The Sound of Silence

[Intrepid]

Not so long ago, it was simply unthinkable that any system camera will sport an electronic shutter and can be operated in total silence.  A few have shown up from tiny format to full frame in the recent times.

I bought my Sony A7s a few months ago after long deliberation and waiting for the right price.   I am hooked.
After this no new cameras that will not have this feature would be acceptable to me.  Luckily, the latest beast from Sony, the A7R II would also have silent e shutter. 

The leap in technology in the past few years is simply astounding.

[Michael Erlewine]

I had both the A7r and the A7s; I returned them both, each for different reasons. The A7r had shutter vibrations that affect focus stacking, and the A7s, although good in low-light, 12mpx was just too small. Since I have three video cameras, all with 10-bit Pro Res or 4K, I just did not find it that useful.



The A7R II looks very good indeed, with one question mark for me.. The 11+7 bit lossy file format does not sound like it will match what we have in the Nikon D810, and for me these things count. For me the 64 ISO and functional LiveView of the Nikon D810 make it the best camera I have ever used, so far.

[Jan Anne]

Current implementation of the silent electronic shutter is still not perfect because it still uses a rolling shutter (the sensor is read in lanes), on the a7S it induces noise and of course the rolling shutter effect with moving objects.

Luckily Sony is working on a global shutter which reads out the entire sensor in one go, with this capability there should be no longer the need for a mechanical shutter plus the frame rate gets a nice boost and is only limited by how much data the engine can process.

Link with the announcement and video of the rolling shutter effect:
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sony-announces-new-cmos-image-sensors-with-global-shutter-for-industrial-applications/

I expect the upcoming a7SII to have the global shutter as the rumour is that Sony already has a FF 12MP sensor with such shutter:
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr2-new-sony-12-megapixel-fulll-frame-global-shutter-sensor-specs/

[Michael Erlewine]

Well, Rolling Shutter is a problem. Global Shutters are coming, but they tend to reduce dynamic range. Although I have done a fair amount of video, it is the still cameras that I want to see perfected. LiveView on the Nikon D810 has made DSLRs focus able with high res sensors, but I would rather have an elegant EVF when they come along. Having owned most of the mirrorless cameras, if only for a short while, I like the larger body cameras to hold the big lenses I tend to use.

And I wish Nikon would allow me to magnify in LiveView and hold that magnification for the next frame.

[Gary]

My Fuji X100S, is absolutely noise-less when shot in silent mode. My XT1's recently received a firmware upgrade which included an electronic shutter. The XT1 now enjoys a electronic shutter from 1 second to 1/32,000, (in 1/3 of a second increments).

[Jan Anne]

My Fuji X100S, is absolutely noise-less when shot in silent mode. My XT1's recently received a firmware upgrade which included an electronic shutter. The XT1 now enjoys a electronic shutter from 1 second to 1/32,000, (in 1/3 of a second increments).

Wow, 1/32000 is really impressive.

I like shooting wide open with fast lenses and 1/8000 @ ISO50 is usually sufficient but a couple more stops of legroom sounds interesting, thanks for sharing Gary.