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

This was at 1/1600s and ball doing 160 FPS no flash....I would think a faster ball (300fps) would be no problem for a DSLR at 1/2000s.

I read the full article....very interesting. I see now were your getting 1/50000s. It's an effective shutter speed using flash and that's why the EXIF shows 1/2000. It also explains the blur going forward and why it is less pronounced when the ambient light is lower (like a front curtain sync affect). Interesting mod...thanks for sharing.

Anada: They were taken mostly in bright sunlight, and most of them did have some extra flash. I did have a few photos with other settings I tinkered with that did turn out almost completely dark.

Mako: I'd definetly like to see it if you ever get around to testing paintballs. I've tried searching for examples, but didn't really find any. And yes, that CHDK is amazing, not just for the shutter speeds, but it just does tons of things that the manufacturers are apparently too lazy to add, only problem is it unfortunately is only for old canon P&S cameras that don't have the best image quality. Now if they just had CHDK for a DSLR, it would be incredible.

One of the reasons I haven't purchased a DSLR is because I just thought the focal plane shutter with only 1/200 flash sync is too limiting, Although I suppose with much better light sensitivity, you wouldn't need the flash as much. And I was also worried about skew. Skew is a very serious problem in rolling shutter video cameras at 30fps, aka 1/30 exposure, but perhaps 1/200 is enough to nearly eliminate it. I just saw a couple photos of rc helicopter blades (run at about 3k rpm's) that didn't have any real noticeable skew. If anyone knows any other real good 1/4000 dslr high speed examples, I'd like to hear about them.

carl1864 said:

Anada: They were taken mostly in bright sunlight, and most of them did have some extra flash. I did have a few photos with other settings I tinkered with that did turn out almost completely dark.

Click to expand...

I was calculating the wrong way. 1/50,000th ISO 640 f/4 IS NOT ACHIEVABLE IN Non Flash photography.

• To calculate, a typical 1/2000th ISO 640 f/4 is equivalent to EV 18 @ ISO 200. That is blindingly bright light. 1/50,000th sec is oh, 4 settings above that - that light would make all of us blind, it would be so bright. In other words 1/50000th IS NOT POSSIBLE IN SUNLIGHT because the SUN IS NOT BRIGHT ENOUGH

• 1/50,000th is a number in software - I do not believe that your camera or your electronics have that capability. In other words 1/50000th is not proved by your experiment because you are using standard consumer camera, not some hot rod souped up in the lab.

• 1/50,000th or some figure like that is achievable by an electronic flash tube flash duration in a dark room. It does not rely on the mechanical shutter or the electronics to shut off light - it is the flash duration of the light in a dark room.. HOW MANY OF YOUR PHOTOS will be in that special case?

Classic consumer film cameras used ISO 400 typically and had 1/500th sec shutters. This allowed photographers to shoot action shots using any shutter - focal plane or iris diaphragm shutters and we were pleased with pro results.

When camera tech advanced and we hit 1/1000th, then passed to 1/2000th and 1/4000th, the limit is that without ISO in 800 or in the thousands, you may have a capable shutter but there was not enough light in the world, even outdoors in the sun, to use that shutter speed.

We are experiencing people wanting 1/2000th and 1/4000th because modern shooters are fascinated by bokeh and they want to use f/1.4 lenses in EV 18 sunshine. Prior to this, even if we were shooting motion, we did not have enough ISO or f/no to allow us to use 1/4000th.

carl1864 said:

One of the reasons I haven't purchased a DSLR is because I just thought the focal plane shutter with only 1/200 flash sync is too limiting,

Click to expand...

Yes, coming from iris diaphgram were we can sync at 1/500th to the first film SLRs which could only sync at 1/60th and now modern DSLR can sync at 1/180th, certainly you feel that you have lost something in the translation. This is ONLY if you want to use Flash + Available Light IN COMBINATION.

• If you use Available Light ONLY, in the dim light, you don't have enough Light + f/no + ISO on to reach 1/2000th

• If you use Flash only, the flash will go very fast, at 1/4000th or faster and you need a dark room or a dark outside and the 1/200th sec of the focal plane does nothing to affect you.

• If you use COMBINED Available Light and Flash, in this case, the best is to have any shutter speed 1/200th to 1/2000th plus the Flash to blitz but your flash to subject distance affects whether you have enough flash power - it's a calculation for amateurs best left to the automation. This is called Fill-In Flash and in this case, you DO WANT A SLOW SHUTTER SPEED so that the sunlight will dominate and the flash to be secondary.

carl1864 said:

Skew is a very serious problem in rolling shutter video cameras at 30fps, aka 1/30 exposure, but perhaps 1/200 is enough to nearly eliminate it.

Click to expand...

I best skew in video cams is caused by the not fast enough frame per sec (FPS) and a slow shutter speed.

--



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

'Enjoy Diversity - Live a Little'

Dave, seriously, carl1864 is right about focal plane shutters

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

And here's a video demonstration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dK6Qa1Iy4Y#t=32s

The speed of modern shutters means that this distortion is less minimal but it's still there, if you want to see it take a picture at 1/4000 while quickly swinging your camera across a view, you will definitely see the skew.

Anything with a leaf shutter (a lot of high-end compacts use these, also some large sensor compacts and medium format cameras) will be able to freeze action without this skew, however modern focal plane shutters are fast enough to work in most situations and the benefits of a DSLR (better sharpness, phase-detection AF, short viewfinder blackout and less shutter lag) easily outweigh the benefits of using a compact camera.

Now, if you could get a DSLR that supported lenses with a leaf shutter that would be the best of both worlds...

it's always interesting to make theories.

but when, as is the case of yours here, they're obviously disproved by evidence - a fast-moving F1 or Nascar car will move about 20 inches in 1/200th of a second which would be ample to generate distorsion as per your theory - then the thing to do is to stop right there and go back. ;-)

carl1864 said:

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).

Click to expand...

Carl, I don't know if you are foolin' yourself, but you are apparently tryin' to fool us!

You didn't tell us you were using flash ! And your @#$%ed-up EXIF data doesn't say what it should...I suspect your "revised" OS on the camera might have compromised the EXIF data related to the flash?

Let me be blunt: You are not achieving anything near 1/50,000 second exposure times!

Your pix varied from F/4 to F/2.6, which correlate with 13.7EV to 15EV...assuming the sensitivity is really 640 ISO and the exposure times are 1/2000 second. Those are believable, looking at the images...IE, the 13.7EV pix are exposed OK, but the 15EV pix are underexposed. If you really had a 1/50,000 second exposure time, that would mean 18EV to 22.5EV! Those levels are reached during thermonuclear detonations in your neighborhood!!! If that was to occur, I suspect the paint ball would melt, followed shortly by you, your model, the paint gun, and then the camera. ;-)

You may be getting a 1/50,000 second flash duration ? But if you are using that tiny, underpowered flash on the camera, it isn't doing much, other than filling in the shadows and perhaps emphasizing one location of the paint ball.

I notice that instead of a "tail" on the ball, you are getting a blur in front of the ball! That tells me that the flash is firing early in the shutter cycle.

You are stopping the paint ball motion (somewhat) with the flash.

You shouldn't try to fool ol' country boys! ;-)

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

Andy Crowe said:

Dave, seriously, carl1864 is right about focal plane shutters

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

And here's a video demonstration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dK6Qa1Iy4Y#t=32s

The speed of modern shutters means that this distortion is less minimal but it's still there, if you want to see it take a picture at 1/4000 while quickly swinging your camera across a view, you will definitely see the skew.

Click to expand...

I know what you mean by the skew. But is this not simply a perception of the eye as well, which our brain compensates for? When I swing my camera at a close fast moviing object, is the result not different then that same object 100 feet away?

I have a picture of my dog shot as he ran right in front of me at five feet away - It looks distorted, but is that not a result of the image registering on the sensor because the speed is "magnified? by the closeness of the dog? Whereas he occupies much less of the sensor when he's a hundred feet away?

Here's my question. If the camera is not moving will there be any distortion of non moving objects?

Dave

carl1864 said:

One of the reasons I haven't purchased a DSLR is because I just thought the focal plane shutter with only 1/200 flash sync is too limiting, Although I suppose with much better light sensitivity, you wouldn't need the flash as much. And I was also worried about skew.

Click to expand...

Carl, I didn't cover this point in my other posts...

Since the paint ball is so small, you won't notice skew. Skew is an issue with long, straight objects that go from top-to-bottom of an image frame.

A good example of this is to rind in a car at 70 MPH, point your dSLR out the side, and take a picture of a utility pole. If you use a long exposure time, the pole will be blurred. If you use a short exposure time, the pole will be sharper, but slanted.

If in these two pix there is a bird sitting on a wire (suspended from the utility pole), it will be blurry in the pic with a long exposure time and less blurred in the pic with a short exposure time. You will not notice any slanting of the bird in the 2nd pic, because it doesn't occupy enough vertical space and doesn't have any straight, vertical features. :-0

Same with your paint ball...even if it was distorted, you won't notice this...and it IS distorted. Try using a paint "cube" instead...and get up really close so that the paint "cube" almost fills the frame. ;-)
--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D50, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
"He had a photographic memory which was never developed."

you should be looking towards buying a point and shoot as your camera then if this is imprtant to you

most of them are highly automated and work very similarly to the camera on your mobile phone, but expect a few more features at each price point and generally better image quality than a phone. the better ones allow you to choose manual settings for when you want to make groovy experiments or become more proficient at photography

most of the established manufacturers make this kind of camera, i'm sure many here on this forum can point you in the right direction

Chato said:

I know what you mean by the skew. But is this not simply a perception of the eye as well, which our brain compensates for?

Click to expand...

Eyes don't work like that

Chato said:

Here's my question. If the camera is not moving will there be any distortion of non moving objects?

Click to expand...

No, still objects will have no distortion, and moving objects that you're tracking with the camera will also have no distortion, it's only objects that are moving across the frame that will show this.

If you imagine a vertical line | moving quickly across an image from left to right, and capturing it one line at a time from top to bottom as the line moves it's in a different place for each line captured until it looks like \

With modern SLRs the shutter is fast enough that it's not usually noticeable even when shooting relatively fast moving objects like in sports, and as it's become quite culturally engraved that fast moving objects appear slanted you may not notice it in pictures unless you consciously look out for it

So, wanting to find out once and for all, I did my own dremel test, using a dremel that spins at 30,000 RPM's, with a disc that had a line on it. And you guys were right, contrary to the findings of the other people that did the CHDK shutter speed tests, I did not seem to be getting 1/50,000 shutter speeds.

I did however seem to be getting higher than stock shutter speeds. Stock is 1/2000, however you can definetly see a little improvement stepping up above that. Also every time I stepped up the shutter speed, even if I didn't see a noticeable reduce in blur, the image would keep getting darker. For example after 1/32,000 I did not notice any signs of any improvement as far as freezing the motion, even up to 1/100,000, however I did have to constantly bump up the iso, and towards the end even force the apeture open a little more. So that would almost lead you to believe the shutter was getting faster and faster, yet I didn't see any improvement on blur at all over 1/32,000 (and it is questionable if there is improvement up to that point), thats why I'm only including sample pics up to 1/32,000

Also its true the flash was doing much of the work, as soon as I did some tests with flash in the end. Using the flash, I was able to get similar results at both 1/50,000, and 1/2000 and even 1/500

If anyone has anything to add to my findings I'd like to hear it.

I am still wondering as well, even though the actual findings aren't as impressive as once believed, would a dslr even be able to do this at all (in daylight, not in a dark room)? I mean, with a dremel disc spinning at 30,000 rpm's, and a DSLR takes 1/200 of a second for the focal plane shutter to actually move across the sensor. According to the math, that means in the time it takes to make that exposure, the dremel disc will have been constantly turning through the exposure, a full 2.5 turns. Unless you perhaps take a 1/200 shot, with a minimum apeture and low iso, to let in the least amount of light as possible for most of the shot, but then a very fast flash.

I'm still just unsure how a dslr would really perform in high speed in medium light where extra flash is needed. I could be wrong, and please correct me if I am, but it just doesn't seem like a 1/200 exposure with some fill flash, would turn out as sharp as a good P&S camera actually taking a 1/2000 flash synced exposure.

I see no real difference among all of the pictures taken without flash; certainly nothing proportional to the claimed difference in shutter speed. Based on this evidence, I'd conclude that such claims are snake oil. Perhaps there is more convincing evidence, but this isn't it.

For the pictures with flash, essentially all of the lighting was from the flash itself; ambient light provided little contribution to the first, and even in the last was overwhelmed by the much greater contribution from the flash. Because the flash was the subject was at a very close distance at very high ISO, the flash duration only needed to be very short in order to properly illuminate the subject; it was shut off by the camera as soon as enough light was detected. Consequently the motion of the disk was frozen by the very short duration flash. The length of time that the shutter was open is essentially irrelevant to the result; the freezing of motion is entirely attributable to the short flash.

And yes, this is exactly what a DSLR would do under the given circumstances. There is no reason to think that it would not produce the same results -- but with better image quality and the retained ability to take lots of other types of pictures.

Dave
--
http://www.pbase.com/dsjtecserv

I had some time today, so I set up a semi-controlled experiment.

My lathe has 3-jaw chuck that is 5" in diameter.It has several speeds...I use the 1250 RPM setting. Do the math: the circumference of the chuck is traveling at 27 FPS. I know that's less than Carl's paint ball velocity...but it was fast enough as you will see. Besides, the relevant parameter is not FPS, but rather the angular velocity. relative to the lens. Carl's ball was quite a distance from the camera...I got much closer to fill the frame!

I printed out a target on 13" x 19" paper...it had many vertical lines at 1/4" spacing and one heavy line perpendicular to them. I then taped the paper on to the chuck...the small lines were parallel to the axis of rotation and the heavy line was, of course, a circumferential line.

Here is a picture of the setup:



I used all 4 of my cameras, a Nikon Coolpix 5700, a Sony R1, a Nikon D50, and a Nikon D300. The last two have focal-plane shutters (but the D50 has a hybrid...part mechanical and part electronic). The other two have in-the-lens shutters.

I have occasionally noticed skew w/ the D300, but had not ever seen it in images taken by the others. I wanted to see how they performed...

Here is a composite of the results:



Let me be clear about this: I didn't use flash... ;-)

Don't fret about the IQ...it was a quick test and I didn't have good illumination. I used a 60mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor on the two dSLRs. The other two were probably a tad OoF? I ran the sensitivity on the R1 up quite high, so it is noisy. The 5700 only goes to 800 ISO, so it's image was underexposed...and noisy.

The exposure time on all the cameras was 1/2000 second.

Comments? Questions?

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

A machinist and a scientist; we need guys like you in our lab to burn holes in stuff with lasers.
--
Leonard Migliore

chuxter said:

Don't fret about the IQ...it was a quick test and I didn't have good illumination. I used a 60mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor on the two dSLRs. The other two were probably a tad OoF? I ran the sensitivity on the R1 up quite high, so it is noisy. The 5700 only goes to 800 ISO, so it's image was underexposed...and noisy.

The exposure time on all the cameras was 1/2000 second.

Comments? Questions?

Click to expand...

Nice Job. I find it much easier to understand than the Dremel test and multiple shutter type was a great addition to the discussion. The D50 vs D300 result well illustrates the dif in those two shutters. I think your 100% right in that angular velocity relative to the lens is a bigger player here. I've been trying to use panning on my paint ball all day but my arm is to sore to continue

Carl, according to some dremel tests done with CHDK, the SS limit with the A570IS appears to be 3/100,000, so well below your expected 1/50,000.
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CameraFeatures

carl1864 said:

So, wanting to find out once and for all, I did my own dremel test, using a dremel that spins at 30,000 RPM's, with a disc that had a line on it. And you guys were right, contrary to the findings of the other people that did the CHDK shutter speed tests, I did not seem to be getting 1/50,000 shutter speeds.

Click to expand...

--
Richard

Yes, according to my tests too, I don't believe it was at 1/50,000 either, maybe more like the 1/33,000 you mentioned, or maybe even less like 1/10,000. But even 1/10,000 full frame flash synced exposure is way better than a typical DSLR with a 1/4000 exposure which takes 1/200 of a second to complete.

There are quite a few that argue that a dslr can take this shot even better. And i'm not necessarily saying it can't, but I have yet to see a single example. My pictures are full of noise and poor color, i know a dslr could get that part better, but I'm still not fully convinced it could capture the paintball even better. I'd really like to see it. Would make me want to buy one.

Chuxter. Thank you so much for posting that. I have been looking all over for scientific examples like that, and had found very few. Definitely something to be aware of when shooting anything moving reasonably fast.

Mako. Panning to follow a 300fps paintball must be really hard, I can see why your arms are tired. I'm very eager to see what sort of shots you come up with.