I have a dream - Mechanically Shutterless A Mount

[whiteheat]

Here's the thing.  Sony has been steadily innovating its cameras, perhaps in a way carrying on the way Minolta's design philosophy would have done had it still been around.  Innovating not just new features in an incremental way, but radical new departures not envisioned or anticipated elsewhere.  So, in Sony's drive to eradicate all things mechanical in its cameras, isn't it about time develop:

 

1)  Complete electronic curtain and eliminate the shutter completely, and then leading to....

 

2)  Once you have an effective electronic shutter, it should then be possible to optimize shutter component of exposure by pixel or group of pixels level.  In other words, allow a myriad of sensor segments to have independent electronic exposure cut off, thus allowing different parts of the sensor to have different levels of exposure.  This should boost usable dynamic range enormously by effectively eliminating blow outs and black spots as each extreme should be perfectly exposed at the points where they are projected on to the sensor.

 

3)  Shutter noise and vibration should be consigned to history.

 

4)  The frame rate could potentially increase enormously.  No mechanical shutter reset necessary, it's all electronic so big numbers could then be possible (numbers of frames per second).

 

As this is a concept, is this at all feasible or just a wishful thinking sponsored fantasy?  (Yes, I'd love on sensor hybrid pdaf/cdaf or whatever works 'better' for A mount as well.)

[Snowfun]

And all via a firmware update!

 

Presumably the concept of a shutter is inherently archaic. A sensor can simply make a reading at any point in time irrespective of any mechanical device. The downside is that one isn't taking pictures - one is merely collecting information. And not everyone wants to spend time in post.

 

To some extent the Blackmagic raw video camera is the closest thing to this. The out of camera results are truly dreadful but with skilful (read years of experience) post it is amazing. I'd be happy to admit that I abandoned shooting raw (I have the 2.5k) because of time and skill shortages...

 

The future is exciting.

 

Tim

[Philber]

To the best of my knowledge, the A7S already has a fully electronic shutter, and the A7RII also.

[OldNoob]

An electronic rolling shutter certainly has it's benefits,,especially for full frame video. But you can forget using flash sync for stills.

but then,, solid lit LED flashes are all the rage now anyway. 

Sony's top line flashes also have LED lights incorporated into them for e-rolling shutter use.

The a7s lets you use ether shutter option and that's really neat.

 

The problem with LED lighting though, it's hard to bounce and it is painfully annoying at events like weddings.

So having the mechanical shutter with flash sync capabilities as an option is really preferable in certain situations.

[whiteheat]

And all via a firmware update!

 

 

 

No, you can't do that via a firmware update - you can't change from mechanical to electronic that way.  I'd be hoping for the A99II or whatever it's going to call itself to have this feature.

[whiteheat]

To the best of my knowledge, the A7S already has a fully electronic shutter, and the A7RII also.

 

OK, I'm not familiar with E mount technology.  However, I am reasonably sure that it does not have the pixel or pixel group level independent exposure concept I was thinking of.  I suspect that latest E mount stuff would have a full electronic shutter that is used almost exactly in the same way as the mechanical shutter assembly it replaced.  I was thinking about something more advanced than that.

[whiteheat]

The problem with LED lighting though, it's hard to bounce and it is painfully annoying at events like weddings.

So having the mechanical shutter with flash sync capabilities as an option is really preferable in certain situations.

 

Theoretically extending the electronic shutter concept for A mount coupled with increased sensor characteristics (better sensitivity, increased dynamic range, etc), the potential to reduce the need for flash may become more evident.  Of course, they'll always be some situations and events that would always benefit from flash, but perhaps shooting sans flash may become a much more realistic proposition for many more situations and events.

[Bammes]

After having eliminated the need for the mirror it makes only sense to get rid of the mechanical shutter. Both have outlived their use in a digital world. It opens up a myriad of possibilities for the future as far as speed, dynamic range and other options

as the sensor itself unlike film with fixed characteristics can be handled dynamically it represents just the beginning of a

paradigm shift leaving films history behind for both stills and motion with a logical merging of the two just an amateurs point of view