Mechanical Vs Electronic Shutter. Which is BETTER for wildlife photography? 

Do you shoot with mechanical or electronic or even maybe both? Please let us know in the comments. Will be interesting to see the split.

what a perfect explanation in detail without too much maths I am old school, sticking with mechanical shutter DSLR has always served me well.

Very illuminating explanation, I hadn’t seen anyone explain these issues so clearly and in such practical terms

At last someone has explained to me in a simple, clear and precise way the difference shutters. Thank you.

As has already been said, an excellent and detailed explanation of the issues. Thank you.

A complete description well presented. Thank you.

Brilliant presentation! This is the best clarification I've seen of this arcane topic. THANK YOU!!

Hi Janine, Thanks for a very good explanation with just enough technical information to make this topic so easy to understand. Well done!

Keep producing such amazing content! Great to see you even if it has to be through RU-vid.

Great dive into the quirks of the electronic shutter in which I have yet to try using . Always look forward to the vids from Pangolin.

Great video, as always. Perfect explanation and such a soothing voice! :)

Thank you for a well communicated tutorial on this issue. Love the channel. 👍👍

Thanks for the elaborative explanation Janine. Much needed tutorial. It actually helped a lot. 👍

Thanks very much Janine! Again, a very useful video!

Best explanation I’ve found so far. Congrats!

Janine...you are literally the first reviewer/tutorial RU-vidr I've watched who has laid out the details. given facts and specs and has ended with a very strong suggestion based on all the information at hand!! Very very well done!! :)

Great explanation and communicating skills. I’ve watched many tutorials on the subject through the years and yours is among the best!

Best explanation of pros/cons of various shutter modes I've ever seen.

Hello Janine, very good explanation. Thanks a lot. With my new EOS R5 I use the electronic shutter for "normal" wildlife with no noise and 20 frames/s without any problems. Only for birds in flight I use the mechanical one, to be on the safe side. Best regards Eckhard

Great explanation! Thanks for the information so clearly presented 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🖖🏼

good description of the electronic shutter, PS: this IS why any time we open the space, to change a lens, or put the body cap back on, we MUST do this FAST & in a dust free place, and do things like facing the camera away from wind, facing downwards to stop dust falling on/in the sensor, as we DON'T have a shutter/ mirror system as a final fail-safe to prevent this!! and also why makers provide a special cleaning cloth/stick & fluids to clean the sensor, as this has a greater risk of accumulating dust, and any dust CAN'T be "blown" off with a blower, as this wrecks the sensor!!

Gosh you are such a peach!! I love your way in explaining and your videos. Thank you!

Another very informative video and a great explanation, thanks very much!!

Very clear explanation and excellent video. Thank you

Thank you! Thank you! Great tutorial. I'm so glad that I kept my my favourite D500 camera beside the Z6. I've been trying really hard to get the same result as I was able to do with D500 with no luck so far. Both are great cameras but they serve different purposes.

Thank you so much for your incredible clarity and grasp of this complex subject, perfectly organized and comprehensibly explained. You are a much appreciated treasure. If I understand correctly, I want to try my electronic shutter for tripod assisted landscape shots (with slow shutter speeds, small apertures, and low ISOs) eliminating mechanical movement and the vibrations it can cause. I have always used the mechanical shutter for wildlife such as birds in flight, and at higher shutter speeds, with good results. Now I understand better why!

Excellent explanation! Very to the point and it covers everything one should know

beautiful. Thank you.

I'm an amateur aviation photographer, and your videos are extremely helpful! I always learn new things that help me improve, and I'm so grateful.

Thank you for excellent explanation!

Excellent, answered my questions regarding wildlife EFCS.

This was extrtemely helpful as I picking out a new camera system. Thank you!

Great video to explain the pros and cons of the various shutters. Easy to understand.

Another oracle of knowledge for people who maybe new to photography or people switching from.film to digital

The best explanation of these shutter options that I have ever seen.

Thank you for the excellent presentation of this complex subject. I believe we have arrived at the point where it's only a matter of time before electronic shutters become the norm. The Nikon Z9 seems to have few issues with rolling shutter and if history is anything to go by technology will improve and trickle down. I am looking forward to that.

So appreciate your clear guidance on this subject ❤️👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 It’s inevitably a trade off with wildlife photography with regard to so many unforeseen factors so to compromise a potential shot even more by choosing the wrong shutter setting has been something that has been a constant source of frustration for me. Particularly BIF. Owls especially. They’re so sensitive to sound. But guess I’ll stick with mechanical after watching your talk. Makes sense. Thank you ☺️👍🏻

AWESOME!!!! Thank you so much for this concise, yet eloquent explanation. The best one I've seen, hands down. I'm new to mirrorless cameras and was all confused until...I watched your video!!!! The curtain of confusion has opened LOL Thank you and all the best to you! 🙏🙏🙏👌

Awesome information, something to dive into and do more research about.

Many thanks Janine, you have just solved an issue for me. I have just bought a Canon R6 and wasn’t sure which would be better for wildlife photography - the mechanical or electronic shutter. Mechanical it is then!

Very interesting and I understand much more now. Thanks!

Very Nice & Informative 👍🌹👌

Another amazingly informative video Janine

What a super explanation. Thank you so much!

Thank you. This actually helped a lot in making my decision.

Thanks for your very clear and detailed explanations. Well done!

Great explanation, thank you, Janine

Good explanation about a complex subject Janine. Thanks

Sehr sachlich, sehr anschaulich, sehr kompetent erklärt. Top, besser geht’s nicht. Thank you very much for those great tutorials. I’m still learning very much from them and I also really enjoy every single clip.

Nicely explained! hanks

Thank you , thank you, you just confirmed why I use DSLR cameras over a mirrorless cameras. I prefer a mechanical shutter and a camera with a viewfinder.

Very nice tutorial. Thanks four sharing knowlege

perfect video

Just a brilliant example of how to maker complex subject and make it simple. Also evidence based reasoning is so rare on RU-vid. So thankyou and I get the mechanical thing and Id' use mechanical for wildlife and electronic for landscape & slow moving things in normal conditions to save on that shutter count

Already watched many videos about this topic. I couldn't agree anymore, this is the best explaination which I really understand.

I thought I knew everything about cameras but this was a real eye opener. Well done Janine for such a detailed explanation - for now I'll stick with my Canon 6D Mk2 and its mechanical shutter. THANK YOU !

Thank you for making this video

Thanks for educating me. I didn't know much about the mechanisms of either.

Excellent video!

reeeeally good explanation!. And so relevant these days. Seems that we are getting almost there with the global shutters...

Gracias por tu video Janine, muy bien explicado. Saludos desde Monterrey, Mexico

Really love your videos. You are great teachers at Pangolin. Would love to visit!

I have learnt in 18 minutes more than 3 years in photography school . Not a wild photographer but I subscribed. Thank you!

Excelente explicación, muchas gracias.

Great video. I really liked that you did an actual demonstration of the shutter using slow motion video. I am still working on why EFCS affects bokeh. Something about the shutter being so close to the sensor that it cuts off light rays from more extreme angles. I wonder why they did not swap locations of the shutter locations? Anyway, thanks again.

Thanks for the very good explanation for mirrorles and slr camera's . You've convinced me, i stay for my Canon eos 5D lv . Thanks again

This cleared some things up for me, hanks.

Great explanation of a complicated topic. I use all 3 modes for different purposes on my new R5. We have some row deer around here and they are very sensitive to noice while they don't see very well. I rarely got many shots with my 1DX mk ii before they ran away due to noice. Not a problem with the electronic shutter on the R5. I get too many shots though at 20 fps and I miss the feed back from the shutter sound. You can't have it all. It is very dark there at this time of the year so I often use slow shutter speed meaning first curtain eletronic shutter is nice. And mechanical shutter for the rest. My wife and I hope we can visit you when this crazy world gets back to near normal.

Thank you Janine! This was very, very good. As you also say "they" are working on getting the rolling shutter less intrusive. I think also Sony's new A7 SIII is better (than A7 SII) and also the latest Olympus. What really confused me was the front curtain shutter. I had to Google and found a good article over at Petapixel with a video by Manny Ortiz, who had made this very mistake, that saved you doing the one hour explaining video 😃 I didn't understand all of it, despite having studied physics and optics ages ago................... 🙁 Thank you Janine! Greetings from Sweden!

Excellent explanation Janine. Mechanical shutters still for me for all the reasons you outlined. I've no doubt in time technology will perfect the mirrorless shutter, but still early days.

Thank very much for this clear explanation. I tried to use the electronic shutter on my R5 when photogrphing birds in flight. But with 30fps and no sound you have no idea of how many photos you have taken and suddenly your memory card is full. Something else: I have been to Chobe once and found it beautiful. I would love to get back there one day.

Excellent content!

Great video, again😊👍

Excellent video.

Thanku for the valuable explanation

Hi Janine, Excellent tutorial and very well explained. I have now switched over to mirrorless and your clear explanation will definitely help with my settings. I can't wait for the opportunity to test it on the Chobe when all this madness is behind us.

I have a fair bit of experience with using electronic shutter on m43 cameras. My old old camera could sometimes exhibit rolling shutter artifacts when shooting birds so I switched back to mechanical shutter. With my newer EM-1 mkii and EM-1 mkiii bodies it's a non-issue in most situations and I almost always use electronic shutter. Hummingbirds in flight are my main exception but electronic shutter is no disaster even for flying hummers. Mechanical shutter is better for posed photos of people so they know when photos are being taken. The main advantage of electronic shutter is achieving nearly double the frame rate which can be critical for capturing the decisive moment. Another advantage of silent shooting is that your camera is not the soundtrack of tour for everybody else in your group when on a tour.

That was a very nice discussion of the issues involved. Thank you so much. Based on my own recent experience with using the ES on the Canon R5, I do have one use case where I think I disagree with your overall conclusion, however. For still objects/subjects like perched birds and other animals that aren’t moving, using the ES, a high shutter speed, and EYE-AF can work very well indeed.

Hello Janine! Here is François from France. Your video is really great, great, first-class. So clear, fine explanations, Those are from one of the best teachers i have never heard. So fine and intelligent nuances pfff. I am not any more in this age, but i must admit that I am completely under your charm. A very calm voice, patient , wonderful conclusion!! Perfection. I am a German teacher .if I had to give a note to evaluate your teacher capacitys, i would give 20/20. Charisma ,clarity, distinction....wow. by the way, i still have kept my nikon D5 Dslr, and i am not ready to switch. To see a bif in real life, means through an ovf , is the best thing that can happen after looking all day on computer screens, handy screens, tablets screens .thanks again for your great video

Great explanation 👍 I use a D750 and I have lost good shots due to shutter shake at low speeds. Was quite dark though.

Thanks for a nice review of an important topic. I also enjoyed your graphic illustrations e.g. the 960 fps shutter movements and drone blade demonstration of rolling shutter. On my relatively light weight Canon R7, the shutter shock with mechanical shutter can be quite dramatic, with noticeable image softening. I therefore rely on either electronic front curtain or electronic shutter. I use the ES to avoid shutter noise or to take advantage of faster frame rates (30 fps) and shutter speeds (1/16,000s), though rolling shutter can be significant due to slow read out. Moreover, Canon has recently acknowledged issues with focus acquisition on the R7 at faster frame rates due to its slower read out speed, which makes it difficult for the AF to keep up. Since I am generally happy with 7-15 fps, I don't feel limited by the EFCS, though I still prefer the quieter sound of the ES. And for birds, I also like the "pre-capture" feature that uses the ES.

I had issues with banding trying to take nocturnal pictures of spiders and frogs with a Sony a6600 and a flashlight in a forest. So this flaw of the electronic shutter unfortunately can be related to wildlife photography as well. Thanks for all the content, I'm learning so much from this channel! Greetings from 🇧🇷

This is very good movie which I was looking for...thx a lot

Conclusion for me: Will keep using the mechanical shutteras well for the same reasons explained in the video. On new bodies like the R6, R5, R3, R6 mkii, 12 fps is what we get which is in my opinion more than enough for 99% of situations. We buy a camera as opposed to a phone for the great image quality that it can produce and thus we should be aiming to use the best out of the available quality. 40 fps will be for me a plus that I can resort to if I absolutely need critical focusing speed.

Very Interesting

Thanks for explaining and demonstrating how the mirrorless shutter works. I shoot mechanical shutter on the R5. I have not tried the electronic front shutter.

Interesting to know what camera manufacturers will do for wildlife shooters in mirrorless technology? Thanks for the eye opener.

Excellent and precise information! It makes me really happy to see content where it's obvious that a lot of thought have been given to do a proper "investigative work" 😃. I also think that a mechanical shutter should be used when shooting wildlife. Only camera models that can perform really good in wildlife photography with electronic shutter are Sony A9 / A9 II. Their 12-bit FF sensor readout is ~6ms, so getting closer to mechanical shutter's ~3ms. For example the second best "similar type" camera in the market is Canon R5 with ~15ms 12-bit FF readout - so quite a lot slower (1D X Mark III and R6 ~17-19ms). Sony A7r IV has ~50ms and A7 III ~35ms readouts at 12-bit. With many of the Sony cameras these times get about twice longer when used in 14-bit sensor readout mode (apparently Canon's don't slow down that much - at least the 20Mp sensors). Also the DR of the A9 series is not quite as good as other cameras because it's designed for extreme speed with different stacked sensor construction. But for wildlife photography having "only" the 12-bit readout / A9 series "limited" DR isn't often that limiting. That's because the difference doesn't really exist at all on higher than ISO 800 values (other limiting factors masking the difference). And it's most noticeably between ISO 100-200 (depending on the camera model). But of course it still would be nice to have the option to take those low ISO / highest DR photos. So because I don't own the A9 series camera I don't use the electronic shutter (except in funerals etc.). But I do use the Electronic Front-Curtain Shutter (EFCS) when shooting at 1/125s or slower. Though when shooting wildlife I don't change to that for the rare cases needing this slow shutter (and when panning it doesn't really matter anyways). I also find the EFCS's effects to bokeh too disturbing. But they doesn't seem to appear when the shutter time is slow. This makes sense because in this case the time of the slightly/partially distorted exposure (from differing focal plains of the "curtains") is shorter compared to the balanced/non-distorted exposure.

Thanks for another great video. I was intrigued by your comments about the effect on bokeh when using electronic first curtain shutter as I have never noticed any discernible difference. The Canon manual for the R5 does make a rather vague statement to support this by saying the mechanical shutter is "Recommended when shooting with the aperture of a bright lens wide open". I hadn't realised why they said that until I watched your video so thanks for the explanation. I have now done some controlled tests with a lens at f/4 and I cannot see any difference whatsoever. I will try an f/2.8 later on and will let you know if that makes a difference. I do tend to use the EFC shutter as it does seem slightly quieter but agree that rolling shutter with the purely electronic shutter can be an issue. I tend to only use the electronic shutter when I need to work in total silence and the subject is not likely to be moving across the frame - perfect for photographing classical music concerts or timid wildlife like hares. I have now done another experiment with a 100mm f/2.8 lens fixed on a tripod using the various different shutter modes and with a brightly-lit perfect circle in the out of focus background. There is no discernible difference between EFC and mechanical shutter until the shutter speed is at 1/8000th second when the circle looks very slightly squashed at the top and the other areas of bokeh start to look slightly more defined. Thanks for prompting an interesting experiment.

Nice 🌷

Nice mirrorless view camera. Focal plane shutters are a step backwards from the view cameras' campur/copal type shutter. I mainly use flash so I need a mechanical shutter. The shutter protects the sensor from Sun burn. My D4 has passed 800k executions. i'm hoping to see a global sensor to become affordable soon...

Awesome video, as always. Can you put an example on the effect on the bokeh of the mechanical shutter? Electronic 1st curtain also makes it less blurried? Electronic first curtain also counts for shutter count if I want to sell my camera? Thanks for your time

Nice explanation mam

As far as I know, have had video gear since 1983, video cameras have always had electronic shutter, since electronic photography derived from video it is a logical derivation.

Really good video. Explained really well. Q: The Canon R6 uses the same sensor and processor as the 1DX. How would the 20 megapixel be for wildlife detail in the R6? Would it be similar to the 1DX? Thank you!!

Could listen to her all day.

Great explanation. But technology is already overcoming the negatives. Witness the Nikon Z9. Probably other models coming or already on the market too. Technology marches on.

Nikon D750 still in use. New Z system is very interesting because of silence, but it's too expensive for me. Maby in a few years I do an upgrade.

Very well explained! Given the option between the R5 and the 1DX Mark III, what would you go for?

I've been overthinking this for too long. This video explanation was great, but it made me think: "Why doesn't a mechanical shutter produce distorted effects also?" In the slow motion example of the 5D, (after the mirror flips up), the first curtain begins moving down and exposes the sensor. Then the second (rear) curtain moves down -- covering up the sensor 1/500th of second later.(as an example) If you are photographing something moving really fast, like hovering hummingbirds or spinning airplane propellers, a lot can happen from the beginning over the exposure at the top until the end of the exposure at the bottom. It doesn't seem like it would mater if a person were using film or a digital sensor. With film I'm guessing that it would be called motion blur. So then you would use a faster shutter speed to minimize the blur. If you apply this principle to a camera with a digital sensor you're essentially using a faster shutter speed than the sensor readout speed. If the shutter speed is faster than the sensor can electronically scan from top to bottom would the image be....nothing? ...a portal to the other side? ...or an image of 1/32,000th of a second in the future? lol