Beginner How a DSLR shutter works

[Serendipitous Sid]

If any of you guys are having a hard time getting your head round exactly what happens in what order when you press that button ...

linky linky

 

[Graham W]

Good video. Also shows why you have a highest sync speed for flash use. The highest shutter speed where both sets of shutter blades are fully open at the same time.

 

[WelshNoob]

I of course already knew how it worked. I watched the video then realised I didn't!

 

[shapeshifter]

Are these vertical shutters as good at stopping objects moving across the frame(almost everything unless you photograph rockets)?
It used to be that the shutter was horizontal.

 

[big soft moose]

Are these vertical shutters as good at stopping objects moving across the frame(almost everything unless you photograph rockets)?
It used to be that the shutter was horizontal.

it doesnt make any difference - the movement is frozen by the shortness of the exposure, not the direction in which the shutter moves

 

[shapeshifter]

Imagine a train moving across the frame when the slit in the shutter moves vertical the train is still moving across the frame as the slit passes it, the whole lenght of the train.If the shutter is horizontal the slit follows the train along or it runs directly against the direction of the train so the front of the train is actually exposed for less time so it does not look as blurred at the front.

 

[big soft moose]

but even a relatively slow shutter speed is only a fraction of a second so the relative movement of the subject will be nothing compared to the exposure, and the difference between that provided by a vertical shutter and a horizontal one is going to be negligible

 

[StephenM]

The video showed the effect of moving objects in the form of fence posts - they lean because the tops and bottoms are exposed at different times, and the image has moved. Jacques-Henri Lartigue used this to great effect in his famous car photograph; by panning the camera and using a focal plane shutter he made the spectators lean and the wheels of the car became oval.

When not panning, the wheels of fast moving cars will be oval, with the wider part at the sides or top/bottom depending on the way that the shutter ran.

 

[HoppyUK]

Those distorted moving shapes are rarely seen with focal plane shutters today, only the older and much slower-running ones. The blades in modern shutters travel at around 20mph, taking roughly 3-milliseconds to travel from top to bottom (speed is constant, regardless of effective exposure time).

The contemporary equivalent is the rolling/scanning type of shutter found in iPhones and the like, where lines of pixels are exposed separately. Google iPhone rolling shutter effect or similar for loads of weird examples.