How Reliable are Electronic Shutters?

Photography Tips

The recent developments in mirrorless camera technology have surely been a boon to many photographers and videographers. They can easily help users capture better photos, but since this technology is still in a nascent stage, not everything is foolproof yet. In this video, photographer Jan Wegener explores whether the fast electronic shutter of his Canon EOS R5 has any drawbacks when shooting action shots:

The electronic shutter in mirrorless cameras can snap very quickly. It can churn out images easily up to 20fps. Also, these shutters have the added benefit of being silent and lag free. If you’re not careful, before you know it, you can easily take hundreds of photographs.

One major concern with electronic shutters is a phenomenon called rolling shutter. The effects of a rolling shutter kick in when there’s a lot of movement involved, either in the camera or with the subject. Images start appearing wobbly and straight lines appear bent. In his test, Wegener notices that the Canon EOS R5 is no exception to this phenomenon. The severity of this effect, however, totally depends on how fast the motion is. For slower movements, the images are not too different from those taken using a mechanical shutter.

If you want to know how bad the rolling shutter actually is, and if it is bad enough to ruin your images, be sure to check out the entire video above.