Hot answers tagged shutter
18
I wouldn't worry about it. Shutters can (and do) eventually fail, but the good news is that repair is relatively affordable. I know a few folks who have had shutters replaced, the cost has generally been between $200-300.
Take a look at another question which discussions how many actuations are "too many" and talks about the likelihood of failure. Enjoy ...
17
Quiet mode slows down the motion of the mirror when it goes up and delays it going back down until the shutter-release is released.
Normally the mirror going up and down is the loudest noise the camera makes. So slowing it down causes a longer shutter-lag but makes less noise. Also, the mirror normally comes back down immediately after a shot is taken so ...
16
The camera is likely setting the shutter speed to match the sync speed of the flash. If it was set any faster, you would get black bands of underexposure across your shots, or at the fastest speeds a completely black shot. This is because the shutters would have finished moving to some degree before the flash completed its fire.
14
Sounds nice but apparently there are currently some technical limitations:
An electronic shutter requires the sensor to be equipped with what is commonly called "snap shutter" circuitry. Basically, this is a second set of diodes, as big as the light gathering photodiodes, but shielded under a dark cover, and some additional switches. To shoot, the ...
12
F-stops deal with doubling/halving the amount of light hitting the sensor. Everything revolves around twos.
With the shutter speed, it's easy to understand, as you say. Every shutter f-stop is (roughly) half/double the amount of time as the previous one. Personally, I don't even bother paying attention to the numerator ("1/") part of the shutter speed; I've ...
12
Well, one way of remembering the f-stop scale is to remember that every other value is a multiplication by two, or in more photographic terms...every four-fold jump in light availability is twice the f-stop number. As an example:
Double-stops starting at the beginning: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64
Double-stops starting skipping the first stop: 1.4, 2.8, 5.6, 11.2 ...
12
ac·tu·ate
[ak-choo-eyt]
–verb (used with object), -at·ed, -at·ing.
1. to incite or move to action; impel; motivate: actuated by selfish motives.
2. to put into action; start a process; turn on: to actuate a machine.
You pretty much have it. A shutter "actuation" is the opening and closing of the shutter when a picture is taken. It should ...
12
Anything you can use to trigger the camera shutter without touching it. :o)
Serious. It can be a remote or cable based control for your camera shutter. It's main advantage is allowing you to take shots without interfering with the camera stability, but it could also be used for shooting from awkward/distant positions or when taking shots including yourself.
...
11
Some good readin' here.
Some key notes...
Cameras, typically smaller
point-and-shoot cameras, that use no
mechanical shutters typically use an
interline transfer sensor. An
interline transfer sensor dedicates a
portion of each pixel to store the
charge for that pixel. The added
electronics necessary to be able to
store the charge for ...
11
Most of the noise is actually not the shutter, but the mirror folding up.
My camera actually have two different ways of reducing this noise somewhat:
It has a "quiet" mode, that lets you fold up the mirror and take the picture in two separate actions. Although that doesn't make less noise, you can separate the louder noise of the mirror foldup from the ...
11
The short answer is: use a long shutter speed. To control this, put your camera into Shutter Priority mode (indicated by a "S" on the dial" and adjust the speed to a relatively long time - perhaps a half a second, a whole second, or perhaps longer.
The longer answer for when it gets tricky: You might find that during the daytime, things are so bright that ...
11
What Adam is referring to
What Adam is talking about is not actually a rolling shutter, it's just a focal plane shutter. It also does nothing special above 1/200, except that the effect of the shutter curtain has some interesting properties which can become more pronounced at higher speed.
The diagrams on the wikipedia page (reproduced below) illustrate it ...
10
To extend the shutter speed in daylight use the following ...
Lowest ISO possible to slow down the sensor sensitivity
Smallest possible aperture to reduce light coming in (use aperture priority)
Use Neutral Density (ND) filters that reduce the amount of light entering the lens without changing the colour balance. I use ND8 which slows down the exposure by ...
10
I don't know medium format cameras, but in general shutter latency is the time that it takes from when you push the shutter to the time the shutter actually activates. The lower the latency, the more responsive the shutter, but the less time the camera has to make last minute adjustments or changes in hardware state. A higher shutter latency will allow the ...
9
The real answer is the same as it was fifty years ago -- use a blimp. Naturally, constructing a blimp is a little more complicated than it once was, and you may have to forgo some features to get there (you can't as easily create mechanical linkages to all of the controls on a modern DSLR as you could on a film camera). If your autofocus and autoexposure are ...
9
The Canon 600D uses a mechanical shutter, and it does indeed go up to 1/4000th rate. There is no "electronic" shutter in Canon DSLR's that I know of. You pretty much nailed it on the head with your 'ps'...the two shutter curtains race over the sensor with a tiny slit (see 'Focal plane shutter, high speed' figure), with the second curtain a minuscule fraction ...
8
In my experience the shutter tends to fail gradually, i.e. it becomes unreliable shooting at high speeds, the first and second curtains can get out of sync, giving you inaccurate shutter speeds. It can fail completely in one go, but you usually get some warning. The shutter is very light and delicate so it's unlikely to do any damage when it goes! And yes ...
8
Yes, the A77 has a mechanical shutter and it does move at 12 FPS per second. There are a number of cameras with similar shutter-speeds including some ultra-zooms but indeed this is very fast.
What it does not have is a motor to move the mirror. This is more problematic for speed then the shutter itself since a mirror is heavy and has to move out of the way ...
8
The shutter you hear is a mechanical shutter and it cannot on a DSLR move fast enough to shoot at video speeds which is between 24 and 60 FPS. High-end mechanical shutters usually top at 12 FPS.
The shutter used in video and high-speed drive on some cameras is an electronic shutter. There are no moving parts involved and hence no sound. The sensor simply ...
8
Phase One says the sensor is put to sleep to save battery, and is given a wake-up signal when you press the shutter release button. This wake-up process they call Shutter Latency and recommend to keep it set to "Normal".
The other setting is called "Zero" latency, and suggested to use it only when working with technical large format cameras, or certain ...
7
Video does not use the mechanical shutter. The shutter remains open. Something called rolling shutter is used to scan the sensor. This takes time, and is not instantaneous like a 1/4000th exposure with the mechanical shutter where all sites on the sensor record at the same instant. At 30 fps, each frame is effectively 1/30th of a second, so this type of ...
7
I think the realistic answer is that without spending tens of thousands of your preferred currency to set up a proper test environment and test a whole bunch of different cameras there's no real way to know.
Presumably the manufacturers test each model of camera to get an idea of how long they will last under continuous use (although I imagine that only the ...
7
I do own a 1100D and don't find the mirror noise so loud. In Live View, the mirror is up, so that would explain the lower noise when you take the picture. My advice would be to go to a shop and compare the noise with the 1100D that is on display. IF it is the same, then your ears may just be too sensitive. If it isn't, then head out to the service center and ...
7
For changing the shutter speed, put the mode dial on Tv (as in the image below: make sure the white line corresponds to the letters Tv ), and turn the wheel high-lighted in red below (excuse my crappy images, I edited all this as something quick and dirty).
On your LCD screen, you can see the below screen (let me know if you don't know how to get to this ...
6
Adam's terminology is slightly out - you don't get a rolling shutter above 1/200s or so, but one whose where the bottom edge starts to close before the top edge has fully opened, but the effect is the same (a rolling shutter implies the scene is constantly read out from top to bottom).
Effectively what you get at high speeds is a slit that moves up the ...
6
Probably the reason for using mechanical shutters is that their disadvantages are easiest to live with; competing technologies are not clearly superior.
There have been electronic shutters used for higher speeds on some older Nikon DSLRs, like D1 or D70. On these cameras, grid-like patterns were reported to sometimes appear on plain tonal areas with shutter ...
6
I'm familiar with Canon lenses featuring Image Stabilization that can emit a faint "whir" as IS operates. Your Sony body has a form of image stabilization built into the body, and if that's on during a long exposure, you might be hearing that as it operates.
If you're shooting long-exposure shots with the camera mounted on a tripod (which would be best), ...
6
The shutter-count is a good start. If you are buying from someone, you can ask to see the receipt. Here at least, photo stores print the serial number on it. That will give you a date of purchase. If buying from a store, call Nikon support and ask if the serial number has been registered for warranty.
There is perhaps no foolproof way of removing all doubts ...
5
Shutter speed affects image quality in two principal ways. Firstly the longer the shutter is open (the slower the speed) the more light you get. The more light you get the less noise you have as it evens out the random emission of photons from a lightsource, and raises the signal produced by the sensor above the noise floor (the camera electronics produce a ...
5
While I have heard of a few D5000 users encountering Error. Press shutter release button again., indicating a shutter failure, this is rare. Considering your usage, the shutter should last at least two to three years. If and when the shutter fails, it would probably cost about $200 to $300 to replace, but that's a large part of the value of the camera body ...
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