Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

A very nice piece of writing, Alexander. The images of the collective digital world would be the better for people reading such explanations!

It puzzles me no end that no cameras I’ve yet seen has something like this included in their packaging, right before the “how to insert the battery/memory card” instructions – nor anywhere in their paper or electronic documentation.

One part strikes me as wrong:

Originally Posted by alexander

Something to remember here, physical shutters generally stop at about 1/600's of a second, because of the physical restrictions (shutter is 2 plates that slide across, one opens up the openning allowing the light to fall in, the second closes the openning, thus preventing the light from coming in and also evenly exposing the sensor. The super high shutter speeds are acieved by opening the physical shutter and cutting the power of the digital sensor at some point. Most point and shoots will not have this, so you are basically confined to shutter speeds of down to 1/600 of a sec (and that is fast).

While I’ve not done a lot of disassembly of digital cameras, I’ve taken apart a few of the cheapest, and am certain they have no mechanical shutter. I’ve also listened carefully to my wife’s DMC-FZ series camera, a “bridge” model resembling a DSLR but with a non-removable lens, and with it’s shutter click speaker sound switched off, can hear no mechanical sound, so am failry sure it has no mechanical shutter, either.

Some other important practical camera features, gleaned mostly from my wife’s experience (she blogs a good bit about music events, taking hand-held pictures at them when possible):

• Digital image stabilization – near real-time processing of the image to correct blurring due to camera motion, at the expense of a bit of resolution – can be a great help in avoiding blurring with snapshot-quality photos, especially in low light. Panasonic’s Venus module – the one in all it’s Lumix models - seems better at this than several others I’ve tried, but I've not tried that many.
• Shot speed – the amount of time the camera needs between shots – can be a problem in some cameras. As late as 2007, I’ve seen some low-end Nikons that required several seconds between shots without flash.
• A “burst mode” feature, which allows 3-10 or so images to be captured in quick succession when the “take picture” button (“shutter button” for traditionalists ) is pressed and held – like a high-speed motorwinder on a film camera - can be very nice, as it allows you to "lead and follow" a shot, not have to hit it perfectly.
• Some museums and performance venues restrict photographs to “non-professional” cameras, which they commonly define as “no changeable lenses”, so a good bridge or snapshot camera can be a necessity, as a camera you’re not allowed to carry is of no use whatever