Here’s why you shouldn’t use electronic shutter for portraits
Dec 6, 2018
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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Did you know that using an electronic instead of a mechanical shutter can affect a background in your images? After a subscriber pointed it out to Manny Ortiz, he tested it on a Fuji and a Sony mirrorless camera. And indeed, it turned out that an electronic shutter may not be the best option when you shoot portraits.
Manny points out that using an electronic shutter affects your background at a certain point, not all the time. If you shoot above 1/1000 s, you’ll see a pretty obvious change in the images. In other words, if you shoot with, say, a f/1.4 lens, you won’t get a f/1.4 result.
First of all, there’s a difference in the exposure. Manny took the photos at the same settings with both electronic and mechanical shutter at f/1.4. In the video, you can see the differences in exposure. The histogram shows them, but they’re even obvious when you just look at the photos.
Another difference is in the bokeh. There’s clearly more bokeh with mechanical shutter than with the electronic shutter. You can see it clearly when the photos are zoomed in, but you don’t need to have an eagle eye to see the differences even when the photo is zoomed out.
Manny tested this with a Fuji X-T3 and his Sony A7R II, and the results were the same. So, he assumes that this is the case with mirrorless cameras in general. You can read more about this issue here. Have you noticed the same issue with your mirrorless camera?
[Why you SHOULDN’T use the ELECTRONIC SHUTTER for PORTRAITS! | Manny Ortiz]
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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9 responses to “Here’s why you shouldn’t use electronic shutter for portraits”
I really wish people would learn to distinguish between electronic shutter (= silent shooting), and electronic first curtain shutter. Especially if they plan publish videos about it.
Thank you for explaining it to me I was getting worried there for a little bit . I thought Electronc Shutter was when I use my mirrorless camera period. Hey Manny it be nice if you explained that.
Yeah. All digital cameras have electronic shutters. It would be crazy (and expensive) to put a mechanical shutter into one.
I tried the Nikon z7 and it has crazy rolling shutter on elec shutter mode.
Panning past a doorway.
My a7ii litterly cut my bokeh balls in half from my 105 Art
interesting!
Is that also the case with cameras like the D850, which has an electronic shutter functionality? If so, how is that physically explained?
Or just get closer to your portrait subject with the 85mm lens and/or don’t put subject so close to a bunch of leafless trees in the background. Is this a joke?