Timeline for Why are SLR mechanisms still prevalent among high-end digital cameras?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
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| Feb 10, 2016 at 17:51 | comment | added | requiem | @JDługosz sort-of; The high-speed sync feature (built into flashes) you are thinking of is a different feature designed to work around the rolling shutter effect from a mechanical shutter. The D40 used an electronic shutter for higher speeds, and the mechanical shutter remained fully open while that happened (so no front/rear curtain effects). The only real limitation is the time it takes for the flash to dump all the light, so a flash at full power might take 1/1,000th of a second to dump all its light, but dial it down to 1/16th power and it'd only take 1/10,000th. | |
| Feb 10, 2016 at 17:33 | comment | added | Caleb | @JDługosz Nevertheless, the D40 did have an actual flash sync speed of 1/500s, which is screaming fast compared to the 1/200s or even 1/180s typical of many DSLR's. | |
| Feb 10, 2016 at 17:08 | comment | added | JDługosz | @requiem the high-speed flash sync is actually a feature of the flash. The focal plane shutter still has a full-open limit of 250. The electronic shutter speed limit has to do with readout speed, and the CCD can be built to copy the whole thing to an internal buffer in one step, while the cmos doesn't. | |
| Feb 9, 2016 at 15:18 | comment | added | J... | @requiem I'm totally dusting off the old D40 and trying this out when I get home! | |
| Feb 9, 2016 at 6:18 | comment | added | requiem | @DietrichEpp The D40 is actually capable of syncing at much higher speeds (e.g. 1/4000 or 1/8000) if you go manual and don't use TTL. 1/500 was just the official "limit". I believe that was a benefit of the CCD sensor type and not available with the newer CMOS sensors. | |
| Feb 7, 2016 at 17:11 | comment | added | Dietrich Epp | A few Nikon DSLRs from ~10 years ago used electronic shutters and had high flash sync speeds. My old D40 can sync at 1/500, which is as good or better than any leaf shutter I've used. It was nice, but it wasn't a killer feature. | |
| Feb 7, 2016 at 13:23 | comment | added | Blrfl | @aroth: SLRs are no different; mine all have a predicted shutter life. Photographers needing their gear to be highly-available take steps to make that happen just like people with data: they carry low-frame-count spares, send high-count bodies in to have the mechanical parts replaced or buy new bodies. | |
| Feb 7, 2016 at 12:32 | comment | added | aroth | @Blrfl - True, although flash memory tends to wear out in a very predictable way, making sudden catastrophic failure of the device less common. Which can be a problem with mechanical disks if you don't have RAID, good backups, or cash for data recovery services. | |
| Feb 7, 2016 at 12:02 | comment | added | Blrfl | @aroth: It's funny that you bring up SSDs, because they have a liability similar to the mechanical shutters in SLRs: the storage inside has a more-limited lifetime than magnetic media. Neither SSDs or SLRs are good choices for high-rate, highly-repetitive write/capture applications. | |
| Feb 7, 2016 at 8:59 | vote | accept | aroth | ||
| Feb 7, 2016 at 8:57 | comment | added | aroth | "I think you may be overstating the liability of the mechanical system" - Entirely possible. Coming from a computing background, I tend to think of it in terms of HDD's (mechanical) vs. SSD's (solid sate). The latter completely trounces the former both in terms of performance and reliability. But, that doesn't mean mechanical devices cannot be reliable (or performant). | |
| Feb 7, 2016 at 3:55 | history | answered | Caleb | CC BY-SA 3.0 |