Author Topic: Comparison of rolling shutter artifact of 32 mirrorless cameras  (Read 998 times)

Akira

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A Japanese long-time camera reviewer Junichi Date posted an interesting comparison of the rolling shutter artifact using 32 mirrorless cameras of leading manufacturers by shooting a rolling USB fan.

He measured the artifacts of both mechanical and elsctronic shutter modes for each model.   Sony A9III with the global shutter is a clear winner, followed by Canon R1/3 and Nikon Z9/8.  A high-megapixel Canon R5II shows surprisingly fast electronic shutter.  On the other hand, the electronic shutter of Z6III doesn't seem to as fast as expected or marketed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2Yx-LHgsm0
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Ilkka Nissilä

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Re: Comparison of rolling shutter artifact of 32 mirrorless cameras
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2025, 10:56:56 »
A Japanese long-time camera reviewer Junichi Date posted an interesting comparison of the rolling shutter artifact using 32 mirrorless cameras of leading manufacturers by shooting a rolling USB fan.

He measured the artifacts of both mechanical and elsctronic shutter modes for each model.   Sony A9III with the global shutter is a clear winner, followed by Canon R1/3 and Nikon Z9/8.  A high-megapixel Canon R5II shows surprisingly fast electronic shutter.  On the other hand, the electronic shutter of Z6III doesn't seem to as fast as expected or marketed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2Yx-LHgsm0

I don't understand Japanese (?) so don't know what is being said but the Z6III to me looks like expected given the reported 14.41 ms readout in 14-bit FX NEF stills (vs. 3.7 ms for the Z8/Z9).

https://bcgforums.com/threads/z6-iii-sensor-readout-rates-for-all-stills-and-video-modes.36762/

The Z6III, however, has a faster readout in FX full-frame-readout video (9.33 ms) than the Z8/Z9 (14.5 ms reported by cined). Thus it is perhaps more optimized for video than stills in terms of how the sensor is read. The Z6III does have a mechanical shutter which can be used for stills to minimize the rolling shutter (while the ZR does not).

I do remember reading some early reports that the Z6III's rolling shutter for stills would be similar to its rolling shutter for video, but for full-frame 14-bit nefs it is not. Horshack does not report 12-bit NEF readout times in that post, but perhaps that would be closer to the JPG times (11.03 ms)?

Akira

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Re: Comparison of rolling shutter artifact of 32 mirrorless cameras
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2025, 18:07:57 »
I don't understand Japanese (?) so don't know what is being said but the Z6III to me looks like expected given the reported 14.41 ms readout in 14-bit FX NEF stills (vs. 3.7 ms for the Z8/Z9).

https://bcgforums.com/threads/z6-iii-sensor-readout-rates-for-all-stills-and-video-modes.36762/

The Z6III, however, has a faster readout in FX full-frame-readout video (9.33 ms) than the Z8/Z9 (14.5 ms reported by cined). Thus it is perhaps more optimized for video than stills in terms of how the sensor is read. The Z6III does have a mechanical shutter which can be used for stills to minimize the rolling shutter (while the ZR does not).

I do remember reading some early reports that the Z6III's rolling shutter for stills would be similar to its rolling shutter for video, but for full-frame 14-bit nefs it is not. Horshack does not report 12-bit NEF readout times in that post, but perhaps that would be closer to the JPG times (11.03 ms)?

I guess that the faster readout of 9.4ms is achieved by the line skipping method?  The Japanese test should not be of a concern, because the difference between mechanical and electronic is obvious.  You can just refer to the model name.

FWIW, the shutter speed was set to 1/8000 or 1/4000 depending on the shortest one offered by each model.
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Nasos Kosmas

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Re: Comparison of rolling shutter artifact of 32 mirrorless cameras
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2025, 09:43:19 »
Very interesting Akira, thank you!
To be honest I have seen a little of rolling shutter with my Z8 in some cases, on the wings movement when shooting fast birds 8)
It’s funny when you get these fan pictures with slow readout cameras :)

Ilkka Nissilä

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Re: Comparison of rolling shutter artifact of 32 mirrorless cameras
« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2025, 10:55:37 »
I guess that the faster readout of 9.4ms is achieved by the line skipping method?  The Japanese test should not be of a concern, because the difference between mechanical and electronic is obvious.  You can just refer to the model name.

FWIW, the shutter speed was set to 1/8000 or 1/4000 depending on the shortest one offered by each model.

No line skipping is involved in this case (although it is common for high frame rate video such as at 100, 120, 200, or 240 fps); the Z6 III video at full sensor readout and full 6K resolution at 24-60 fps has a 9.4 ms readout speed. I think there are two reasons for the slower readout for stills: there are more lines to be read (2:3 instead of 9:16 aspect ratio, the latter being used for video), this explains why the JPG read time is 11.03 ms, the other reason is 14-bit readout takes more time (to get less noise in the least significant bits), this can explain the difference between JPG (11.03 ms) and 14-bit NEF (14.41 ms).

So basically, in the Z6III, stills take a bit more time to read from the sensor than video because the image is taller and the implementation of 14-bit readout to get lower noise and better dynamic range requires more time. In the Panasonic S1II, also using a partially stacked 24 MP sensor, they offer a high dynamic range mode ("DR Boost") with an even slower read time of 27.5 ms. This illustrates the compromise between rolling shutter and dynamic range in video. In stills, a mechanical shutter can be used to mitigate slow readout speeds of high DR sensors, and indeed, the Z8 and Z9 do not quite match the D850's dynamic range at base ISO.

bobfriedman

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Re: Comparison of rolling shutter artifact of 32 mirrorless cameras
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2025, 14:33:42 »
pretty good.. thx!
Robert L Friedman, Massachusetts, USA
www.pbase.com/bobfriedman