Electronic shutter: advantages and disadvantages

Henry Richardson wrote:

Jacques Cornell wrote:

Actually, I am sort of neutral on the totally silent advantage. For my shooting, the OM-D mechanical shutters seem quiet enough. I see that people who shoot theater and similar things would really welcome totally silent operation though. So much easier and cheaper than using one of those camera blimps.

This seems like a good summary. And, you're right about some mechanical shutters being quiet enough for most circumstances. I'll just note where silent shutter has been helpful for me.

• In churches. Traveling in Europe I photographed the interiors of several churches where you could hear a pin drop.
• In corporate meetings. As a pro event shooter, I've sometimes found myself in crowded conference rooms where a dozen or two folks were discussing important business matters. Typical format with a big table or doughnut in the middle of just-big-enough room, and everyone no more than 5' from a wall, which means I was never more than 3' from somebody. The clackety-clack of even a quiet shutter would have drawn attention and probably made someone uncomfortable.

Yes, those are also situations where a totally silent camera would be very useful.

I got to thinking though about the banding that can happen using the electronic shutter with artificial lighting. Wouldn't artificial lighting be common shooting theater, classical concerts, churches, corporate meetings, etc.? So, would one in those situations have to switch to the non-silent mechanical shutter?

Yes, there are times when I can't use e-shutter because of banding with artificial light. Now that I'm thinking about it though, I'm reminded that it's sometimes possible to eliminate the banding by using a shutter speed that's a multiple of the AC frequency (1/30, 1/60, 1/125, etc., in 60HZ countries like the US). I haven't tried this on location, but I will next time.

A lot of stage lighting is still incandescent, and that doesn't flicker, so it poses no problems at all.