Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/02/19
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]What you say is how I always thought those shutters worked. We have some high-end Philips digital video cameras at work that actually use a rotating mechanical shutter. I'm not sure exactly what it does but the sensors on those cameras will show streaks from bright lights if the shutter is not turned on. We were surprised by the noise when we first got them. We had them adjusted and they are somewhat quieter now. Mike D - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Brick" <jim@brick.org> To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>; <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 6:48 PM Subject: [Leica] RE: The M7d > I do respect your opinion on many things BD. > > But just so you are a little more informed, digital sensors do "not" > require a shutter The shutter is a pulse to the sensor substrate that, in > lay terms, opens the pixels to collect light, then closes them. The pulse > width determines the shutter speed. The camera shutter basically does > nothing. Many cameras have "live" mode where the LCD on the back acts like > a live viewfinder. To do this, the camera shutter, if there is one, is open > in what we used to call "T" or Time exposure. Basically the shutter is > simply out of the way. The sensor is in a decimation mode in that it only > delivers every 4th pixel row and 4th column. This allows the image to be > read out fast enough to update the LCD reasonably rapidly. The decimation > is also to size the image down to the LCD size. Then when you push the > "shutter release", you are simply sending a pulse to the sensor to capture > the image, at full resolution, at whatever "shutter speed" has been > selected. The shutter noise coming out of 99% of the digital cameras is a > .wav file sent to a speaker in the camera. > > Jim > > > At 03:48 PM 2/19/2002 -0500, B. D. Colen wrote: > > >THAT is the proverbial $64K question. I was speaking with another LUGer the > >other day who speculated that PERHAPS the electronic shutter was being put > >in the M because that might then give Leica what it needed to produce what > >would amount to a digital back - imaging a digital capture unit that would > >fit into the back door area, with more electronics, etc. that would sit > >below the camera, a bit like the Kodak digitization of the Nikon F5 - If you > >didn't care about having a "traditional" LCD viewing screen, you might then > >have a digital rangefinder using M lenses...and there would be no reason why > >an LCD couldn't fit into the hot shoe, connected by a short cord to the > >bottom unit, which would allow viewing images as soon as they were taken. > > > >Just total, utter, speculation - and I know, Jim B., it would be a total > >piece of shit that would produce images unworthy of Leica - in fact they > >would be images unworthy of being called photographs of any kind. :-) > > > >B. D. > > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html > - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html