Shuttering methods and the artifacts they produce

Abstract

When exposure times were measured in minutes, the opening and closing of the shutter was essentially instantaneous. As more sensitive films and brighter optics became available, exposure times decreased, the travel time of the shutter mechanism became increasingly significant, and artifacts became visible. Perhaps the best-known shutter artifacts are the spatio-temporal distortions associated with photographing moving subjects using a focal-plane shutter or sequential electronic sampling of pixels (electronic rolling shutter). However, the shutter mechanism also can cause banding with flickering light sources and strange artifacts in out-of-focus regions (bokeh); it can even impact resolution. This paper experimentally evaluates and discusses the artifacts caused by leaf, focal plane, electronic first curtain, and fully electronic sequential-readout shuttering.