Electronic shutter: advantages and disadvantages

Henry Richardson wrote:

Ribbit74 wrote:

For the Panasonic bodies, some of them use 10 bits to increase the readout speed and reduce rolling shutter. My GM1 does this. However, the only difference is in dynamic range-- you won't notice a difference unless you are pushing the shadows by several stops.

Yes, I have read this in reviews and in posts. If DR is reduced wouldn't it also tend to clip highlights easier too?

It depends on the metering system and how the camera works internally. Maybe it saturates the sensor to a lower extent and compensates for that by digital gain - so you'd end up with the same amount of clipped highlights but more shadow noise. I don't have the camera to check.

Olympus seems to have a a different implementation that increases noise across the board. Using the e-shutter gives you the noise equivalent of 1 stop higher ISO.

You said Panasonic switches to 10-bit and it reduces DR. What is it that Olympus does that increases noise by 1 stop? Can you point me to where you found this information? I haven't seen this thing about 1 stop worse noise. Thanks.

Me neither. There was a thread about the the E-M5ii having a bit more shadow noise when the ES is engaged. See here for an hypothesis about the matter. Anyone, I'm unaware of an empirical measure of the added shadow noise. You can do a dark frame test and ask someone who knows how to do the DR calculation to measure it.

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Henry Richardson
http://www.bakubo.com