[cprobertson1]

I just got my new Pentax KP (to replace my venerable K-50) and I love it!

Coming from the K-50 I'm used to a mechanical shutter sh-click! - so I have a few quick questions about the electronic shutter mode

To make a long story short... is there any reason why I wouldn't use the Electroning Shutter (ES) mode for most everyday shooting? Obviously, where rolling shutter or fast flash sync speeds are required the Mechanical Shutter (MS) is probably a safer bet, but as far as I could tell using ES effectively extends the life of the camera by reducing wear and tear on the shutter in addition to being quieter and with lower vibration?

What are the downsides (apart from the aforementioned rolling shutter and slower flash sync speeds)?

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Edit: literally just posted and suddenly remembered a possible downside - I seem to recall shake reduction isn't employed in ES mode - will double check the manual - but would that be a good reason to prefer MS mode for handheld shooting :P

Put simply - ES / MS modes are tools - but I don't yet know how to use them to best effect!

[kypfer]

From what I can gather, the electronic shutter isn't too good with moving subjects … maybe what you refer to as "rolling shutter".
Most of my photography is wildlife, often flying, so I stick with the mechanical shutter and have no problems.
One specific scenario quoted by Pentax where the electronic shutter comes into it's own is for wide aperture (shallow depth of field) work in bright light, anything from outdoor portraits to flowers in bright sunlight, where the subject is reasonably stationary and you don't want bother with an ND filter.
The low mechanical noise factor is only noticeable when in LiveView … the camera becomes totally silent apart from the lens focussing, assuming you've got any sound effects disabled!
When using the viewfinder the mechanical shutter is still utilised, albeit not for controlling the exposure, also the mirror operates, so no great noise advantage there.

[clackers]

Be very careful, CP.

The mirror still clicks up and down so there's that noise. Rolling shutter means moving objects distort, and you can't use flash at all. Artificial lighting will look weird at different shutter speeds in different frames - banding, etc. Shake Reduction is turned off, too.

So, you really have to weigh up the current shooting situation.

Landscapes from a tripod? Sure. Everything else? Maybe!

[ramseybuckeye]

I use it for landscapes with live view and a tripod, if I remember to turn it on. It's quiet and has not had any problems.

[UncleVanya]

Why is shake reduction off with electronic shutter? I’m struggling to understand this.

[zapp]

LED and neon light often cause banding artifacts with ES. So indoors and at several events with neon signs, ES is not a good choice.

[joelbolden]

You Tube

You Tube

[acoufap]

Be very careful, CP.

The mirror still clicks up and down so there's that noise.

When using the KP in LiveView and ES you only hear a slight shift of the shutter. This is a remarkable difference to the K-1 where also the mirror seems to be moved. Especially when working in a silent environment and when using an external intervallometer it’s a great benefit - there‘s nearly total silence for the whole image series.

I don‘t know if the K-3 III in LV/ES is working like the K-1 or the KP. Does anyboty know?

Ah, meanwhile a video shows it. Thanks @joelbolden!

[UncleVanya]

When using the KP in LiveView and ES you only hear a slight shift of the shutter. This is a remarkable difference to the K-1 where also the mirror seems to be moved. Especially when working in a silent environment and when using an external intervallometer it’s a great benefit - there‘s nearly total silence for the whole image series.

I don‘t know if the K-3 III in LV/ES is working like the K-1 or the KP. Does anyboty know?

The video in the post above yours seems to show something more like the KP. But I haven't watched a sequence with the K-1 in ES mode so I don't know for sure.

[acoufap]

The video in the post above yours seems to show something more like the KP. But I haven't watched a sequence with the K-1 in ES mode so I don't know for sure.

K-1 works different - I worked with both.

Correction - just tried it again:

When using the K-1 there‘s a sound difference between using LV/ES and LV/MS. But the K-1 LV/ES mode is much louder than the KP‘s.

[ProfessorBuzz]

When using the K-1 there‘s a sound difference between using LV/ES and LV/MS. But the K-1 LV/ES mode is much louder than the KP‘s.

Is this relevant to what you're trying to do? Keep in mind the mirror and mechanical shutter is larger in a FF vs APS-C sensor camera.

[acoufap]

Is this relevant to what you're trying to do? Keep in mind the mirror and mechanical shutter is larger in a FF vs APS-C sensor camera.

Most of the time not. If photographing in a church I feel more comfortable doing it as silent as possible.

[cprobertson1]

Why is shake reduction off with electronic shutter? I’m struggling to understand this.

ES doesn't allow for the anti-aliasing simulator either. Apparently it's due to the rolling shutter, the movement of the sensor for SR would cause distortion.

This does, however, raise a question regarding front/rear curtain on the mechanical shutter: the travel speed vs slit size can cause rolling shutter distortion... BUT - under the same circumstances, the ES is much more susceptible to it. When I look into it seems that the ES row scanning rate should be roughly equivalent to the travel speed of the shutter in MS mode.... AH! The difference is that ES reads one row at a time - "exposing" one row at a time - while the mechanical shutter exposes multiple rows on the sensor simultaneously (at a rate determined by the window size, and shutter travel rate - window size being the size of the gap between the leading and trailing curtains during shutter release).

In ES each row of the sensor is read individually, so you capture each row in beautifully crisp detail - think "line scanner". With a mechanical shutter, even though the shutter moves across each row of pixels, it is exposing many neighbouring rows of pixels - so each row captures a blurry afterimage where the ES would have captured only a single row at a time...

In other words... IF that explanation is correct, under a particular circumstance where ES is prone to rolling shutter distortion, MS would result in a motion blur. Huh. I'll need to test this and see if this explanation is correct!

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...
One specific scenario quoted by Pentax where the electronic shutter comes into it's own is for wide aperture (shallow depth of field) work in bright light, anything from outdoor portraits to flowers in bright sunlight, where the subject is reasonably stationary and you don't want bother with an ND filter.
...
When using the viewfinder the mechanical shutter is still utilised, albeit not for controlling the exposure, also the mirror operates, so no great noise advantage there.

Oooh! I hadn't heard of that particular advantage! I'll add that to the list of scenario-specific usages

Good note on the sound as well - though, to be honest, beside the K-50, the shutter (and mirror) on the KP are practically silent! Sure, in a quiet room it'd be noisy in comparison, but in my firsts field test (I took it to a field and tested it ) it was refreshingly quiet. I didn't even think my K-50 was that loud until I got this!

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Be very careful, CP.

The mirror still clicks up and down so there's that noise. Rolling shutter means moving objects distort, and you can't use flash at all. Artificial lighting will look weird at different shutter speeds in different frames - banding, etc. Shake Reduction is turned off, too.

So, you really have to weigh up the current shooting situation.

Landscapes from a tripod? Sure. Everything else? Maybe!

BANDING! Yes I meant to mention that in the list of downsides.

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Many thanks folks! That's cleared things up a lot for me - much appreciated!

[photoptimist]

ES doesn't allow for the anti-aliasing simulator either. Apparently it's due to the rolling shutter, the movement of the sensor for SR would cause distortion.

This does, however, raise a question regarding front/rear curtain on the mechanical shutter: the travel speed vs slit size can cause rolling shutter distortion... BUT - under the same circumstances, the ES is much more susceptible to it. When I look into it seems that the ES row scanning rate should be roughly equivalent to the travel speed of the shutter in MS mode.... AH! The difference is that ES reads one row at a time - "exposing" one row at a time - while the mechanical shutter exposes multiple rows on the sensor simultaneously (at a rate determined by the window size, and shutter travel rate - window size being the size of the gap between the leading and trailing curtains during shutter release).

In ES each row of the sensor is read individually, so you capture each row in beautifully crisp detail - think "line scanner". With a mechanical shutter, even though the shutter moves across each row of pixels, it is exposing many neighbouring rows of pixels - so each row captures a blurry afterimage where the ES would have captured only a single row at a time...

In other words... IF that explanation is correct, under a particular circumstance where ES is prone to rolling shutter distortion, MS would result in a motion blur. Huh. I'll need to test this and see if this explanation is correct!
)

Both MS and ES have a traveling strip of many rows of pixels that are being simultaneously exposed.

The difference is that MS and ES run at very different speeds.

With MS, the traveling strip of exposure is quite fast -- traversing the whole sensor in less than the 1/180 flash sync speed. Only the fastest objects show any motion effects across the frame.

With ES, the traveling strip of exposure is quite slow -- taking probably about 1/10 second to read all the data off the sensor. (I'm not sure exactly how fast the KP does this)

The reason for the difference is two-fold. First the only ways to stop an exposure of a pixel is to either cover it with a mechanical shutter or read the pixels data out of the sensor. (Each pixel is like a tiny solar panel that cannot be "turned off" -- if light is hitting the pixel, a charge is building up and changing the pixel value.) Second, it takes a fair amount of time to read all the pixel signal data out a large sensor. For MS, the shutter quickly exposes and then covers the rows of pixels and then read out process happens slowly behind the closed shutter. For ES, exposing each row of pixels can't go any faster than the read-out process so the ES exposure process is much slower than it is with MS.

Note: ES that reads the whole sensor a lot faster (aka "global shutter") is possible but it requires a huge amount of added electronics. That usually requires a stacked sensor chip, and tends to create digital signal noise and added heat near the delicate pixels which then degrades image quality.

[Paul the Sunman]

Why is shake reduction off with electronic shutter? I’m struggling to understand this.

SR operates with the ES on the K3iii.

On the K1, ES is only in LV, and disables SR.