All-electronic shutters

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Sat Sep 16, 2017 5:37 am

hkv, I have serious environmental motion at times, so the flash helps enormously to sharpen the pictures. To get 1/4000 in continuous, highly diffused reflected light would be very difficult. Perhaps it would be acheivable with transmitted light but my subjects don't work with transmitted light.

How do you get so much light into your subjects to be able to use 1/4000s? Don't they get hot?

hkv · Post by **hkv** » Sat Sep 16, 2017 5:46 am

OK, I see. I use it for micro and normally the subjects are in water. Plenty of time to shoot with 100W light before the water starts to dry out.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Sep 16, 2017 2:58 pm

Macrero wrote:I didn't mention another important to me factor: a reasonable price. 4.000 EUR is way above my cameras budget. So, what I'm looking for is a mirrorless camera at a reasonable price with a "good" sensor (preferably APS-C) and fully electronic shutter that can be used at more than 1" shutter speed. As far as I know, there's currently no such animal.

There are some. The Fujinon X-T20 (and "higher" models ) go to 30 seconds with a fully electronic shutter (24Mp APS). The Pentax KP goes to 30 seconds with a fully electronic shutter (24 Mp APS). The only thing about the Pentax KP that I found disappointing is that it does not display a metering scale in "M" mode when a lens is not attached. (It is also not a mirrorless, but basically behaves just like one when the electronic shutter is used in live-view). The Fuji is also excellent, but frankly I am a little leery of their X-trans sensor when used for large image stacks in PMax. With very limited testing I've had some excellent results, but also some with pretty strange looking artifacts/noise in very out of focus backgrounds. (Because of the way it works, Pmax can really "find" any subtle pattern noise in OOF backgrounds).

The Olympus has superb electronic shutter implementation. It also appears to be the only one that will give a flash sync signal with an electronic shutter, albeit at 1/20 second or slower (which could actually be quite useful for indoor stacking operations). Of course it has MFT sized sensor.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Sep 16, 2017 3:02 pm

hkv wrote:Just to improve my understanding. Why is flash so important to you guys? I use my setup for micro only I yet I have never seen the need for using flash. I can set the shutter speed to 1/4000 and still get decent noise control under continuous light. At least with a 100W light source. 1/4000 is more than enough to freeze most cilia for example. Perhaps it is more important in macro? Can't you just blast it with more continuous lights?

1/4000 sec... at what ISO setting? With a 40X, 60X or 100X objectives you can get 1/4000 sec with DIC?

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Sat Sep 16, 2017 3:07 pm

Regarding the Olympus, I second what Charles says about the silent shutter flash implementation. I use it all the time. And though it is only an MFT sensor, it can output 80Mp images in hi res mode (if there are absolutely no environmental vibrations) and these are sharper (though perhaps also noisier) than images from an APS sensor. And you can use lower-magnification objectives to get a given FOV.

Macrero · Post by **Macrero** » Sat Sep 16, 2017 3:41 pm

Charles Krebs wrote: There are some. The Fujinon X-T20 (and "higher" models ) go to 30 seconds with a fully electronic shutter (24Mp APS). The Pentax KP goes to 30 seconds with a fully electronic shutter (24 Mp APS). The only thing about the Pentax KP that I found disappointing is that it does not display a metering scale in "M" mode when a lens is not attached. (It is also not a mirrorless, but basically behaves just like one when the electronic shutter is used in live-view). The Fuji is also excellent, but frankly I am a little leery of their X-trans sensor when used for large image stacks in PMax. With very limited testing I've had some excellent results, but also some with pretty strange looking artifacts/noise in very out of focus backgrounds. (Because of the way it works, Pmax can really "find" any subtle pattern noise in OOF backgrounds).

The Olympus has superb electronic shutter implementation. It also appears to be the only one that will give a flash sync signal with an electronic shutter, albeit at 1/20 second or slower (which could actually be quite useful for indoor stacking operations). Of course it has MFT sized sensor.

Nice to know! Not too familiar with the "new" models, I haven't looked into cameras for some time now, at the moment I'm pretty happy with my humble Sony a5100. I have used a Fuji X-M1 (X-Trans) a few years ago and I liked it, I can't recall having problems with artifacts. The Fuji X-T20 looks good, but what are your thoughts about this:

Macrero wrote:I'm not sure though if there would be a significant (or any) difference between shooting at 4-5 seconds with EFCS and at 1 sec with fully electronic shutter for magnifications up to 9-10X which is the max for what I'm doing.

Do you think there would be a difference/improvement shooting at 1" with electronic shutter vs 4-5" with EFSC at 5-10X (max)?

- Macrero

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Sep 16, 2017 5:02 pm

Do you think there would be a difference/improvement shooting at 1" with electronic shutter vs 4-5" with EFSC at 5-10X (max)?

I hate answering questions with "it depends".... but.... it depends!

With EFSC there will be some shutter induced vibration when the second curtain closes, the shutter re-cocks and the first curtain re-opens. Depending on the camera even more vibration if it is a DSLR and the mirror recycles. With a fully electronic shutter there should be nothing...no vibration. (Of course there will be some mechanical movement as the rail moves to the next shooting position). I have seen, and used, set-ups where the "damping" time was very fast and I have no qualms about using a 1 second settle time between shots for a stack. Others where I would not be comfortable initiating the next shot without a settle time of 4-6 seconds. With these more "wiggly" set-ups I would really prefer a camera with the fully electronic shutter, and I think it is likely you would see a difference in your hypothetical scenario if you did not pay attention to the needed settle time.

Canon started out great with their original EFSC, But they have sort of muddied the waters after that. Some models are still excellent in this regard, but others have a funny little noise that comes with a slight vibration just before the exposure starts. When I compared my old 50D to a new 80D on a (deliberately) "shaky" arrangement I could clearly see a difference in favor of the older 50D as far as vibration was concerned, although in just about every other parameter the 80D was far better. If you have a camera with EFSC that has absolutely no vibration at the exposure start then you really should not see any difference as long as you provide an adequate settle time and there is no external environmental source of vibration.

Macrero · Post by **Macrero** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 3:47 am

Well, I guess that the best (or the only) way to find it out is buying a camera with electronic shutter and made a direct comparison...

The Sony's EFSC is by no means "quiet", there is a shutter shock. Working at 4-5" exposure it's supposed that the impact is attenuated to a great extend, but perhaps not completelly

"Damping time" is not a problem, since I use a "manual" rail, there is no vibrations/movements induced by "motor blows" and I also always let 4-5 seconds elapse between shots.

The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is: is it worth it investing in new camera just to find out that there is little to no difference/improvement

I'll try to borrow a camera with fully electronic shutter and made a comparison before spending/wasting money.

sweedlepipe · Post by **sweedlepipe** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 5:26 am

Macrero wrote:The Sony's EFSC is by no means "quiet", there is a shutter shock. Working at 4-5" exposure it's supposed that the impact is attenuated to a great extend, but perhaps not completelly

I'm not sure what you mean by this. EFCS is, by definition, not mechanical; there's no shutter shock. On my Sony A7RII I've never had a problem with this, perhaps you can clarify? It's worth also mentioning that the Sony A7II series and A9 have "silent" modes that also activate the electronic rear curtain, so there is zero vibration throughout the entire exposure.

I'm also not sure why people are concerned about using both electronic shutter and flash. The flash duration is so low that you don't really need to worry about mechanical shutter vibration. That said, I can't say I've tried using flash at >10x, is that where people have been finding issues?

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 5:42 am

My issue is with the shutter shock (whether before or after the exposure or both) can slightly vibrate and move the subject, especially if it in in liquid.

Macrero · Post by **Macrero** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:03 am

sweedlepipe wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by this. EFCS is, by definition, not mechanical; there's no shutter shock. On my Sony A7RII I've never had a problem with this, perhaps you can clarify? It's worth also mentioning that the Sony A7II series and A9 have "silent" modes that also activate the electronic rear curtain, so there is zero vibration throughout the entire exposure.

I'm also not sure why people are concerned about using both electronic shutter and flash. The flash duration is so low that you don't really need to worry about mechanical shutter vibration. That said, I can't say I've tried using flash at >10x, is that where people have been finding issues?

It's actually semi-mechanical, semi-electronic. In EFCS (Electronic First Curtain Shutter) mode the exposure is started electronically, but still ends mechanically with the shutter closing. Shutter-induced vibrations are significantly reduced, but there is still a mechanical shake. In the Sony a5100 the rear curtain closure is pretty noticeable.

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:15 am

Since that occurs after the exposure, it has no effect on that photo, so most people don't care about it. I do because of my moveable subjects; the vibrations don't affect the present picture but do affect the next one.

billjanes1 · Post by **billjanes1** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:13 am

Lou Jost wrote:Since that occurs after the exposure, it has no effect on that photo, so most people don't care about it. I do because of my moveable subjects; the vibrations don't affect the present picture but do affect the next one.

Not entirely after the exposure. According to Jim Kasson it takes about 2.5 ms for the mechanical curtain to traverse the height of the sensor with the Nikon D810. When the rear curtain begins to move, vibration could be introduced. 2.5 ms is 1/400 s. If the exposure is relatively long, that would be an insignificant proportion of the total exposure and the motion artifact would not be visible in the image. However with very short exposures there could be some degradation in part of the image.I haven't seen any study on this, but would be interested if anyone could supply a link.

Bill

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:18 am

Good point Bill. For macro work, probably that effect is unimportant, but for scenery it might matter.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:41 am

billjanes1 wrote:However with very short exposures there could be some degradation in part of the image.I haven't seen any study on this, but would be interested if anyone could supply a link.

I'm not aware of a careful study focusing on this effect. However, I think it was seen once accidentally here at photomacrography.net, by a person testing sharpness who happened to use an exposure time that was very close to shutter travel time. In that case one side of the image is shot almost entirely when the shutter is not moving, and the other side of the image is shot almost entirely when the shutter is moving. The observed effect was that one side of the image was sharp, the other not so much. That combination just about drove us crazy until we worked through the details.

See http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 135#183135 .

--Rik