it all that useful to adamantly lock my camera to the electronic shutter all the time. I set mine to "extended" usage, which means that the shutter is mechanical and the eshutter extends the range of the camera's shutter beyond the mechanical limitations. 

 

You worry about wear? Are you going to use the CL to make hundreds of thousands of exposure such that it's ever going to be an issue? I bet the CL shutter is rated for 100,000+ actuations MTBF, which means 275 exposures per day, every day, for a year. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm hardly likely to make 275 exposures in a day... ever!  

[lct]

Horses for courses. I see no interest in making any noise when i take photos but i have a "shutter" profile when i need it. YMMV.

[scott kirkpatrick]

This shot is from a big state fair.  I was shooting in some cases right next to people, making casual conversation and not wanting to break things up.  Ran 500 exposures per day.   No, I don't see wear as an issue, just the interruption that the sound can make.

[ramarren]

This shot is from a big state fair.  I was shooting in some cases right next to people, making casual conversation and not wanting to break things up.  Ran 500 exposures per day.   No, I don't see wear as an issue, just the interruption that the sound can make.

 

 

Hmm. That's about a shot every two minutes for a 12 hour day. I applaud your ability to withstand such a shooting pace!

I'm lucky if I get in a shot every half hour or so.