Electronic shutter

stevelee

FT-QL
CR Pro
Jul 6, 2017
2,379
1,063
Davidson, NC
I have my first mirrorless ILC, and am learning to adjust to its peculiarities. I've mostly been shooting at night, holiday festivals and Christmas decorations. I miss the OVF, of course, and am annoyed by the lights that flash in the viewfinder, and find the bright images of dark scenes mostly helpful but maybe sometimes distracting.

Out of the box, the default was to use the electronic shutter. I had some success with that, but figured that for taking shots involving Christmas lights that mechanical would be better, and switched to that.

Saturday night I switched back to electronic to see how that might work. Most pictures came out great. But some pictures were fine for the upper two-thirds or so, and then suddenly quite blurry below that. I assume what happened was that I (and the IBIS) held things steady for most of the shot, and then I moved the camera, thinking it was done with the picture. I'll need to work on my habits when using electronic shutter, apparently.

I had read about rolling shutter and blinking lights issues, but had no warning about the extra time involved to stay in place. Have any of the rest of you blurred parts of pictures when using electronic shutter? Are there other things I should watch out for? Are there reasons other than noise, shutter shock, and saving the mechanical shutter that would make one choose electronic shutter over mechanical?
 

AlanF

Desperately seeking birds
CR Pro
Aug 16, 2012
12,443
22,880
I have my first mirrorless ILC, and am learning to adjust to its peculiarities. I've mostly been shooting at night, holiday festivals and Christmas decorations. I miss the OVF, of course, and am annoyed by the lights that flash in the viewfinder, and find the bright images of dark scenes mostly helpful but maybe sometimes distracting.

Out of the box, the default was to use the electronic shutter. I had some success with that, but figured that for taking shots involving Christmas lights that mechanical would be better, and switched to that.

Saturday night I switched back to electronic to see how that might work. Most pictures came out great. But some pictures were fine for the upper two-thirds or so, and then suddenly quite blurry below that. I assume what happened was that I (and the IBIS) held things steady for most of the shot, and then I moved the camera, thinking it was done with the picture. I'll need to work on my habits when using electronic shutter, apparently.

I had read about rolling shutter and blinking lights issues, but had no warning about the extra time involved to stay in place. Have any of the rest of you blurred parts of pictures when using electronic shutter? Are there other things I should watch out for? Are there reasons other than noise, shutter shock, and saving the mechanical shutter that would make one choose electronic shutter over mechanical?
20+ fps Is the main reason for me using it plus avoiding shutter shock on the R7 at certain fps.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Upvote 0
Apr 25, 2011
2,521
1,900
I had read about rolling shutter and blinking lights issues, but had no warning about the extra time involved to stay in place.
It is my understanding that the readout speed of the GFX 100 sensor in particular is very slow (I saw the numbers of 1/6 second in 14-bit mode and 1/3 second in 16-bit mode). Canon's electronic shutters are 1-2 orders of magnitude faster.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Upvote 0