The rolling shutter effect is usually seen as a damaging defect but even this can be used creatively, with enough imagination. Photo by Jim Kasson, Fujifilm GFX 50S
Click! goes the camera and in that fraction of a second the shutter races to end the exposure. But, although it`s quick, that process isn`t instantaneous. Whether you`re syncing a flash, wondering why banding is appearing in your image or deciding whether to use your camera`s silent shutter mode, the way your shutter works has a role to play. This article looks at the different types of shutter and what effect they have.
At their most basic, cameras capture light that represents a fragment of time, so it shouldn`t be surprising that the mechanism that defines this period of time can play a role in the final outcome. It`s not nearly as significant as the exposure duration (usually known as shutter speed or time value), or the size of the aperture but, despite great effort and ingenuity being expended on minimizing it, the shutter behavior has an effect.
Mechanical Shutters
There are two main mechanical shutter technologies: focal plane curtain shutters and leaf shutters. The majority of large sensor cameras and nearly all ILCs use focal plane shutters while the majority of compacts use leaf shutters.
Focal plain shutters
Focal plan curtain shutters are what you probably think of when you think about shutters. At the start of the exposure a series of horizontal blades rises like a Venetian blind and, to end the exposure, a second series of blades rises up to cover the sensor again.
The first curtain lifts to start the exposure, then a second curtain ends the exposure. The shutter`s movement is shown as the blue lines on the graph. The time taken to open and close the curtains (red) is defined by the shutter rate, the exposure time is shown in green.
These blades move quickly but not instantly. We`ll call the amount of time it takes the shutter to m ...
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