Effects of not having EFCS?

[Mr.Q]

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I've never shot telephoto with the SL/SL2, so I wouldn't know, but there is an ongoing thread on the FM forums that discusses the lack of EFCS and how prone the SL2 is to shutter shock.

The tester claims that to get consistently sharp images with the SL2 + Panasonic 70-200 below 1/125 sec, the tester needs to resort to e-shutter.

Apparently there is no such issue with the Lumix S1/S1R because those cameras have an EFCS to avoid shutter shock. 

Any thoughts and experiences?

[ZHNL]

1 minute ago, Mr.Q said:

I've never shot telephoto with the SL/SL2, so I wouldn't know, but there is an ongoing thread on the FM forums that discusses the lack of EFCS and how prone the SL2 is to shutter shock.

The tester claims that to get consistently sharp images with the SL2 + Panasonic 70-200 below 1/125 sec, the tester needs to resort to e-shutter.

Apparently there is no such issue with the Lumix S1/S1R because those cameras have an EFCS to avoid shutter shock. 

Any thoughts and experiences?

The tester is me. Even using mechanic shutter, S1 is fine. I think if I shoot lots of images and average them, S1 with EFCS will still help. 
with SL2, I have to use E shutter. Just FYI. 

[Mr.Q]

Just now, ZHNL said:

The tester is me. Even using mechanic shutter, S1 is fine. I think if I shoot lots of images and average them, S1 with EFCS will still help. 
with SL2, I have to use E shutter. Just FYI. 

I see, thanks for elaborating. I recall reading a thread that had conflicting reports on how well the Panasonic 70-200/4 performed. Perhaps that is why. 

[SrMi]

I have tried all three shutter modes on S1R and did not see any degradations. I have used SL with 24-90 and 90-280 and have not noticed shutter shock effect neither. First time I heard about the issue is from ZHNL (firmware thread, asking for adding EFCS to SL2).

Would love to hear from anyone else who has the same issue.

[Edit: I have seen image degradation due to using mechanical shutter on SL2]

Edited December 22, 2019 by SrMi

[ZHNL]

Me too. Would like someone repeat the results. Infinity, mechanic shutter at around 1/30-1/125. One with E- shutter, one with M-shutter, take a few shots from 70,100,135,200. Load into Lightroom, hit “C” compare results 100%. Handhold as stable as you can:)

once I have time, I will simply leave camera on tripod do the same test. 

[Chuck Albertson]

For the great unwashed, what is EFCS?

[SrMi]

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30 minutes ago, Chuck Albertson said:

For the great unwashed, what is EFCS?

 

Electronic first curtain shutter. Eliminates vibrations caused by a mechanical first curtain (mechanical shutter).

Edited December 15, 2019 by SrMi

[SrMi]

14 hours ago, ZHNL said:

Me too. Would like someone repeat the results. Infinity, mechanic shutter at around 1/30-1/125. One with E- shutter, one with M-shutter, take a few shots from 70,100,135,200. Load into Lightroom, hit “C” compare results 100%. Handhold as stable as you can:)

once I have time, I will simply leave camera on tripod do the same test. 

Two more questions:

- Do you see the issue with other than 70-200 f/4 lens?

- Do you have the latest firmware update on 70-200 f/4?

Thanks.

[Leicaiste]

2 hours ago, SrMi said:

 

- Do you have the latest firmware update on 70-200 f/4?

This one :

https://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/dsc/download/index4.html

[ZHNL]

4 hours ago, SrMi said:

Two more questions:

- Do you see the issue with other than 70-200 f/4 lens?

- Do you have the latest firmware update on 70-200 f/4?

Thanks.

I don’t notice the same issue with M glasses or sigma 45mm. I have tested them a little since than around home. However, the other day, my test with 70-200 are all happen at infinity. I haven’t try to shoot infinity again.

Around home doing the same test with 70-200, I still see difference if we average the results but definitely not as obvious. Distance decoding mess up? Interesting enough, if you put in manual focus, SL2 will report shooting distance, but seems all wrong. That is also happen with my S glasses. I don’t know if that will screw up things. S007 also report distance wrong so I treat this feature totally unreliable. 

As you can see here, there are so many variables, it require lots of time to figure it fully out. For now, all I know is using Eshutter I don’t see the issue.

my Panasonic lens firmware is latest.

I will update my finding with more time with the system. It is not a deal breaker for my use. I don’t use the system for sports or tracking lot of moving stuff. E-shutter works 90% for me and rest10% for moving stuff, I can limit my shutter speed at 1/250 or faster. 
 

 

[ZHNL]

I do want add: for 45M, no EFCS is a big mistake. 
I clearly see acutance lost in SL2 for most of cases with m shutter. ( 70-200 is more than that and was totally a mess up)

this is not just SL2’s problem but pretty much all MILC cameras I tried: A7R, A7R2, Z7, you name it. 
S1 is good but it is only 24M. 

Edited December 15, 2019 by ZHNL

[thighslapper]

I noticed no issues with the S1R ...... EXCEPT with manual telephoto lenses where using the electronic shutter did significantly improve things.

With all the dedicated AF L mount lenses I noticed no problems ..... and so far I've not noticed any different behaviour with the SL2+70-200/4

[SrMi]

8 minutes ago, ZHNL said:

I do want add: for 45M, no EFCS is a big mistake. 
I clearly see acutance lost in SL2 for most of cases with m shutter. ( 70-200 is more than that and was totally a mess up)

this is not just SL2’s problem but pretty much all MILC cameras I tried: A7R, A7R2, Z7, you name it. 
S1 is good but it is only 24M. 

Have you updated your lens firmware? If so, it seems that your 70-200 f/4 does not work well with SL2 (thighslapper reports no issues SL2+70-200/4). I see no issue with S1R and 90-280, while EFCS was clearly necessary with my Z 7 and a7r3.

Fuji had shutter shock issues with its XF 16-80. It was fixed with lens  firmware update (not all Fuji APS-C bodies have EFCS).

BTW, I am not opposed to adding EFCS.

[ZHNL]

4 minutes ago, SrMi said:

Have you updated your lens firmware? If so, it seems that your 70-200 f/4 does not work well with SL2 (thighslapper reports no issues SL2+70-200/4). I see no issue with S1R and 90-280, while EFCS was clearly necessary with my Z 7 and a7r3.

Fuji had shutter shock issues with its XF 16-80. It was fixed with lens  firmware update (not all Fuji APS-C bodies have EFCS).

BTW, I am not opposed to adding EFCS.

I did update the lens to latest firmware. 

no issue means? What Shutter speed, distance? I highly doubt i have fault lens or camera but respect different opinion. 
 

Whatever as long as it works for their case but S1R do have EFCS, I see no reason to not use it at 47M?(minus negative effect for bokeh)  No? every m shutter click is treat like two shutter wear out with MILC camera.

 

[SrMi]

1 hour ago, ZHNL said:

I did update the lens to latest firmware. 

no issue means? What Shutter speed, distance? I highly doubt i have fault lens or camera but respect different opinion. 
 

Whatever as long as it works for their case but S1R do have EFCS, I see no reason to not use it at 47M?(minus negative effect for bokeh)  No? every m shutter click is treat like two shutter wear out with MILC camera.

 

Thank you for confirming that it is not a firmware update issue. 

Please provide desired parameters of the test: shutter speed, focal length, focus distance (infinity?), handheld or tripod, IS on or off, etc. Will try it with S1R, SL2 (once it arrives) and APO-VE 90-280.

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by SrMi

[ZHNL]

2 hours ago, SrMi said:

Thank you for confirming that it is not a firmware update issue. 

Please provide desired parameters of the test: shutter speed, focal length, focus distance (infinity?), handheld or tripod, IS on or off, etc. Will try it with S1R, SL2 (once it arrives) and APO-VE 90-280.

 

1/80S to 1/125S, handhold, OIS on, IBIS on. 70/100/135/200. distance is about 200~300M I would guess but infinity should do as well. I also did make sure it was not focus issue. 

I did the test twice try to isolate the problem. (turn off OIS will make things even worse) E shutter first and M shutter next, for all four images, two times, E shutter is noticeable sharper than M shutter on every single one. I don't even know if this is the 'magic' shutter speed make it happen. I haven't done any systematic test to prove it. Before doing that, I disable M shutter for this lens. 

I will put on tripod redo the test later but can't promise the time table. However, I did the test before on Gitzo 3 tripod and know EFCS make difference for sure on pretty much every cameras include SLR D850. (With Leica S, 2 sec release delay will automatically trigger MLUP) So I am not sure on what degree, S1R is free of vibration with mechanical shutter. 

SL2's problem is way worse than any other cameras in this regard but I don't use long glass a lot so I might just have miss it before. Z7 with 70-200f4 with EFCS and IBIS show no problem what so ever though. I have about 800~1000 images from that combo, hardly any blur ones at all, so I know what to expect. 

Edited December 16, 2019 by ZHNL

[caissa]

Is this a real problem ? I thought electronic shutter should solve all this. But I am not the specialist ....   (what is the technical difference between electronic shutter on the SL2 and EFCS on other cameras ? ) 
So I wait for your results. Maybe my technique is not so perfect, that I would be able to notice such details and small differences in sharpness. Or is it again a case of different names for inherently identical things ?
Here a short description that I found.   https://improvephotography.com/33218/efcs-and-your-camera-what-photographers-should-know/

Maybe I never noticed the problem, because before I had IBIS, I never used such slow shutter speeds (1/5 to 1/10 of a second). Or much slower speeds (several seconds).

Edited December 16, 2019 by caissa

[SrMi]

33 minutes ago, caissa said:

Is this a real problem ? I thought electronic shutter should solve all this. But I am not the specialist ....   (what is the technical difference between electronic shutter on the SL2 and EFCS on other cameras ? ) 
So I wait for your results. Maybe my technique is not so perfect, that I would be able to notice such details and small differences in sharpness. Or is it again a case of different names for inherently identical things ?
Here a short description that I found.   https://improvephotography.com/33218/efcs-and-your-camera-what-photographers-should-know/

Maybe I never noticed the problem, because before I had IBIS, I never used such slow shutter speeds (1/5 to 1/10 of a second). Or much slower speeds (several seconds).

- The electronic shutter can cause motion distortion because the sensor readout speed is typically slow (except on Sony a9).

- The mechanical shutter uses a mechanical front and rear curtain. The front (first) curtain can often cause vibration in cameras at certain shutter speeds, a vibration that can reduce the sharpness of a photograph (aka shutter shock).

- EFCS (electronic first curtain shutter) uses a mechanical rear curtain to eliminate the motion distortion and electronic front curtain to reduce vibration.

Most mirrorless cameras offer EFCS. Leica never did. Until reporting by ZHNL, I have never heard of SL cameras having shutter-shock issues.

Many articles on the web, including the one that you linked to, are unfortunately incorrect AFAIK. Jim Kasson has a blog where he writes very competently about issues, including EFCS. Be aware that Jim's writing is not always easy to understand :-).

The holy grail of electronic shutters is the 'global shutter' (current electronic shutters are 'rolling shutters'). It will make mechanical shutters obsolete; cameras will be simpler and lighter.

 

 

[ZHNL]

1 hour ago, SrMi said:

- The electronic shutter can cause motion distortion because the sensor readout speed is typically slow (except on Sony a9).

- The mechanical shutter uses a mechanical front and rear curtain. The front (first) curtain can often cause vibration in cameras at certain shutter speeds, a vibration that can reduce the sharpness of a photograph (aka shutter shock).

- EFCS (electronic first curtain shutter) uses a mechanical rear curtain to eliminate the motion distortion and electronic front curtain to reduce vibration.

Most mirrorless cameras offer EFCS. Leica never did. Until reporting by ZHNL, I have never heard of SL cameras having shutter-shock issues.

Many articles on the web, including the one that you linked to, are unfortunately incorrect AFAIK. Jim Kasson has a blog where he writes very competently about issues, including EFCS. Be aware that Jim's writing is not always easy to understand :-).

The holy grail of electronic shutters is the 'global shutter' (current electronic shutters are 'rolling shutters'). It will make mechanical shutters obsolete; cameras will be simpler and lighter.

 

 

That It is. Minor edit, for MILC, Without EFCS, every exposure will also need Close front curtain, open front curtain, close rear curtain, open rear curtain. Both #1 and #2 will introduce shutter shock. 

I am just puzzled why Leica don’t have EFCS. For any MILC, front curtain is already opened anyway. 
 

given I don’t see obvious problem with M lens, I believe this shock most likely it is not just from Mechanic shutter but interaction between shutter and this lens, and given the fact using E shutter solve the problem and S1 has no such an issue means SL2 and S1 Shutter have different shock frequency that need to be addressed individually. 

however, for anyone technical enough and really care their image sharpness, either use EFCS or E shutter. At 47M, view at 100% or 200%, you will know what I am taking about, but that is not the issue I am reporting here.

From some response above, I think I have already step some people’s nerve here saying “Or is it again a case of different names for inherently identical things.“

At one hand, paying huge amount of money buying glass in SL caliber and claim superiority of system, at other hand, don’t even care EFCS effect for final exposure in sharpness at this pixel level??

 

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by ZHNL

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[michali]

8 hours ago, ZHNL said:

......this is not just SL2’s problem but pretty much all MILC cameras I tried: A7R, A7R2, Z7, you name it. .....
 

Thanks for sharing your experience. I first encountered this issue with the Sony A7R. 

Just to understand properly, have you only noticed this issue with the Panasonic lenses?

Has anyone tried or experienced this with the Leica VE 90-280mm?

Thanks,

Mike