Mechanical vs Electronic Shutters

Usually when photographing certain subjects or at certain events that require quiet, the sound of the camera shutter can be annoying and ruin the atmosphere. With the development of technology, there is now something called an electronic shutter feature. With this feature you can take photos more calmly, but this feature is not yet available on all cameras. Let's discuss the difference between a mechanical shutter and an electronic one...

1. Mechanical shutter

With a mechanical shutter, like on a film/analog camera, it works by opening the curtain so that light can enter the sensor and the next curtain immediately closes again. Shutter speed is the time when the film is exposed to light. On digital cameras, the way it works is the same except that there is a digital sensor instead of film. The sensor position will always be in the on position.

Source : https://www.jmpeltier.com/disadvantages-silent-electronic-shutter/

The faster the shutter speed, the smaller the gap between the first and second curtains.

There are limitations to this mechanical shutter, where the shutter speed has a maximum. But like on the Fujifilm X-T3 camera, the maximum shutter speed is 1/8000 second. It's still considered very fast.

2. Electronic shutter

With the development of technology, something called electronic shutter has emerged on digital cameras. You can get a shutter speed of 1/32000 seconds. Wow, really... Let's discuss how it works...

1. The sensor lights up but does not record light
2. The shutter button is pressed
3. Each pixel of the sensor is turned off, one row at a time
4. Pixels are reactivated according to the preset time (shutter speed)
5. The pixel is turned off, the light reading while it was on is recorded
6. The pixel turns back on as before, lighting up but not recording when the exposure process is complete.

Source : https://www.jmpeltier.com/disadvantages-silent-electronic-shutter/

The electronic shutter makes a row of sensor pixels turn on and off according to a predetermined shutter speed time.

Did you understand, KEE friends, how each of these features works...?

There are differences in both. With a mechanical shutter, the sensor is always on and exposed to light when the curtain is opened according to the shutter speed time. For example, the shutter speed used is 1/500 second. The process of the sensor being exposed to light is 1/500 second, there is a little additional time for the curtain closing process.

Meanwhile, with an electronic shutter, if you use a shutter speed of 1/500, the process is only around 1/10 second faster because each row of sensor pixels turns off and on at one time.