Any idea of when a global electronic shutter will come to a digital stills mirrorless camera?

[Kit Lens Jockey]

The banding on the EOS R when using silent shutter is extremely disruptive to taking good photos. It's to the point where I barely trust it under any sort of artificial lighting. Sometimes photos that, at first glance on the back of the camera, seem to be ok exhibit subtle banding once I get the chance to look at them up close, effectively ruining the photo.

On rare occasions, even using first curtain electronic shutter (known as mode 1 in the EOS R silent LV shooting) still exhibits banding. Then, turning off electronic first curtain puts twice the wear and tear on the shutter as you would get on a DSLR.

Is there any potential for having a global shutter that reads off the whole sensor at once implemented into a stills camera, or are we still many years out from this? I can't help but feel that the current crop of mirrorless cameras (not just Canon) have a really serious flaw with banding under certain types of artificial lighting. It would be so nice to get to a point where we can just be completely rid of mechanical shutters, but it seems that we're nowhere close to that right now.

 

[3kramd5]

What about a global sensor shutter will alleviate banding?

Alternately put, is it the sequential pixel readout (aka rolling) which causes banding?

As for when in MILC: probably not for some time. I think they will appear more in video-oriented and high-speed cameras.

 

[Neutral]

This is around the corner, just look at this :

Press text: Sony Develops a Stacked CMOS Global Shutter Image Sensor – sonyalpharumors

www.sonyalpharumors.com

Who knows may be it will be available for Canon as well ))

 

[3kramd5]

This is around the corner, just look at this :

Press text: Sony Develops a Stacked CMOS Global Shutter Image Sensor – sonyalpharumors

www.sonyalpharumors.com

Who knows may be it will be available for Canon as well ))

There have been global shutter CMOS sensors for some time. Canon has so equipped the C700. Sony and RED offer them too. AMS sells full frame global shutter sensors off the shelf.

But coming to a still oriented MILC? That’s not clearly around the corner.

 

[Kit Lens Jockey]

It's always been my understanding that banding was due to the line by line readout of the current image sensors. I was under the impression that, since some artificial lights cycle on and off rapidly, you see this as bright and dark bands as the sensor's output reads out line by line. I thought that if you had a sensor that reads out all at once, you get rid of the banding.

To be honest, I'm not 100% clear why a mechanical shutter resolves the banding the way it does.

 

[3kramd5]

It's always been my understanding that banding was due to the line by line readout of the current image sensors. I was under the impression that, since some artificial lights cycle on and off rapidly, you see this as bright and dark bands as the sensor's output reads out line by line. I thought that if you had a sensor that reads out all at once, you get rid of the banding.

To be honest, I'm not 100% clear why a mechanical shutter resolves the banding the way it does.

Hmm

I haven’t really read into it but I’m not sure that explains it. Take the Sony a9. Its electronic shutter reads faster than some (cheap) mechanical shutters move, about 1/150 from top to bottom, yet reportedly bands in artificial light. Also you see multiple bands, despite most AC being 50 or 60 cycles per second.

But again I’ve not really thought it through.

 

[Kit Lens Jockey]

I can't explain why the A9 still does it. But, as far as AC voltage being 50 or 60hz, keep in mind that modern lighting fixtures (LED, etc) have electronic controllers that run at their own frequency. Just because the source voltage is running at about 60hz doesn't mean that everything connected to that voltage will also be running at that frequency. The sophisticated controllers in modern lights will use pulsewidth modulation to run the lights at whatever frequency is necessary.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

A practical global shutter for large high pixel count sensors in still cameras is beyond difficult, but a lot of work is being done its really not needed for most still shots, but I'm sure that there are cases where its a issue, as in the lighting issues mentioned.

A big driver is cinema cameras, there are lots of work-around solutions using rolling shutters that almost work. Reading out, resetting, and exposing a sensor at rapid speeds using a electronic shutter is going to happen for very expensive cinema cameras hooked to very fast computers at first. With electronic shutters, the sensor is always exposed to light, so, all the photosites must be reset at the instant the exposure starts, and readout instantly after the exposure ends. How to achieve this is the issue. How do you change electronic shutter speeds from 10 seconds to 1/8000 second while a mirrorless camera is still exposing the sensor and feeding a display in real time? With a rolling shutter, the display is frozen or blanked out while the actual exposure is happening, then it goes back to the standard readout speed required for the lcd or evf.

We see patents for various aspects of a workable global shutter camera, and some global shutters exist for video cameras where the shutter speed stays in a constant or narrow range and lighting is well controlled, but getting to work for awide shutter speeds and very low light is far far off. For video its coming first.