Mechanical vs Electronic Shutter: Ask David Bergman 

That is by far the BEST explanation I've heard. I knew about the banding but didn't completely understand why as I believed it was more about the flicking of the light source vs the shutterspeed, and I never knew about the distorting of images. Thank you for such an insightful and useful piece! 😊

Completely, THE most comprehensive explanation (that I could actually follow!) on the 2 shutter types. Thanks, David.

Thank you David. Perfect timing, I was only trying to get my head around these matters the other day. Please take care my friend and keep well. 👍🇬🇧

David I can’t express how much I love your videos! You have such a great way of portraying your thoughts across and have a perfect balance of technical speaking and layman’s terms. Thanks for your content!!

You don't know how much I've searched to finally get to this amazing video, thanks.

Fantastic explanation. Thank you for this video.

I have been wondering about the difference for awhile now. Thank you

Thanks David, informative as always!

Wow, that is an artistic image. I like it

I’m a long-time DSLR shooter and I never knew all that about electronic shutters! Lol I knew about banding and pulsating light but not about how light scanned off sensor. Thanks!

Great explanation David.

Excellently explained with examples. Lovely work. Thank you.

Great explanation. Thanks for clearing that up.

A brilliant explanation. Now I understand this issue 100%, Thanks

Fantastic detailed explanation. Thank You David..

To witness this electronic shutter issue take your smartphone and use the pro mode in camera. Use the fastest shutter speed and take a pic of your fan in highest speed.

thanks, great explanation

This is amazing explanation. Thank you very much

Iam looking for this Topic ,and found your Channel ,Thanks very Much Sir

Thank you for such a great explanation of the difference between the two.

Amazing video! I recently bought the Fujifilm XT-4 and didn't know which shutter to use for dog photography (still learning the technical side of the camera/photography in general). Will definitely be using the mechanical one from now on! Thank you so much for explaining!

great explanation thanks

Thanks for the explanation, now I know better!

best explanation I could find about rolling shutter, thanks

Great explanation! thank you very much🙏🏽👊🏽

Great explanation, thanks so much! Those drone photos shot with e-shutter were really bizarre!

Thank you very much, very nice explanation

Thanks. This is a wonderful explanation.

Great explanation!!! Thanks

Thanks for the knowledge.

excellent explanation, thank you!

Neighbor... that was a great explanation! Thanks.

Excellently explained, than you.

Awesome, thanks David for the clear and thorough explanation with example photos.

The Canon 90d has electronic shutter in live view so thanks for this video i am just learning about it

Awesome. The next time I have the opportunity to photograph something with spinning blades, I'm going to try to recreate this in an artistic way.

Thanks-great video! Would you advise using electronic shutter for time lapse photography to save wear and tear on the mechanical shutter? Would it work OK for fast moving traffic? Thanks!

Cameras with global shutter do exist. Phantom high speed cameras that do most of the super slow motion videos are global shutter cameras.

Great way to explain. It bring one question to my mind...is there(or what is ) difference between mechanical and electrical shutter while using flashes ? Both inside in studio or outside with small flash on camera.

With my Pentax KP I have a choice of the electronic or mechanical shutter. Generally, when shooting landscape or anything without anything moving in the scene I use the electronic shutter. Anything else I use the mechanical shutter.

That was a good question ...

Okay, time to invest Sony A1 for me to prevent rolling shutter for electronic shutter. Nice explanation.

Hi David, love your videos. I have a question about the 1dxMIII, I was wondering what's the advantage (or rather IF there is an advantage) of using the Electronic First Curtain over Electronic or Mechanical shutter in Live View mode?

I do wedding photography, and usually I took the details close up picture, since my partner doing all wider pictures. I only use mechanical shutter when indoors only because of the flicker from the lights inside the hall, or I can still use electrical shutter by adjusting the shutter speed to certail speed that flickering gone away. The reasons I do electrical shutter is because less tear and wear to the shutter, because repairing it can empty my savings once, it happened like 3 times when I still use my DSLR back in the day. Fortunately, banding, rolling shutter and flickering is not my big issue for my job and since wedding these day are often semi and or full outdoor that keep me using electrical shutter most of the time.

For anyone who is interested. The photo receptors hold a charge, and as they are exposed to light that charge continues to change. With a mechanical shutter the light is blocked while the values are read; so the value of each receptor is unchanged until the entire image is recorded. For details from someone who knows far more about engineering than I do: electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/376797/why-is-there-no-rolling-shutter-when-using-a-mechanical-shutter

First I have to say BRILLIANT EXPLANATION. Soooooo my new question is 'when could rolling-shutter be used as an advantage to create intentional effects'. I had been playing about with fast moving horizontal vs vertical images and the difference is amazing due to the standard rolling-shutter travelling in a vertical plane when holding a camera in normal orientation. This led to trying fast moving images in a mix of vertical and horizontal and this caused bending just like the common aero prop as per your drone. Anyway I left the experiments for a while then just recently I caught the 2022 BRIT Awards during the Liam Gallagher set . . . . . .and WOWEEE ! It all suddenly became obvious. The lighting set included ultra-fast strobing projections and lasers which interacted with the rolling-shutter of the television cameras, and because the projector and laser beams were movong in all planes and with varying degrees of beams angle it caused the beams of light to become RIBBONS OF LIGHT dancing in mid space. I managed to find some regular footage on RU-vid taken by a person who attended the actual event using a conventional mobile camera from pretty much the same viewpoint, so I ran the footgae side by side, i.e. that taken AT THE EVENT compared to THAT TELEVISED. What a difference to the effect seen by the television viewers. If I was at the event and then watched the recorded footage when I got home I would swear I was at a different event. Superb example of rolling-shutter used for intentional effect.

David, what about in terms of wear on the camera, when doing a prolonged time lapse? My sense is of course, that an electronic shuttered time lapse without the camera parts moving, will have less wear mechanically on the camera.

David, have you had issues with flash photography using the electronic shutter? I’ve encountered problems when using electronic shutter and flash.

Just pre-ordered the R6 from Adorama so I will be brand new to the mirrorless game! When using off camera flash, should you stay with mechanical shutter always?

Thanks for the info. David. I noticed my Z6 would not go above 1/2000 shutter speed in bright sunlit conditions - electronic shutter was turned on. Switching to mechanical let me go to the max shutter speed. The camera has an auto switch between the two modes. Do you recommend using that for camera that have the auto option?

Is there a way I can ask you a question regarding Bridge Cameras? Thank you

Great video! For information I have a 2013 Blackmagic Production Camera 4k that has a global shutter and no rolling effect, so the technology has existed for a while actually.

How do I switch to Mechanical Shutter on Fujifilm X-T2 on video mode? I couldn't select that option in the menu for some reason

Stacked sensors are available and E-shutter is wonderful with this technology. This video isn’t consistent enough with newer technologies.

Does any of this apply to GfX 100s? I want to know which shutter is best for shooting

Now Sony A9iii is the first Global Shutter camera

One video that i stopped myself when i am about to speed up the video.. gj

Which camera have best sensor processor when it comes to mirrorless technology?

Can you talk me through basic stating point exposure settings using a DLSR with uncoupled bellows using manual mode on the camera for extreme macro close-ups?

Very good explanation 👍✅...well that leads me to a freaking question ...electronic shutter is reducing the ( life expectancy) use duration of the sensor ...does it reduce de resistance to the light also ?🤔...light is causing burning...🤔

I'm still confused. At higher shutterspeeds mechanical shutter too have the same effect on sensor since a small slit of horizontal opening causes the exposure. Will it cause roling shutter effect? 🤔

Great video Now what I don't understand is that the data has to be read from the sensor anyways for both shutters. Why is it done in a different way for electronic shutter

Can you please explain what causes rolling shutter is and how to reduce it?

Hi David, quick question...would you recommend shooting: R6 with a Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary Lens for Canon EF ($900) with a Canon Adapter Canon Mount Adapter EF-EOS R ($99) or spending a LOT more money and getting the new Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L IS USM Lens ($2700)? I only shoot outside and use natural light (mostly beach) Thanks for helping out!

How about the electronic front curtain? How is it vulnerable to rolling shutter or banding?

The sensor is scanned one line at a time, top to bottom in electronic shutter mode. How is the sensor scanned in mechanical shutter mode?

so, in short, 1/32000 is for every pixel line, and the sensor works different when switching from ms to es, right?!

A mechanical curtain and an electronic (rolling) shutter will both produce low frequency bias. A global shutter or a leave shutter won’t. Global shutter are available, for example, in high speed cameras.

When to use Electronic Shutter and Mechanical shutter? What about in video? How does shutter work there.

What about 1st curtain electronic shutters?

But dslr cameras, with mechanical shutter, Still can have rolling shutter effect since they have CMOS sensor right?

So if I shoot stationary subjects, does it mean electronic shutter is perfect?

7:52 That drone has EyeLashes.

Pls confirm me if i can shoot in HSS with electronic shutter Thanks. P/s waiting for your answer bfos buying Fuji xa3

Just a note that many AC powered LED lights will pulse. DC powered (including those with built in AC charged batteries) do not.

This is so confusing. I don't see how the data being pulled off the sensor line by line is any different than the mechanical shutter's light slit traveling down the sensor over during the exposure. At any given moment, the shutter's exposure slit is open over a different portion of the sensor, and to me, that approximates the electronic shutter reading line by line. I don't get why the mechanical shutter doesn't have the same effect for fast shutter speeds where the shutter produces a slit rather than being fully open.

Great explanation, but the video would be better and shorter if there were graphics or animations to further explain it.

Global shutter with the Sony F55. Sony F65 has mechanical shutter. I also hear there's older Balackmagic with global shutter.

So would they need to have a global electronic shutter to allow flash sync at all shutter speeds?

a9lll has joined the chat. informative, thanks,

Silent shooting count shutter count?

Drone looks like something from skynet.

Also, at higher shutter speeds, you lose bokeh with the electronic shutter.

Canon new flagship mirrorless R1 is gonna have global shutter

but obviously you're electronic shutter speed is too high, can slow it down to get organic motion

?? im more confused...

Mechanical shutters should be obsolete by now

This explaination doesn't make any sense to me. First of all a mechanical shutter moves from the top to the bottom so why shoult there be no rolling shutter compared to a electronic shutter? With your explaination with pixels are turned on and off it shuld be the opposite. Secondly you say that images with electronic shutter look how they look because the pixels are read line by line. But at the moment the pixels are read the picture is already taken so it shouldnt matter at all when the pixels are read.

An animation video with this explanation would have been so much better!!

Too much talking