Canon R3 vs. Nikon Z9 (Price)

whumber wrote:

dmanthree wrote:

I guess eliminating that mechanical shutter saved some money.

Kidding aside, I'm really curious to see how this works out. For example, will it be able to handle artificial lighting that has normally given e-shutters fits? Like banding under fluorescents? Is it really better for action than a mechanical shutter?

It's likely that it will be as good or even slightly better than mechanical shutters with artificial lighting. If the sensor readout speed matches or exceeds the mechanical shutter traverse speed, then there's really no longer any reason to keep a mechanical shutter.

There is always a reason for everything. The shutter can serve as a "black box" for a dark field calibration of the sensor. It can also allow the shutter to fully discharge and cool for a few milliseconds before reactivating for the next exposure. As sensors continue to become more and more sensitive these types of things will actually start to matter to regular photographers not just astronomers.

At some point it won't matter anymore, but do we need to go that far for a consumer camera? Sure, you could have individual detection and teleportation of photons directly into the retina of the photographer. At that point it's simply, how much of the data do you want to save? A single image would contain the information for every photon recorded for the exposure duration. How much data is that? I'm guessing its a lot.