Electronic shutter: advantages and disadvantages

assaft wrote:

Henry Richardson wrote:

I discovered today that Auto ISO is broken when using the electronic shutter. I am using A mode.

electronic shutter: @ 150mm - ISO 200, 1/30 f5.6

mechanical shutter: @ 150mm - ISO 2000, 1/250 f5.6

I have been using Auto ISO a lot since I got the E-M5 in 2012. Use it on the E-M5, E-M10, and E-M10II. But, now with the electronic shutter there is a bug. With all the 3 cameras using the mechanical shutter, Auto ISO tries to maintain a minimum shutter speed of about 1 / focal length * 2 and will raise the ISO if it has to. With the electronic shutter though it is allowing the shutter speed to go way too slow while keeping the ISO very low. I switched back and forth between the electronic shutter and the mechanical shutter and could see the shutter speed and ISO keep changing every time I switched.

I have really been liking the electronic shutter in the last few days so I am very disappointed to find this big bug in a feature I use a lot.

Yes, and it was reported also regarding the E-M5 ii, see here. There's an hypothesis that it makes no difference that the shutter speed is so slow because the slow read out is the limiting factor. Actually I'm not so sure about that, but just to let you know.

That's a bad hypothesis, because slow readout is not the same as slow shutter. Slow shutter with a stationary subject can result in motion blur in a handheld shot. E-shutter with slow readout but a fast shutter speed in the same situation causes no problem at all (unless the shooter is bouncing on a trampoline).