Bragging about our expensive mirrorless/DSLR vs a point and shoot

photoreddi · Jun 18, 2014

ddtan said:
I must say that the OP does have a point. In that there is no reason for an expensive camera not to also have an auto mode that rivals a cheaper point and shoot, those things are not mutually exclusive. His scenario has happened to me many times, call me ignorant.

There is a reason. The X-mount cameras use focal plane shutters, and that mandates a relatively slow flash sync speed. To increase the flash sync speed would mean replacing the focal plane shutter with an electronic shutter or using a leaf shutter (inside the lens) like the X100/X100s whose leaves are small blades so they can operate faster. It's possible for future Fuji X-mount cameras to work as well as cheap P&S cameras, but to do that they'd need a hardware change, and one would be to use the kind of sensors the P&S cameras use that have built-in electronic shutters.

There's a fairly reliable way to tell if a camera has a really fast sync. speed that permits shutter speeds of 1/1000 and faster Disable the camera's electronic sounds and see if the shutter makes a noticeable sound when you take a picture. If it's mostly silent you're good to go. If you hear a noticeable shutter sound, you're probably hosed.

Veijo Vilva · Jun 18, 2014

photoreddi said:
ddtan said:

I must say that the OP does have a point. In that there is no reason for an expensive camera not to also have an auto mode that rivals a cheaper point and shoot, those things are not mutually exclusive. His scenario has happened to me many times, call me ignorant.

Click to expand...

There is a reason. The X-mount cameras use focal plane shutters, and that mandates a relatively slow flash sync speed. To increase the flash sync speed would mean replacing the focal plane shutter with an electronic shutter or using a leaf shutter (inside the lens) like the X100/X100s whose leaves are small blades so they can operate faster. It's possible for future Fuji X-mount cameras to work as well as cheap P&S cameras, but to do that they'd need a hardware change, and one would be to use the kind of sensors the P&S cameras use that have built-in electronic shutters.

There's a fairly reliable way to tell if a camera has a really fast sync. speed that permits shutter speeds of 1/1000 and faster Disable the camera's electronic sounds and see if the shutter makes a noticeable sound when you take a picture. If it's mostly silent you're good to go. If you hear a noticeable shutter sound, you're probably hosed.

An electronic shutter doesn't necessarily allow faster sync speeds. E.g., Nikon 1 V1/V2/V3 sync up to 1/250 s with the mechanical shutter but only up to 1/60 s when the electronic one is used.

photoreddi · Jun 18, 2014

Veijo Vilva said:
photoreddi said:

ddtan said:

I must say that the OP does have a point. In that there is no reason for an expensive camera not to also have an auto mode that rivals a cheaper point and shoot, those things are not mutually exclusive. His scenario has happened to me many times, call me ignorant.

Click to expand...

There is a reason. The X-mount cameras use focal plane shutters, and that mandates a relatively slow flash sync speed. To increase the flash sync speed would mean replacing the focal plane shutter with an electronic shutter or using a leaf shutter (inside the lens) like the X100/X100s whose leaves are small blades so they can operate faster. It's possible for future Fuji X-mount cameras to work as well as cheap P&S cameras, but to do that they'd need a hardware change, and one would be to use the kind of sensors the P&S cameras use that have built-in electronic shutters.

There's a fairly reliable way to tell if a camera has a really fast sync. speed that permits shutter speeds of 1/1000 and faster Disable the camera's electronic sounds and see if the shutter makes a noticeable sound when you take a picture. If it's mostly silent you're good to go. If you hear a noticeable shutter sound, you're probably hosed.

Click to expand...

An electronic shutter doesn't necessarily allow faster sync speeds. E.g., Nikon 1 V1/V2/V3 sync up to 1/250 s with the mechanical shutter but only up to 1/60 s when the electronic one is used.

Of course you can find a few exceptions. Nikon's N1 cameras are one example, and it's probably due to the unusual design of the Aptina sensors that they use that allows incredibly fast readout of data from the sensors. That's probably why their electronic shutter's sync speeds are so slow. But they're not exactly cheap P&S cameras, and I'm not aware of any cheap P&S that uses an Aptina sensor although there may be some other cheap P&S cameras that also have slow sync speeds, possibly the older ones that use CCD instead of CMOS sensors.

For example, some of Nikon's older DSLRs used both a mechanical focal plane shutter and an electronic sensor. They had a higher flash sync. speed (1/500th sec), but since they used CCD sensors they couldn't go faster because the CCD design suffered from much greater inter-photosite leakage than CMOS sensors, but at faster shutter speeds the focal plane part of the shutter remained fully open far too long, resulting in photos that showed severe vertical blooming. So I'm not really sure how old cameras with CCD sensors handled flash. Just guessing, but maybe they also had a mechanical shutter, but leaf type shutter to help out the CCD's electronic shutter, not a focal plane shutter.

TacticDesigns · Jun 19, 2014

photoreddi said:
Good example. For a test shot, I like it! As far as I'm aware, most P&S cameras can shoot with even faster shutter speeds if necessary.

Thanks! Not the greatest shot, but illustrates high speed sync flash on P&S . . .

TacticDesigns · Jun 19, 2014

photoreddi said:
Of course you can find a few exceptions. Nikon's N1 cameras are one example, and it's probably due to the unusual design of the Aptina sensors that they use that allows incredibly fast readout of data from the sensors. That's probably why their electronic shutter's sync speeds are so slow. But they're not exactly cheap P&S cameras, and I'm not aware of any cheap P&S that uses an Aptina sensor although there may be some other cheap P&S cameras that also have slow sync speeds, possibly the older ones that use CCD instead of CMOS sensors.

For example, some of Nikon's older DSLRs used both a mechanical focal plane shutter and an electronic sensor. They had a higher flash sync. speed (1/500th sec), but since they used CCD sensors they couldn't go faster because the CCD design suffered from much greater inter-photosite leakage than CMOS sensors, but at faster shutter speeds the focal plane part of the shutter remained fully open far too long, resulting in photos that showed severe vertical blooming. So I'm not really sure how old cameras with CCD sensors handled flash. Just guessing, but maybe they also had a mechanical shutter, but leaf type shutter to help out the CCD's electronic shutter, not a focal plane shutter.

My Pentax Q has the ability to disable the shutter in the lens and use an electronic shutter.

(Some of the less expensive Pentax Q lenses don't have a built-in shutter, so rely on the electronic shutter.)

Out of curiousity I disabled the physical shutter and just used the electronic shutter (I think I did it right) and experimented on how fast I could get the shutter to sync with the built-in flash . . . it went up to its maximum shutter speed of 1/2000 sec.

But that doesn't mean you could flash sync this fast with a "dumb" flash . . . ie. trigger a manual flash like a Vivitar 285HV this fast.

That was the "big" thing that the Strobist pointed out with the older Nikon D70 / D70s / D50 / D40 . . . that its electronic shutter could flash sync up to 1/500 sec with a cheap manual external flash.

TacticDesigns · Jun 19, 2014

photoreddi said:
...To increase the flash sync speed would mean replacing the focal plane shutter with an electronic shutter or using a leaf shutter (inside the lens) like the X100/X100s whose leaves are small blades so they can operate faster. It's possible for future Fuji X-mount cameras to work as well as cheap P&S cameras, but to do that they'd need a hardware change, and one would be to use the kind of sensors the P&S cameras use that have built-in electronic shutters. ...

It would be cool if the dSLR and mirrorless manufacturers modified their lens mount to add support for lenses that have built-in shutters. [Besides Pentax that have already worked that into their Q mount.]

Lenses would have to be redesigned. Lens mount would have to be redesigned.

I'm wondering if any camera manufacturer is already working on that . . . A h h?

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Terry Breedlove · Jun 19, 2014

Looks to me like your flash did not fire.

a l b e r t · Jun 19, 2014

mr moonlight said:
I figure by the size of the subjects in his second photo, he was roughly 6'-7' from them and still got a good amount of background scenery. At that distance, the on camera flash would still be able to shed some light on his subjects. Since he had a zoom, he could go a bit wider, step in a little and while his perspective would change, he'd be able to light up his subjects even more while still getting the background scenery.

I'm thinking if he was at 5' at 18mm, with his camera set to ISO200, f14, 1/200 his background would be exposed close enough and his flash would have enough power to give a little fill. It's not an ideal situation, but I think he'd be able to get much better results if he gave the flash a bit of a chance.

Of course HSS is an awesome feature in itself and one of the reasons I bring my X100 every where I go.

The built-in flash is not going to do much when aperture is something like f14.

I just looked at some pics I took in Singapore a few years ago with my Fuji f31fd. Lots of backlit situations and I used the f31fd's built-in flash and everything came out nicely. I saw 1/600, 1/750 shutter speed with the flash.

This is the situation only HSS flash will provide the correct exposure. Currently, this is the limitation of X Mount system. No amount of user skill or camera settings are going to help unless he has a large reflector.

photoreddi · Jun 19, 2014

Terry Breedlove said:
Looks to me like your flash did not fire.

It's hard to see the effect of the flash but it's there. The EXIF data shows that the flash was used and DocetLector spotted it :

Terry Breedlove said:
... At 100% I can see the reflections of a flash in eyes and glasses. But I still don`t understand why the whole picture is so much underexposed...

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/53877154

DocetLector · Jun 19, 2014

First I thought the same but if you look at 100% you can see the reflections of the flash in eyes and glasses.

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Bragging about our expensive mirrorless/DSLR vs a point and shoot

photoreddi

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Veijo Vilva

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