What is the shutter of a camera
How Does a Camera Shutter Work? (Camera Shutters Explained)
By Chad VerzosaA- A+
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Your privacy is safe.We are all familiar with the sound of a camera shutter. But do you know what happens inside your device when that happens? In this article, we’ll explain how a shutter works, and why you hear that distinct clicking sound.
What Is a Camera Shutter?
First, let’s define what a shutter is and what it does. You can think of it as a gate that opens to let the light into the sensor or film and closes to stop the exposure.
In reality, a shutter is a complicated mechanical contraption. It’s not just a simple gate that opens and closes. There are various types of shutters that work differently depending on the camera. Let’s have a look at the shutters you’ll find in DSLRs, mirrorless, video, and motion picture cameras.
How Does a Camera Shutter Work?
DSLR Shutter
Before we start, let’s define DSLR to understand how its shutter works. The acronym stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex. That means that your camera has an optical device composed of a mirror and a prism.
This lets you see exactly what goes through the lens.
The optics of the DSLR works by placing a mirror behind the lens, which goes to a prism inside your viewfinder. You can think of it as a tiny periscope that bounces light around to reach your eye.
Now, what does the mirror have to do anything with the shutter? Well, since the mirror is directly behind the lens, it prevents the light from hitting the shutter. But the DSLR is designed in such a way that when you press the shutter button, the mirror goes up so the shutter can open and make an exposure.
When you press the shutter button, you’ll hear the mirror make a slapping sound when it goes up. Since it’s not reflecting any light behind the lens and directing it to your viewfinder anymore, you get a black screen.
While the mirror is up, a shutter curtain goes down and exposes the sensor behind it. Once the exposure is finished, a second curtain goes down and covers the sensor. The amount of time the first curtain goes down and the second curtain goes down depends on the shutter speed.
The slower the shutter speed, the longer the shutter is open.
Mirrorless Shutter
Mirrorless cameras are called such because they don’t have the mirror that DSLRs have. Mirrorless cameras transmit image data from the sensor to a small electronic screen in the viewfinder to let you see what you’re shooting.
In many ways, the shutter mechanism of a mirrorless camera works similarly to DSLRs. It also has a shutter curtain that goes up and down as you take a picture. But the difference this time is the way it moves and captures the image as you press the shutter button.
Since a mirrorless camera doesn’t have a mirror, the sensor is fully exposed behind the lens. But when you press the shutter button, a shutter door goes up to block the sensor, and then goes down to make the exposure. Once the exposure is done, another door goes down from the top of the frame.
Medium Format Shutter
We’ve all heard of crop-sensor and full-frame cameras. Crop-sensors are typically found in cheaper consumer cameras.
Full-frame sensors are the ones that most professional photographers use.
But what about medium-format cameras? Medium-format got its name from 120mm format cameras during the film days. Since medium-format cameras have a bigger sensor and resolution, they’re very expensive. Only a small percentage of professional photographers get to use them on a daily basis.
Just like full-frame cameras, medium-format cameras also have DSLR and mirrorless versions. That means that their shutter mechanisms also vary. But the high-end medium-format options often feature a special shutter called a leaf shutter.
Unlike other shutter mechanisms, a leaf shutter is inside the lens and not the camera body. It also looks and works like an aperture, moving inwards or outwards instead of up and down.
The advantage of a leaf shutter is that it’s faster than any other mechanism that employs a shutter curtain. You can use it for high sync flash that can be 1/1000th of a second or more, as compared to 1/200 or 250th of second for mirrorless and DLSRs.
Compact Cameras and Smartphones
Ever wonder where the clicking from your compact camera or smartphone comes from? The truth is that sound is produced electronically.
Compact cameras and smartphones don’t have shutter curtains that go up and down at all. Instead, they capture light from the lens straight to the sensor. That’s mainly the reason why they’re smaller and can take more pictures than regular cameras.
So if your smartphone works without a shutter, then why is it still necessary for normal cameras to have one? It all comes down to the quality of the photos. Cameras without shutters tend to produce grainy pictures. On the other hand, cameras with mechanical shutters have cleaner images. They have better control of the light hitting the sensor.
Shutter Activity When Taking Pictures
As mentioned earlier, the amount of time the shutter stays open is proportional to the shutter speed you set on your camera.
As an experiment, you can adjust your shutter speed to 3 seconds and press the shutter.
The time between the first click (when the shutter and mirror opens) to the second click (when the shutter and mirror closes), is the same amount of time.
But since shutters are mechanical, they can only go so fast when taking pictures. Try pressing the shutter and hold it for ten seconds and you’ll see how fast or slow your camera takes pictures.
Your camera’s shooting speed is calculated by using FPS or frames per second. Most consumer cameras can only take about 5 to 8 frames per second even when using a shutter speed of 1/8000th of second or more. While some professional models (especially mirrorless options) can shoot almost up to 24 frames per second.
Shutter Activity When Shooting Videos
Now that you know that most cameras can only shoot a few frames per second, you’ll understand why the shutter is never used when shooting video. Otherwise, you’ll end up with jerky motion because the shutter isn’t fast enough to capture natural movement.
When you record videos using your mirrorless or DSLR, your shutter goes up and never goes down until you finish shooting.
In Video Mode, the sensor then becomes a “virtual” shutter by electronically scanning the light coming from the lens.
Capturing video data depends on the kinds of sensor your camera has. Ther are two main types of sensors in cameras. The first one is the CMOS which is found in most entry-level and even professional cameras. It captures video by scanning the scene from left to right, and top to bottom.
A CMOS sensor scans an entire scene in milliseconds (which is fast!). But it tends to suffer from the rolling shutter. In other words, it distorts fast movement because it can’t record a scene all at once. If you have a DSLR or a mirrorless, try swiftly panning your camera from left to right and you’ll notice that “Jell-o effect” caused by rolling shutter.
The second type of sensor is called CCD and is mostly found in high-end and professional video or cinema cameras. It uses what’s called a global shutter to avoid any distortion in movement. That means it captures a scene all at once so you’ll see no lags in any motion in your frame.
Check Your Shutter Count
Your camera shutter is mechanical, which means that it can only do so many clicks before it stops working. Your camera’s shutter life expectancy can be found in your camera’s spec sheet or online.
An average consumer camera has a rating of about 100,000 shutter actuations. Meanwhile, professional options are rated 200,000 or more actuations. It may not sound enough. But in general, most enthusiasts only reach up to 25,000 actuations a year. That means their camera can last up to 4 years.
Meanwhile, it’s not unusual for professional photographers to reach 50,000 or even 100,000 actuations per year. That’s why you often see them change their cameras all the time.
You can check your shutter count online by uploading a recent JPEG or raw picture from your camera. Remember that sometimes a shutter can break before or even way after it reaches its expected number of shutter actuations. Like your car mileage, a shutter life expectancy is a manufacturer’s estimation.
Conclusion
It’s always a good idea to learn about how your camera works. Knowing the mechanics of your shutter, for instance, would allow you to see its capabilities and limitations. And let’s be honest: It feels good to know what’s going on inside your device when you hear that click.
Camera Shutter Guide - Everything You Need To Know
If you have a curious mind, you’ve probably wondered how a camera takes a picture. While that’s a big topic to cover, one of the essential elements of a camera’s function is how the shutter works.
The camera shutter is a device that’s existed for over a century. What’s more, as technology has advanced, so has the functionality, durability and performance of the camera shutter.
Why should you learn about it? Well, a key element of learning about photography is to know how a camera works – inside and out. Knowing the full extent of your camera’s functionality and capabilities makes you a better photographer.
That’s why understanding everything there is to know about shutters is a fundamental part of your development, even if you don’t even know how to change your shutter speed yet.
Ready? Jump into our ultimate guide that answers everything photographers want to know about camera shutters.
Table of Contents
What is a Camera Shutter?
A camera shutter is a device located inside the camera covering the image sensor. Why do cameras have shutters? The camera has a shutter as it acts as the gatekeeper of light – it decides which light will pass the gate and which will not.
When you take a photo, the shutter moves at varying speeds to expose the camera sensor for a duration of time. It’s during that exposure that the camera sensor captures the incoming light.
When you control the shutter speed on your camera, you tell the shutter how long to stay open and expose the sensor to the incoming light.
This device exists in both DSLR and mirrorless cameras – however, they operate differently from one another.
Plus, it’s essential to understand the different types of shutters and how they move and function.
What Are the Two Types of Camera Shutter (and How Do They Work?)
Camera shutters are not a new thing – they’ve been in use for decades and date back to the days of early film cameras.
Mechanical shutters required precision mechanical engineering to produce the parts and then assemble them with accurate performance.
Electronic shutters have progressed a long way to replicate and improve upon the process of mechanical shutters.
Regardless, mechanical shutters are still a necessity to meet the growing needs of photographers today.
Mechanical shutters come in two forms – focal plane shutters and leaf shutters. While they both have a mechanical function to block light and expose the image sensor, how they do it is vastly different. You should also read our guide: how does a camera sensor work?
Understanding the difference is a vital part of learning how cameras operate.
The Fujifilm X-T3 has a focal plane shutter
A focal plane shutter (FPS) is a form of mechanical shutter commonly found in DSLR and mirrorless cameras such as the one above. It exposes the camera sensor or focal plane to the light coming in from the lens.
Focal plane shutters usually take the form of two metal or plastic curtains that slide across the focal plane or sensor in unison with a slight gap between the two.
The passing gap is what allows light to hit the entire image sensor. In some cases, there’s only a single curtain.
The speed at which the focal plane shutter moves is determined by the shutter speed setting. With longer exposures, the gap passes the image sensor very slowly.
In a DLSR camera, the focal plane shutter can move as fast as 1/8000 of a second.
Leaf ShutterThe Fujifilm X100 series and X70 have leaf shutters.
A leaf shutter is entirely different in build to a focal plane shutter, in that it’s a diaphragm that works much the same way as an aperture inside a lens.
Located in front of the camera sensor, a leaf shutter has overlapping metal blades that close so no light passes through to the sensor. When you press the camera’s shutter button, the blades open to allow light to pass through.
Once the shutter speed duration has lapsed, they snap shut to block any further light spilling in. Each of the diaphragm blades of a leaf shutter opens from the centre out.
A focal plane shutter is positioned up against and almost touching the sensor, while a leaf shutter sits forward from the sensor up against the lens’s rear.
This way, the leaf shutter does not have to be a significant device to cover the whole image sensor. It can be as small as the rear element of the lens, such as in the image above.
With a fixed lens, the rear lens element is relatively small. The leaf shutter is the same size and sits directly behind this element – effectively blocking the light passing through the lens.
Mechanical Shutter vs Electronic Shutter
With DSLR and mirrorless camera technology development, camera shutters have improved over time – but their primary function remains.
(It’s probably better to say how they go about exposing the sensor to light has improved over time.)
There are two types of shutter that most current generation cameras possess – especially in the mirrorless arena.
Mechanical ShutterDSLRs feature a mechanical shutter as they have a physical device that moves up and down to expose the camera sensor.
But there’s a lot more to it than that. When you look through a DSLR optical viewfinder, you see a true to life view of what the camera lens sees.
The light travels into the lens and bounces off a mirror inside the camera. The reflected light passes into the optical viewfinder so you can see what’s in the frame.
The camera sensor sits behind this mirror/shutter combo – as a result, it blocks the light from the sensor.
When you press the shutter button, the mirror flips out of the way, and the shutter opens up for a fraction of a second – long enough to expose the camera sensor to the light.
When you do this, you’ll notice a moment where the view through the optical viewfinder blacks out.
Mirrorless cameras also have a mechanical shutter that works in much the same way.
The most significant difference between the mirrorless shutter and the DSLR one is that a mirrorless does not have a mirror (hence the name mirrorless). Mirrorless cameras don’t have an optical viewfinder, and as such, they don’t need the light from the lens to bounce via a mirror.
Mirrorless cameras have an electronic viewfinder (or EVF). These have a small digital LCD inside them. What the camera sensor sees is shown on the EVF LCD.
Mirrorless cameras show a ‘live view’ of what the exposure will be like once you press the shutter button – DSLRs don’t have the same EVF live view option.
Let’s check out some of the pros and cons of the mechanical shutter:
Pros
- Mechanical shutters allow you to use a flash at a much faster shutter speed than with an electronic shutter.
- The phenomenon of rolling shutter distortion reduces.
- They’re much better in situations with flickering lights.
Cons
- Faster shutter speeds are less achievable.
- Mechanical parts result in a lower life span.
- A mechanical shutter can cause shutter shock – the movement causes the camera to vibrate.
- They offer slower response times when compared to electronic shutters.
Mirrorless digital cameras also feature an electronic shutter that replicates the actions of a mechanical shutter.
Having the choice of switching between electronic and mechanical provides greater flexibility in varying shooting conditions. Some mirrorless cameras automatically switch between the two to meet the changing light.
When you press the shutter button, instead of a physical device moving away from the image sensor, the sensor starts and stops reading the light.
This happens in one of two ways.
The first is known as a global shutter or total shutter – the camera sensor switches completely on and off for the duration as per the shutter speed.
The second is a rolling shutter, which sees the camera sensor switching on and off in a rolling motion down the shutter – row by row.
There are many benefits to using an electronic shutter, but they have a few setbacks, too. Let’s take a look:
Pros
- Electronic shutters are entirely silent, making them ideal for street photography and capturing wildlife.
- They shoot at much higher shutter speeds than a mechanical shutter.
- The frames per second shooting rate are higher as the electronic shutter outpaces a mechanical shutter’s movement.
- The blackout experienced in DSLR cameras is not as evident.
- No moving parts – no camera vibration.
Cons
- Rolling shutter causes distortion, especially when photographing fast-moving objects.
- Flash speeds tend to be lower than with a DSLR.
- Electronic shutters struggle with flickering lights.
Other Types of Camera Shutter
So far, we’ve discovered what a camera shutter is and what it does to create images.
We’ve also learnt the critical difference between mirrorless and DSLR camera technology and the role played by mechanical and electronic shutters.
Finally, we’ve uncovered the mechanical shutter’s two primary forms – the focal plane and the leaf shutter.
Electronic shutters are getting a lot of attention from camera developers now as the march to mirrorless cameras picks up pace.
However, several electronic shutter types exist in various makes and models. Let’s take a look at the different types of electronic camera shutter.
- Rolling Shutter
As discussed, a rolling shutter is an electronic shutter that doesn’t use a mechanical device to expose the camera sensor.
Instead, the sensor acts as the shutter by switching on and off, row-by-row of the sensor array. The action works from the top of the sensor down to the bottom in a sweeping motion.
As a result, a rolling shutter can achieve fast shutter speeds but result in image distortion when capturing fast-moving objects.
A rolling shutter also supports high FPS rates as the next wave begins at the top before the last wave has finished at the sensor’s bottom.
You should also read our guide: how do you avoid the rolling shutter effect?
- Hybrid Shutter
Hybrid shutters combine a mechanical and electronic shutter – they operate in unison. The mechanical shutter physically covers the shutter with a curtain and moves out of the way to expose the sensor.
Once it has moved, the sensor uses an electronic rolling shutter to capture the incoming light.
- Global Shutter
Unlike a rolling shutter where rows of the sensor switch on and off in waves, a global shutter has the entire sensor turn on and off as one.
Global shutters deliver outstanding image resolution and excellent noise management in low-light shooting conditions.
- Silent Shutter
Almost all electronic shutters are silent – there are no moving parts to make noise or vibration detected in long exposure.
What’s more, most mirrorless cameras have a silent shooting mode where you turn off all electronic beeps, such as those that happen when the focus is acquired or you press the shutter button.
Silent shutter and silent mode are ideal for wildlife photography where you don’t want to spook the animals with camera noise.
Camera Shutter FAQsHow long does a camera shutter last?
There’s an excellent reason why vintage film cameras are still in use today – they last. DSLR manufacturers announce that their mechanical shutters last for a set shutter count. However, they usually last well beyond this. Depending on the camera’s quality, a shutter count can extend to anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000.
Do mirrorless cameras have a shutter life?
Mirrorless cameras work differently as the process of taking a photo does not flip a mirror up and down as it does in a DSLR. Most mirrorless cameras have a mechanical shutter that reveals the sensor and an electronic shutter that digitally replicates this movement.
So while there’s still a shutter, it has less demand upon it, and as a result, mirrorless cameras often last longer than DSLRs.
Do smartphone cameras have shutters?
Smartphone cameras don’t have shutters as they’re too small to fit a mechanical one. However, smartphones have an electronic shutter that digitally replicates the role of a mechanical one.
Can you replace a camera shutter?
Yes, you can replace a camera shutter and any other part of a camera for a price. If you have a camera that you love, but the mechanical shutter has stopped working, you can have it repaired or replaced by a service centre.
However, in some cases, it’s more cost-effective to replace the camera entirely.
Check out our guide on how to check your shutter count.
How do I know if my camera shutter is broken?
If you look into the camera when you’ve removed the lens, you’ll see the image sensor. When you press the shutter button, you’ll see a flutter of movement as the shutter responds. If you don’t see this and cannot take a picture, the shutter may be stuck or no longer functional.
Final Words
All too often, we take the way things work for granted. As much as I’d like to thank tiny magical unicorns inside the camera for making the pretty photos, there’s a lot more to it.
Camera shutters on DSLR and mirrorless cameras are incredibly complex devices with decades of research and engineering behind them.
The fact that they make a shutter to last 200,000 actions is astounding by today’s standards – especially when you consider the expected life span of a lot of consumer electronics.
A fundamental of learning photography is to understand the math, science and engineering behind these fantastic pieces of equipment. It makes you a better photographer to know the limitation of your gear.
What are your thoughts on the different types of camera shutters? Do you have a preference for electronic versus mechanical? Or are you a die-hard fan of the leaf shutter?
Join the discussion and share your thoughts below. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and share your experiences.
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What is a camera shutter - 10 types and properties
Contents of page
The shutter is a part of the camera that serves to dose light onto photographic material. The shutter speed is set by a parameter such as shutter speed.
Shutters have various variations and types, but we will consider curtain-slit focal shutters.
What is a camera shutter
A photographic shutter is a device for adjusting shutter speed, that is, the duration of exposure to light on photographic material or a camera matrix. One of the two main exposure controls. In a film camera, the role of the shutter is performed by the obturator.
The main task of the shutter is to work in tandem with the diaphragm. In this pair, the shutter is responsible for the shutter speed, which doses light onto the matrix, or camera film. Lamellar focal plane shutters of modern digital SLR cameras have amazing reliability, but at the same time are less maintainable than their older brothers, curtain shutters. In addition to cheapness and maintainability, curtain shutters had another advantage - they made less noise and vibration during photography. But this advantage has faded over time. More details below.
Slotted shutters
The focal plane shutter is very close to the film surface (focal plane), hence the name.
Shutter-slit because usually the shutter consists of two shutters, which during movement create a gap between themselves through which the frame is illuminated. There are two common types of focal length shutters for small format photography:
Horizontal focal plane shutter
" Horizontal stroke " means that the shutter works on the long side (curtains move along) of frame . The most common "curtain" horizontal focal shutters were used in small-format cameras almost everywhere from the first cult "Leica" by Oscar Barnack, and until the beginning of the 2000s (the longest was used in cameras of the USSR).
The main drawback of the horizontal shutter is its speed sync for electronic flash photography, which is often limited to 1/60 - 1/90 seconds, as well as the impossibility of stable operation at high speeds (from 1/1000 sec.).
I think that's why most of the curtain shutters that were equipped with Soviet SLR cameras did not have a speed higher than 1/500 sec.
The shutter resource of curtain fabric shutters, moreover, is very small.
To use electronic flash, the shutter is set to a so-called "sync speed" (shown as X on the shutter speed dial, or may be prefixed as a sync speed, such as X/60), which ensures minimum exposure lag, and at the same time allows the flash to illuminate the frame at the exact moment when the shutter is fully open. In any other scenario, there will be uneven frame illumination.
Vertical focal plane shutter
In the focal plane shutter vertically the shutters move on the short side (across) of the frame. These shutters are more complex in design, but their performance is more stable, including at high speeds. Modern shutters in digital SLR cameras are lamellar, vertically operated, electronically controlled. The resource of a lamellar shutter is many times higher than curtain cloth shutters.
Moreover, the response speed and the initial impulse are set by the electric motor, and the shutter speed is already controlled by electromagnets.
This results in increased system power consumption at slow shutter speeds.
Pictured above is a Canon 40D vertical blade shutter.
A so-called pre-flash or stroboscopic flash is used to synchronize the flash at high speeds. It generates multiple pulses in one pass of the shutter curtains, thus solving the synchronization problem. Usually even the most inexpensive modern electronic flashes support these modes.
Other valves
Due to the specifics of the site, we do not consider the following gates yet:
Slotted drum
Used in panoramic cameras of special design. In this case, a photographic film enveloping a cylindrical drum is exposed to a slit moving past it in the wall of a rotating drum with a lens (Horizon cameras)
Obturator
The obturator shutter has the same device as a disk single-blade obturator: a metal disk rotating near the focal plane with a sector cut.
Rotary gate
Multi-layered sector shutter shutters, like the obturator, rotated around a common axis, which allowed them to be folded into a relatively narrow package or unfolded in the form of a fan.
Such a device is more technologically advanced than a lamellar shutter, since it eliminates the difficult-to-manufacture parallelogram lever mechanism for moving shutters (Kyiv-10, Kyiv-15).
Shutters with separate shutter drive
One of the drawbacks of most of the early focal plane shutters was the need to cover the lens during its cocking, since at that moment the gap between the shutters did not overlap. The problem was eliminated in the shutter of Leica small-format cameras, the mass production of which was launched in 1925 year. For the first time, the design of the shutter used in them was proposed for large-format cameras as early as 1893, and was implemented 16 years later in the English Minex SLR cameras. The shutter of the new type consisted of two shutters independent of each other with individual springs.
The gap between them was formed due to the difference in the time of the start of movement, and when the shutter was cocked, the shutters closed, reliably protecting the film from exposure.
The successful kinematics of the shutter made it easier to pair it with the film advance mechanism, making the entire design of the camera compact. The curtain shutter of Zenith cameras is an example of this.
Aperture shutter
It is located between the lenses of the objective in a plane near the aperture diaphragm, which is why it got its name. A feature of such shutters is the simultaneous and uniform exposure of the entire area of the frame, regardless of the accuracy of the mechanism setting (Hasselblad lenses).
Central lock
A type of aperture shutter whose shutters, when actuated, open the lens opening from the center to its edges and close in the reverse order. These shutters are usually mounted between the objective lenses or directly behind the rear lens.
Aperture shutter, diaphragm shutter
Central shutter, the maximum degree of opening of the petals of which is adjustable, due to which it simultaneously acts as a diaphragm.
Louver shutter
The light is blocked by a set of narrow lamellas, simultaneously rotating around the axes. When the shutter is open, the plates are directed along the optical axis, passing light.
Electronic shutter
The electronic shutter does not actually use the mechanics of the drive and shutter to cut off light from the matrix. It works in buffer mode and live, as if saving still frames of video that cannot be written to the card. It became widespread with the beginning of the era of smartphones. Most smartphone cameras have an electronic shutter with a multi-frame buffer. The camera activated on the smartphone broadcasts the video to the buffer, from where the last frame or series of frames is then retrieved by pressing the shutter button. The average speed of such a shutter of early models is 1/15 and 1/30 of a second, depending on the frequency with which the ADC could process frames. In filming technology appeared relatively recently. The Sony A7III camera has silent shooting without the use of a mechanical shutter.
A big problem with early electronic shutters is Rolling Shutter, when moving objects blurred across the frame, since information was read from the matrix sequentially, line by line.
Curtain shutters
The overwhelming majority of curtain shutters were made of rubberized fabric . Despite their simplicity and low cost, curtain fabric shutters have very unpleasant features that affect the life of the shutter:
- Sunburn
If you forget to close the camera lens with a cap, the lens will act like a magnifying lens, and in the end, the properties of rubber change to such an extent that it crumbles, “burns out”.
- Roll shutter elements subject to abrasion
Often there are cameras from one manufacturer or another whose cloth shutter rods are simply torn due to wear.
- Roll shutter elements peel off tensioners
Over time, the binder component of the adhesive base becomes unusable and dries out.
The curtains are peeled off at the base of the tensioners.
- Tensioner springs fail
Tensioners have steel springs inside that lose their properties over time. The problem is eliminated by tightening the adjusting screws and is not as terrible as those listed above.
On the printout, the listed faults can be displayed as underexposure of one of the frame zones, uneven exposure over the entire frame field (curtains slow down), the frame image is fixed in jerks. Seeing such prints, you should pay attention to the condition of the shutter.
Despite the fact that curtain shutters have dangerous diseases, they are very repairable, and in order to make repairs in the "field" conditions, it is enough to have direct hands and relevant literature. The maximum life of a curtain shutter is approximately 5,000 operations.
Lamellar valves
The shutters of these shutters consist of several metal lamellae.
Moreover, not only steel, but also stainless steel, carbon fiber can be used as a material for lamellae. The lamellar shutters of digital SLR cameras are electronically controlled using an electric motor and electromagnets.
Electromagnets are responsible for the shutter speed, holding the shutters open until they receive a pulse from the control chip to open. In practice, this all takes, of course, a fraction of a second.
Lamellar shutters became widespread in Japanese cameras, where they began to be used in the early 60s. Lamellar shutters are more reliable than curtain shutters, do not fade in the sun
However, the maintainability of such shutters is much less than that of curtain shutters - if the replacement of lamellas, in principle, is still within the user's hands, then its subsequent adjustment is possible only within the walls of the service center (in general, not a cheap pleasure, even if someone undertakes for this work). Therefore, the lamella shutters change entirely.
Of the malfunctions of lamellar shutters, you can find the following:
- Curtain sticking
- Abrasion of curtain slats
- Break in the winding of the electromagnet
- Curtain bushings falling out of seats
These faults can mainly be found on shutters with high mileage, and also to some extent on fresh chambers during the “break-in” period. The shutter break-in takes place at about the first thousand operations, after which the shutter may even pass its service life. In the table, the shutter resource of some Canon cameras is marked in green:
Maximum shutter life varies. The manufacturer, depending on the camera model, sets limits from 50,000 operations on junior camera models and up to 500,000 on professional ones. It often happens that the camera has time to become morally obsolete, and find a fourth or fifth owner, and the shutter resource has not yet been exhausted.
Roll shutter principle
The main structure consists of two opaque curtains that are mounted on tensioner rollers.
As a rule, the shutters are located so that by default they block the access of light to the photographic material.
- When we cock the shutter, the film frame moves at the same time, and the curtains are “pulled” from their usual places.
- When the shutter button is pressed, the first curtain is released to start operating. Along the way, the first curtain passes through the frame of the photographic material, dosing the light.
- When the first curtain completes its stroke, the shutter is fully open for some time.
- At the end of the exposure time, the second curtain blocks the light and the exposure ends.
- When the shutter is cocked for the next frame - everything repeats again.
If the shutter operates at the minimum shutter speed, then the exposure of the photographic material occurs through the gap between the curtains catching up with each other.
Lamellar shutter
The operation of the focal vertical blade shutter can be clearly seen from this video:
Barrel
With film Canon EOS Kiss 300, the shooting speed is limited by the film rewind speed, and shutter lag can be called the waiting time before the end of the film advance to the next frame during continuous shooting.
The table shows the interval between firings in continuous shooting for some Canon cameras (green column):
Shutter lag in older DSLRs can occur when the camera's buffer overflows with raw data, then the shutter lag time is limited by the write speed to the card. The Canon EOS 1Ds fills up the buffer quickly, and due to the slow write speed to the card, the subsequent shutter lag can be as high as 10-15 seconds.
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Camera shutter modes. Mechanical, with electronic front curtain, silent. When to use which?
What is a camera shutter?
The word “click” is often used to mean “take a photo”. But what exactly clicks in the camera? One of the integral parts is a mechanical shutter.
Camera shutter module Nikon D750
The shutter is required for precise exposure (shooting time).
Proper exposure requires extreme precision. The shutters are different: the central ones are located in the lens, and the focal ones are installed directly in front of the matrix, in the focal plane. The latter are used in modern SLR and mirrorless cameras. Film cameras often used shutters with fabric shutters. This has long been in the past, but the word "curtain" has remained in everyday life. Now the shutters consist of several dampers-lamellas.
Shutter operation on Nikon Z 7. Continuous shooting in Cl mode, 3 fps, electronic front curtain shutter.
How does a camera shutter work? The principle is simple: at the beginning of shooting, the front curtain (lamella shutter) opens, and the light enters the matrix. After the exposure time has elapsed, the second curtain closes the matrix and finishes shooting. This is one operation cycle.
Of course, the description is simplified, and the shutter works a little differently at shutter speeds faster than sync speed (and this is important for studio shooting), but the principle itself is exactly that.
NIKON D850 / 18-35 mm f/3.5-4.5 SETTINGS: ISO 64, F11, 90 s, 27.0 mm equiv.
Camera "mileage" and guaranteed shutter life
Like any mechanical part, the camera shutter wears out over time. To characterize the reliability of a shutter, the manufacturer tests it and calculates the guaranteed life of the shutter. For professional cameras, it ranges from 150 to 500 thousand cycles. This does not mean that in the future your camera will become unusable, sometimes the shutters “run” much longer. Rather, the manufacturer needs the indicator to characterize the reliability class of the shutter model. By analogy with the mileage of a car, buyers often look at the mileage of a camera when buying used photographic equipment.
NIKON Z 7 / NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/2.
8 S SETTINGS: ISO 31, F10, 15s, 24.0mm equiv.
Please note that we are not talking about the number of photos taken, but the number of shutter releases. In modern digital technology, these are different quantities. For example, on mirrors in Live View mode, when shooting one frame, the shutter will have to go through three cycles: open the shutter to activate Live View, close the shutter to start the exposure, open the shutter to take pictures, close to end the exposure, open to activate Live View, close to exit Live View. At the same time, on a mirrorless camera, when working with an electronic shutter, there are zero cycles per frame, because the mechanics are not involved here. In this article, you will find out why this happens.
EXIF opened with Jeffrey's Image Metadata Viewer. Nikon cameras have a separate item that characterizes the number of mechanical shutter cycles.
A separate item in EXIF displays how many frames were taken on the camera. In our case, the number of frames taken exceeded the number of shutter cycles.
This suggests that the camera shot a lot with an electronic (silent) shutter.
Note that even in EXIF, modern Nikon devices separately record the number of shutter cycles and the number of shots taken. If the first digit is greater than the second, we can conclude that the camera was used in mechanical shutter mode. Otherwise, the shooting was carried out in the electronic shutter mode. To see all the information in EXIF, you need to look at the raw file.
Camera shutter modes
Mechanical shutter. This is the traditional shutter mode. To date, it has no practical limitations, except for the minimum shutter speed (in modern cameras it is 1/4000 or even 1/8000 s). The mode allows you to work with flashes, does not give noticeable distortion and is suitable for shooting with pulsating light (for example, LED, energy-saving lamps).
Shooting starts the moment the shutters are closed. At the start of the exposure, the front curtain opens and light enters the matrix.
When the exposure time elapses, the second shutter curtain closes the sensor. The frame is made.
We have described the classic version of the mechanical shutter on a SLR camera. When looking through the optical viewfinder, the shutter is continuously (excluding the time of shooting) in the closed state.
Mechanical shutter on mirrorless cameras. On mirrorless cameras and on SLR cameras in Live View mode, the process of shooting with a mechanical shutter is somewhat different. To view the image through Live View, the shutter must be open before and after shooting. Until you press the shutter button, the shutter is locked open, the image from the matrix is transmitted to the screen and electronic viewfinder. When the shutter button is pressed, the shutter first closes to null the signal from the sensor. Now the front curtain opens and the exposure takes place. To finish it, the second curtain closes. The survey is over, but the shutter must be returned to the open position in order to continue zooming in Live View.
An additional step is opening the curtains.
Note that it takes two shutter cycles to take one picture. It turns out that on mirrorless devices in this mode, shutter wear doubles. Therefore, Nikon Z mirrorless mode is not used by default, the camera prefers the shutter release with an electronic front curtain.
Mechanical shutter operation on the Nikon Z 7 camera, slowed down by 5 times. You can see how the curtain closes first, and then opens. Total two cycles of operation for one press of the shutter button.
Electronic First Curtain Shutter (EFCS)
Modern cameras can start shooting with the shutter open. How it works? When the shutter button is pressed, the camera starts exposure using the electronic front shutter. The mechanics are not activated, the matrix is reset by itself. After the shutter speed has elapsed, the rear mechanical shutter comes into play: it finishes shooting and closes the shutter.
The shutter then opens again to receive the Live View image. Here, one frame equals one shutter cycle.
Shutter operation with electronic front curtain. It can be seen that at the moment the shutter button is pressed, the mechanical parts are stationary, the shutter does not lower. The mechanical rear curtain is activated only at the end of shooting.
On Nikon SLR cameras, this shutter mode is also found. On Nikon D7500, Nikon D500, Nikon D810 it is available in mirror up mode. And in the Nikon D850, the electronic front-curtain shutter can also work in Q and Qc quiet shooting modes.
Activating the electronic front shutter shutter in the Nikon D850 SLR menu
In addition to reducing wear on the mechanical parts of the shutter, EFCS eliminates microblur - a slight drop in image sharpness at shutter speeds of the order of ½–1/100 s due to vibration of the internal parts of the camera, mainly due to the operation of the mechanical front curtain.
The mode has one limitation: EFCS sometimes gives various artifacts at very short shutter speeds. For example, by the beginning of the exposure on older lenses, the aperture may not have time to close. Therefore, shutter speeds up to 1/2000 s are available in Nikon cameras in this mode. If automatic shutter mode is selected, selecting a faster shutter speed will activate the mechanical shutter.
Choice of shutter modes in Nikon Z 7. Mechanical shutter, electronic front curtain shutter.
Mirrorless Nikon Z 6, Nikon Z 7 and the new Nikon Z 50 all the described shutter modes are available. In the "Shutter Type" menu, you can select the "Auto" option, then the camera itself will determine which type of shutter to use. Mechanical is activated when working at shutter speeds shorter than 1/2000 s, the rest of the time the shutter with an electronic front curtain will be used.
Nikon Z 50 camera display: Shutter mode is displayed in addition to other shooting information.
The icon with the letter A indicates that the auto mode is selected.
Electronic (silent) shutter . But you can go even further and replace not one, but both curtains with electronics. In this case, the mechanical elements of the shutter are not involved at all, the shooting is absolutely silent. And there are no vibrations, which means that the risk of microlubrication is excluded.
But there are also limitations. Firstly, the signal from modern matrices is read line by line, and when shooting motion, objects in the frame can be deformed. It's called RollingShutter or the jelly effect. On different cameras, this drawback is expressed to varying degrees.
Jelly effect: the camera moved during the shooting, the frame was deformed.
The jelly effect makes such subjects as sports, dynamic reportage inaccessible for shooting with an electronic shutter, and shooting from the window of a moving car is also unlikely to work.
Also, when using the electronic shutter, pulsing light sources (LEDs and fluorescent lamps) will produce an unpleasant streak effect across the frame.
You can get rid of it if you lengthen the shutter speed.
Lighting with household fluorescent lamp. When using the electronic shutter and a fast shutter speed, horizontal stripes are produced.
Shot with the same exposure settings, but using an electronic front shutter. There are no stripes.
Electronic shutter. Long exposure used. There are no stripes.
And with an electronic shutter, you can not use either studio or on-camera flashes. But in other situations it is very convenient. Landscape, interior, architectural, staged portrait and subject photography with natural light, and even unhurried reporting - all this is up to him. The mode is ideal when we do not want to draw attention to ourselves with camera clicks.
Selecting silent shooting with an electronic shutter in the quick menu on the camera Nikon Z 7
Choosing silent shooting with an electronic shutter in the main menu of the camera Nikon Z 7
A separate plus of this mode is that it does not wear out the mechanical parts of the shutter at all, since not involved in work.
