Comments on: I Thought I Understood Camera Shutters And Flash Until I Saw This

By: [B&H] Olympus E-PL1 - max shutter speed with flash. - Micro Four Thirds User Forum

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 18:55:18 +0000

[...] sync for the E-PL1, no way around it as far as I know. Here's a great video explaining why: I Thought I Understood Camera Shutters And Flash Until I Saw This | Fstoppers __________________ E-P3 + Lumix 20/1.7, 14/2.5 | Pentax SMC Takumar 50/1.4 | Konica Hexanon [...]

By: Matt Koby

Matt Koby — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:21:00 +0000

your DSLR video uses a rolling electronic shutter that functions similarly to the DSLR’s mechanical shutter, it does not record the entire frame at the same time like the D70′s Global shutter system, but rolls through the sensor vertically. which is why there can be motion artifacts when panning a CMOS DSLR or camcorder. it has to do with the actual electrical engineering of the CMOS sensors, currently no CMOS cameras or camcorders have global shutters, but i expect that we will see an improvement to this very soon.

By: Vladimir Belokrylov

Vladimir Belokrylov — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:50:00 +0000

Brilliant!

By: Joshua

Joshua — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 14:50:35 +0000

This was very informative. The only other thing I didn’t come up with on higher sync speeds is just cropping out the black bar: Like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNYUXmN_wcQ

By: Zac

Zac — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:26:14 +0000

Great video. Very informative. Well done.

By: Taps

Taps — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:16:57 +0000

Oustanding tutorial! I’ve been using second curtain flash on my Olympus e-10 and Nikon d70s for years. Until now, I never fully understood why they look so nice. Thank you for the great information and clarity.

By: Carlo Parducho

Carlo Parducho — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 01:44:02 +0000

I got lost in between 2:49 and 4:20.

1/250 and 1/125 sec. Ah I got those =)

t.5 t.1 huh? Aren’t those the Terminator models?

By: Michael Errey

Michael Errey — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 11:06:07 +0000

A very helpful, clear and concise explanation Paul.. many thanks

By: Zimmie

Zimmie — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 16:47:27 +0000

The reason most modern cameras with APS-C or larger sensors don’t use electronic shutters is as Kyle described. It requires one shielded pixel area for data storage for each pixel. When the first curtain has cleared the sensor, it zeroes all of the photosites. After they are cleared, charge builds up in them again because they are still being exposed to light. When the proper amount of time has elapsed, every shielded pixel reads from its unshielded counterpart and stores the value it finds. The camera only reads from the shielded storage areas. It’s like a buffer built into the sensor.

This makes each individual pixel smaller, which means less thermal inertia and more noise at high simulated ISO speeds (actually, the ‘ISO’ rating at which you are shooting is the level of amplification applied to the data as it is read). It also means impractically low pixel counts for an industry where the majority of consumers don’t care about subtle features like this. Many people just pick the camera with the bigger number, just like the gigahertz war in computer processors.

Newer photolithography techniques may allow for multi-layer sensors to be constructed (kind of like a Foveon sensor) with the shielded buffer pixels beneath the unshielded active pixels. This would likely be prohibitively expensive right now, but it is a logical future step for professional-level full-frame DSLR sensors.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 05:59:27 +0000

The reason they dont use electronic shutters with CMOS sensors is because of rolling shutter. Cell phone camera use electronic shutters and have obvious rolling shutter.