P&S cameras possibly better than DSLR's for fast action shots in good light?

[carl1864]

So when I was researching why dslr cameras can't flash sync above 1/200 of a second, I heard it is because that is the shortest time that the sensor is fully exposed. I also heard that their 1/4000 speed shutter speeds are "effective shutters", meaning it doesn't actually expose the whole sensor for that speed, but rather just a slit, that still takes 1/200 of a second to move across the sensor.

If that's the case, then when shooting extremely fast action, like say a close up of a nascar passing at 200mph, couldn't your image wind up skewed, due to the subject moving the whole time that the slit is moving across the sensor?

Whereas P&S cameras have an electronic shutter that exposes the image all at once don't they? So assuming it was a sunny day with plenty of light, would a P&S camera shooting at 1/2000 shutter speed outperform a DSLR shooting at 1/2000, or possibly even 1/4000?

 

[Chato]

So when I was researching why dslr cameras can't flash sync above 1/200 of a second, I heard it is because that is the shortest time that the sensor is fully exposed. I also heard that their 1/4000 speed shutter speeds are "effective shutters", meaning it doesn't actually expose the whole sensor for that speed, but rather just a slit, that still takes 1/200 of a second to move across the sensor.

If that's the case, then when shooting extremely fast action, like say a close up of a nascar passing at 200mph, couldn't your image wind up skewed, due to the subject moving the whole time that the slit is moving across the sensor?

Whereas P&S cameras have an electronic shutter that exposes the image all at once don't they? So assuming it was a sunny day with plenty of light, would a P&S camera shooting at 1/2000 shutter speed outperform a DSLR shooting at 1/2000, or possibly even 1/4000?

No offense, but I've heard that the world is flat. But I don't believe it...

Now, take a look and you will see that an SLR has a mirror. The mirror goes up, the shot is taken, the mirror comes down, and the process is over. Explain how the mirror goes up in a manner to leave only a "slit" exposed?

The rest of your 'research" is unfortunately in the same vein.

Dave

 

[RaymondR]

my Nikon D70 and my wife's Nikon D40 both flash sync faster than what you say is possible.

--
RaymondR

 

[Deleted1929]

I think you're talking about focal plane shutters, although there are other types.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal-plane_shutter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_ (photography)

P&S cameras seem to mostly use some variant on leaf shutters.

I think the problem here is your term "better". Different yes, better - depends on what you mean by that.

In practice if you use flash to freeze something it's the flash burst period that's important as it is dominant illumination. Flash bursts have very short durations. This doesn't favour one over the other apart from consideration related to sensor size and image quality.

If you use natural light then you're likely heading to higher ISO levels and that's not going to favour a P&S.

--
StephenG

 

[Leonard Migliore]

So when I was researching why dslr cameras can't flash sync above 1/200 of a second, I heard it is because that is the shortest time that the sensor is fully exposed. I also heard that their 1/4000 speed shutter speeds are "effective shutters", meaning it doesn't actually expose the whole sensor for that speed, but rather just a slit, that still takes 1/200 of a second to move across the sensor.

If that's the case, then when shooting extremely fast action, like say a close up of a nascar passing at 200mph, couldn't your image wind up skewed, due to the subject moving the whole time that the slit is moving across the sensor?

Whereas P&S cameras have an electronic shutter that exposes the image all at once don't they? So assuming it was a sunny day with plenty of light, would a P&S camera shooting at 1/2000 shutter speed outperform a DSLR shooting at 1/2000, or possibly even 1/4000?

No offense, but I've heard that the world is flat. But I don't believe it...

Now, take a look and you will see that an SLR has a mirror. The mirror goes up, the shot is taken, the mirror comes down, and the process is over. Explain how the mirror goes up in a manner to leave only a "slit" exposed?

The rest of your 'research" is unfortunately in the same vein.

Except that he's exactly right. DSLR's have focal plane shutters which, below a certain exposure time, do not expose all the frame at once. At high speeds, there is indeed a slit that travels across the sensor to produce the exposure. A DSLR's mirror has nothing to do with the exposure except getting out of the way to let the shutter work.

I haven't seen much distortion of moving objects caused by this with modern cameras. You may have seen some old photos of racing cars where the wheels were elliptical; this is from slow focal plane shutters traversing big negatives.

Getting back to the original question, P&S cameras may well have less skewing than DSLR's but it's much harder to get the framing right and with the ISO you would have to use to get a good exposure at 1/2000, you would get an ugly image. So I would suggest that P&S cameras have significant deficiencies for this kind of work that overwhelm whatever theoretical advantage they may have in exposure time.

Also, I don't know if there are many electronic shutters left in P&S cameras; I think they mostly work with their between-the-lens shutters, which aren't all that fast.

--
Leonard Migliore

 

[Mako2011]

No offense, but I've heard that the world is flat. But I don't believe it...

Now, take a look and you will see that an SLR has a mirror. The mirror goes up, the shot is taken, the mirror comes down, and the process is over. Explain how the mirror goes up in a manner to leave only a "slit" exposed?

The rest of your 'research" is unfortunately in the same vein.

As I've been there my self and felt sorry....here is a very good video that will explain how the mirror goes up in a manner to leave only a "slit" exposed. It also does a very good job of explaining flash sync and why the D70 could do 1/500s flash sync vs 1/250. Good Luck BTW, I think your right about the world not being flat

http://www.brodiebutler.com/blog/2011/02/how-your-dslr-shutter-works-and-how-flash-syncronisation-works/

 

[AnandaSim]

I haven't seen much distortion of moving objects caused by this with modern cameras. You may have seen some old photos of racing cars where the wheels were elliptical; this is from slow focal plane shutters traversing big negatives.

So that's why they made the Fred Flintstone, the Beep-Beep Bird and other cartoons show motion blur that way....

Also, I don't know if there are many electronic shutters left in P&S cameras; I think they mostly work with their between-the-lens shutters, which aren't all that fast.

Point and Shoots often have electronic shutters but I was told the Kodak ones for example, have a between lens shutter to cap the light so that the sensor would be darkened during the read-then-ready for next shot electronic draining of charge.

Switch off all those synthesised audio sounds and in a quiet room, click the shutter - mostly you will hear a mechanical click,

--



Ananda
http://anandasim.blogspot.com
https://sites.google.com/site/asphotokb

'Enjoy Diversity - Live a Little'

 

[Broadsword]

From a practical standpoint, throw all that out the window. P&S are slow to focus, slower to zoom, can suffer from shutter lag, have a poorer sensor that can't up the ISO rating without disastrous effects on the image quality (meaning the DSLR can operate at a slower shutter speed - which might be better, since you can stop the motion of the car while still maintaining wheel blur indicating speed). Point and shoot cameras are nice in good light preferably with a still subject, but auto racing if anything is a particular weakness of theirs.

--

 

[chuxter]

WOW! What a mixed bag of replies. Most are quite wrong or irrelevant to your questions. Leonard was right as far as he went...

The truth is that you are mostly correct and already know more about how modern DCs work than all your expert advisors.

So when I was researching why dslr cameras can't flash sync above 1/200 of a second, I heard it is because that is the shortest time that the sensor is fully exposed. I also heard that their 1/4000 speed shutter speeds are "effective shutters", meaning it doesn't actually expose the whole sensor for that speed, but rather just a slit, that still takes 1/200 of a second to move across the sensor.

You are correct. There are a few dSLRs, like the Nikon D50 and D70 that have a hybrid shutter design...half mechanical and half electronic. That design had issues with "blooming" so it went away. It however, allowed for 1/500 second exposures.

If that's the case, then when shooting extremely fast action, like say a close up of a nascar passing at 200mph, couldn't your image wind up skewed, due to the subject moving the whole time that the slit is moving across the sensor?

Yes, that is an issue. The problem is a bit different than those elliptical wheels of yore...we have learned to pan with the car, so the wheels are usually round. However, the background can appear tilted...vertical poles will lean to one side.

This type shutter is called a "rolling shutter". There are mechanical and electronic versions...both distort rapidly moving things. I've seen LOTS of airplane propellers that looked like pretzels in pix taken with cell phones and cheap P&S cameras.

Whereas P&S cameras have an electronic shutter that exposes the image all at once don't they? So assuming it was a sunny day with plenty of light, would a P&S camera shooting at 1/2000 shutter speed outperform a DSLR shooting at 1/2000, or possibly even 1/4000?

No. Most P&S cameras have a "rolling shutter" just like dSLRs. Some high-end P&S cameras have a hybrid shutter...the exposure is started by globally resetting the sensor and ended by closing a blinder in the lens (it's located in a region where it works globally...it's normally adjacent to the iris). Only these type designs work as you describe. My Nikon 5700 and Sony R1 are like that. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get good information about how cameras work internally from review sites like dpr. :-(

[begin trivia] Back in the early days of the SLR, the focal plane shutters operated horizontally, instead of vertically. When taking a picture of a race car and panning with the action, vertical poles would be vertical, but look thinner than they actually were. [end trivia]

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D50, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
"He had a photographic memory which was never developed."

 

[Chato]

No offense, but I've heard that the world is flat. But I don't believe it...

Now, take a look and you will see that an SLR has a mirror. The mirror goes up, the shot is taken, the mirror comes down, and the process is over. Explain how the mirror goes up in a manner to leave only a "slit" exposed?

The rest of your 'research" is unfortunately in the same vein.

Except that he's exactly right. DSLR's have focal plane shutters which, below a certain exposure time, do not expose all the frame at once. At high speeds, there is indeed a slit that travels across the sensor to produce the exposure. A DSLR's mirror has nothing to do with the exposure except getting out of the way to let the shutter work.

That I'm going to have to eat Crow again? You mean I have to pull out the gallon of ketchup?

I haven't seen much distortion of moving objects caused by this with modern cameras. You may have seen some old photos of racing cars where the wheels were elliptical; this is from slow focal plane shutters traversing big negatives.

I've frozen helicopter blades and never saw any distortion. I've shot Egrets directly into the sun and never saw any distortion....

Getting back to the original question, P&S cameras may well have less skewing than DSLR's but it's much harder to get the framing right and with the ISO you would have to use to get a good exposure at 1/2000, you would get an ugly image. So I would suggest that P&S cameras have significant deficiencies for this kind of work that overwhelm whatever theoretical advantage they may have in exposure time.

Slit, no slit, an SLR is for action photography. No question of that in my mind/

Also, I don't know if there are many electronic shutters left in P&S cameras; I think they mostly work with their between-the-lens shutters, which aren't all that fast.

--
Leonard Migliore

Dave

 

[Chato]

No offense, but I've heard that the world is flat. But I don't believe it...

Now, take a look and you will see that an SLR has a mirror. The mirror goes up, the shot is taken, the mirror comes down, and the process is over. Explain how the mirror goes up in a manner to leave only a "slit" exposed?

The rest of your 'research" is unfortunately in the same vein.

As I've been there my self and felt sorry....here is a very good video that will explain how the mirror goes up in a manner to leave only a "slit" exposed. It also does a very good job of explaining flash sync and why the D70 could do 1/500s flash sync vs 1/250. Good Luck BTW, I think your right about the world not being flat

http://www.brodiebutler.com/blog/2011/02/how-your-dslr-shutter-works-and-how-flash-syncronisation-works/

Leonard has already served me the Crow. You got another recipe?

But whatever and however it's done with an SLR, I regularly shoot White birds in action photography at 1/2000, and sometimes higher. Never had a problem.

Dave

 

[chuxter]

No offense, but I've heard that the world is flat. But I don't believe it...

Now, take a look and you will see that an SLR has a mirror. The mirror goes up, the shot is taken, the mirror comes down, and the process is over. Explain how the mirror goes up in a manner to leave only a "slit" exposed?

The rest of your 'research" is unfortunately in the same vein.

Except that he's exactly right. DSLR's have focal plane shutters which, below a certain exposure time, do not expose all the frame at once. At high speeds, there is indeed a slit that travels across the sensor to produce the exposure. A DSLR's mirror has nothing to do with the exposure except getting out of the way to let the shutter work.

That I'm going to have to eat Crow again? You mean I have to pull out the gallon of ketchup?

I think you should eat that 4th Mockingbird! Sorry...inside joke...

I haven't seen much distortion of moving objects caused by this with modern cameras. You may have seen some old photos of racing cars where the wheels were elliptical; this is from slow focal plane shutters traversing big negatives.

I've frozen helicopter blades and never saw any distortion. I've shot Egrets directly into the sun and never saw any distortion....

Anybody that thinks a Turkey Vulture is a type of Mockingbird is incapable of noticing a little distortion. ;-)

Getting back to the original question, P&S cameras may well have less skewing than DSLR's but it's much harder to get the framing right and with the ISO you would have to use to get a good exposure at 1/2000, you would get an ugly image. So I would suggest that P&S cameras have significant deficiencies for this kind of work that overwhelm whatever theoretical advantage they may have in exposure time.

Slit, no slit, an SLR is for action photography. No question of that in my mind/

Bird photography is not "action photography"...

You know Dave, the problem with anecdotal evidence is that it isn't reliable. And if you are satisfied with only anecdotal evidence, you never look for the other kind. :-0
--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D50, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
"He had a photographic memory which was never developed."

 

[Chato]

Slit, no slit, an SLR is for action photography. No question of that in my mind/

Bird photography is not "action photography"...

You know Dave, the problem with anecdotal evidence is that it isn't reliable. And if you are satisfied with only anecdotal evidence, you never look for the other kind. :-0
--

Not the best photograph in the world, and not exactly an action shot, (IT's the fastest on my hard drive, wiithout hunting the archives) but you see any distortion at 1/2500?

And if I post a real action shot at 1/1600, with no distortion does that make it "anecdotal?"



Mind you, I'm not saying that your (And Leonards) technical description is wrong, (Crow sucks Big time, and I already ate it) rather, Who cares?



Here's a mechanical object, at 1/1250, what's distorted?



Dave

Dave

 

[chuxter]

Slit, no slit, an SLR is for action photography. No question of that in my mind/

Bird photography is not "action photography"...

You know Dave, the problem with anecdotal evidence is that it isn't reliable. And if you are satisfied with only anecdotal evidence, you never look for the other kind. :-0
--

Not the best photograph in the world, and not exactly an action shot, (IT's the fastest on my hard drive, wiithout hunting the archives) but you see any distortion at 1/2500?

And if I post a real action shot at 1/1600, with no distortion does that make it "anecdotal?"

I'm sorry Dave, but your first obstacle is that you apparently don't have a clue how to detect the "distortion". It might be there, but if you don't know what to look for, then you won't see it. :-0

And your second obstacle is that you are looking at the wrong images...that's sorta related to the first obstacle.

I'm sorry Dave, but none of these images will let even a sharp-eyed ol' codger like me point out the distortion!

Mind you, I'm not saying that your (And Leonards) technical description is wrong, (Crow sucks Big time, and I already ate it) rather, Who cares?



Here's a mechanical object, at 1/1250, what's distorted?

The following is only at 1/1000 second, but it's pretty easy to see the tilt of the water tower legs.



Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D50, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
"He had a photographic memory which was never developed."

 

[carl1864]

So here is a bit of an update, which brings up another question. I just got done experimenting with some high speed photography with a "modified" point and shoot camera. A very old canon 7 megapixel P&S Camera with CHDK on it. Perhaps some could say that's cheating because its not a stock P&S camera, but I think its still good for debate.

I was photographing paintballs, shot from a paintball gun in midair, in regular daylight (unlike typical high speed photography requiring a dark room). Now, a paintball travels at around 300FPS. Based on my calculations that means in 1/2000 of a second, it travels 1.8 inches, in 1/4000 of a second it travels .9 inches. As far as I know, most entry level DSLR cameras only go to about 1/4000 of a second, which means the paintball would have about a one inch tail. Also, since it takes about 1/200 of a second to actually have the slit move across the sensor, in that 1/200 of a second it takes, the paintball will have moved a whopping 1 1/2 feet. Now granted that is from the entire top to the entire bottom, whereas the paintball only occupies a portion of the frame, but still it seems like that much movement would result in the paintball being very skewed, along with the blurry 1 inch tail.

Now on the other hand, with my old cheapo P&S with chdk, I was shooting with roughly a 1/50K exposure, possibly faster, and I was able to get some pretty decent shots where the paintball is pretty darned round, without much blur. Even shooting perpendicular to the camera, I captured the paintball pretty nice and round. According to my calculations, in 1/50K of a second, a paintball moves only about .072 inches, aka 7 one hundereths of an inch. I'm attempting to add a gallery of a few of the pics, straight from the camera, unedited.

Now the downside is, since it is a cheap old P&S camera, the pictures are quite noisy, and not exactly super crisp or beautiful. But I'm wondering, is this even possible with a dslr? According to my mathmatical calculations its not possible, at least with an entry level dslr, but things in real life aren't always the way they are on paper. Perhaps a DSLR could do it even better? I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

 

[Mako2011]

I was photographing paintballs, shot from a paintball gun in midair, in regular daylight (unlike typical high speed photography requiring a dark room). Now, a paintball travels at around 300FPS. Based on my calculations that means in 1/2000 of a second, it travels 1.8 inches

Thinking out loud.... 1.8 inches of travel in 1/2000s but you would only see that as relative motion when you are perpendicular to the plane of travel...and based on those photos, your gun is shooting more like 280 fps as indicated by the blurred ball being approx 2 and 1/4 times longer. Cool pics. The angled pics show very little relative motion as one would expect...ball coming at you gets bigger not longer.

But I'm wondering, is this even possible with a dslr? According to my mathmatical calculations its not possible, at least with an entry level dslr, but things in real life aren't always the way they are on paper.

I don't see any real reason the same pics can't be done with a DSLR....I don't have any C02 in my tanks so can't check
Here's a couple with a D90 though at close to 300 FPS.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8763834@N02/5563063870/in/pool-highspeedphotography
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8763834@N02/5540667878/in/pool-highspeedphotography

 

[AnandaSim]

So here is a bit of an update, which brings up another question. I just got done experimenting with some high speed photography with a "modified" point and shoot camera. A very old canon 7 megapixel P&S Camera with CHDK on it. Perhaps some could say that's cheating because its not a stock P&S camera, but I think its still good for debate.

I like being pushed outside the comfort zone of conservatism once in a while and I like people who just get off their behind and "do it".

I was photographing paintballs, shot from a paintball gun in midair, in regular daylight (unlike typical high speed photography requiring a dark room). Now, a paintball travels at around 300FPS. Based on my calculations that means in 1/2000 of a second, it travels 1.8 inches, in 1/4000 of a second it travels .9 inches. As far as I know, most entry level DSLR cameras only go to about 1/4000 of a second, which means the paintball would have about a one inch tail. Also, since it takes about 1/200 of a second to actually have the slit move across the sensor, in that 1/200 of a second it takes, the paintball will have moved a whopping 1 1/2 feet. Now granted that is from the entire top to the entire bottom, whereas the paintball only occupies a portion of the frame, but still it seems like that much movement would result in the paintball being very skewed, along with the blurry 1 inch tail.

I don't like calcs that much. All I see is that there is a tail on the photo where the gun is at right angles to the camera.

Now on the other hand, with my old cheapo P&S with chdk, I was shooting with roughly a 1/50K exposure,

What does that mean? K means kilo? 1/50,000 th of a second? Is that what you mean?

• Nowadays people think software can do anything. What software cannot do is to overcome the design limits of the mechanical things it is controlling.

• We don't know what is the design spec for the mechanical shutter in that camera. I don't think it is 1/50,000th sec. Or do we know whether the electronics if it is electronic shutter, can work at 1/50,000th sec. The EXIF says 1/2000th sec. Is that for real or just a number in software?

Based on the EXIF - ISO 640 f/4 1/2000th sec is about EV 13 @ ISO 100 - Cloudy Bright - seems about right.

Now the downside is, since it is a cheap old P&S camera, the pictures are quite noisy, and not exactly super crisp or beautiful. But I'm wondering, is this even possible with a dslr?

Thing is, must be possible, as a sanity check because isn't that what the pros use?

--



Ananda
http://anandasim.blogspot.com
https://sites.google.com/site/asphotokb

'Enjoy Diversity - Live a Little'

 

[carl1864]

Don't let the incorrect exif data fool you. These photos were taken with an exposure of around 1/50,000 or possibly higher. I had the camera set to around 1/80,000 of a second, but that might be above its limit, and I also think it might fluxuate a bit. I know it sounds impossible, but these figures actually have been confirmed that these cheap canon cameras can reach shutter speeds of even up to 1/64,000 of a second with flash sync, details here.

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Samples:_High-Speed_Shutter_%26_Flash-Sync

Yes, the photos going towards the camera are easier, and one out of the two perpendicular pictures had a bit of a tail, but the other perpendicular picture you can see the ball is almost completely round with no tail. I think perhaps the shutter speed fluxuated between these pics. If that was taken with a 1/2000 speed, it would have a 1.8 inch tail, or at 1/4000 it would have a .9 inch tail. However at the roughly 1/50,000 speed it is pretty much round with no real tail (this is the better pic of the two).

It just doesn't seem like you could even take this shot with a dslr with maximum 1/4000 shutter speed, and takes 1/200 for that slit to actually move across the sensor. I'm not saying you can't, I'm just asking if it really is possible or not, and if anyone has examples?

Also, those Mako posted of the bursting bulb and crayons are very impressive, but were those actually taken in full light with the camera shutter? They look like they were taken in the typical dark room setting (long exposure in the dark with brief flash).

 

[Mako2011]

Don't let the incorrect exif data fool you. These photos were taken with an exposure of around 1/50,000 or possibly higher.

As you can see, the blur extends forward (common affect with that type of electronic shutter I believe) and is approx 2 times the width of the ball in the first photo. Knowing a paint ball does indeed travel at approx 300fps. the relative effective shutter speed of the pics really is 1/2000s

but the other perpendicular picture you can see the ball is almost completely round with no tail.

Sorry but when I zoom in I see an obvious blurry elongating of the ball of almost twice.

I still see no reason why a DSLR couldn't take the same picture. I'll try it when I find some CO2....fun challenge.

 

[AnandaSim]

Don't let the incorrect exif data fool you. These photos were taken with an exposure of around 1/50,000 or possibly higher.

I will look at the link later but friend, I don't believe the photo is with 1/50,000th sec. in available light. Was this available light or did the flash go off and provide the only source of light illumination? If the flash was the only source of illumination, doesn't seem to be right.

• The mechanical shutter is not design, rated or manufactured to that speed

• At 1/2000th sec f/2.8 ISO 640 ISO, the light level is EV 16 - Cloudy bright. If you used 1/50,000th sec regardless of what shutter, mechanical or electronic and if it was really working properly, This would be oh, EV 8 @ ISO 100 - that is like dim evening. What was the actual EV? Did you measure it?

--



Ananda
http://anandasim.blogspot.com
https://sites.google.com/site/asphotokb

'Enjoy Diversity - Live a Little'