EOS R8 Any downside to using electronic shutter in daylight?

[vingiglow]

Is there any downside for using the electronic shutter in daylight? I mostly want to use it to be able to shoot F1.2 on. Sunny day ( portraits). EFCS is limited to 1/4000, but the electronic can go up to 1/16000. Will it affect the bokeh or DR?

[shadowsports]

Greetings ,

Silent shooting and faster frame rates are two of the biggest reasons for using electronic shutter. 

Depending on shooting conditions, bokeh and dynamic range could be affected.  Rolling shutter can also be introduced with faster moving subjects.  For portraits, I can't imagine you needing super fast shutter speeds.  

Besides possibly noise, are there other reasons for wanting to use electronic shutter?  Also note bit depth for still images will be reduced from 14 to 12 if using EFCS on the R8.  This is to maintain readout speed on the sensor.

[SignifDigits]

Thank you for your question and participating here.  My understanding is that the scanning of your sensor to memory is the same for mechanical and electronic shutter but that sensor scanning to memory is delayed a bit by adding in the activation of a mechanical shutter, thus slowing down the maximum shutter speed a bit to accommodate a mechanical shutter.   Mechanical shutter blades have the potential to detract from the image quality (IQ) since they are physically between your lens and the sensor. 

At very high shutter speeds most cameras have to reduce color depth for both mechanical or electronic shutter.  This is especially true when shooting in high speed continuous modes, as the camera has to reduce color depth.  Someone here might know the specific parameters of the R8 and other cameras.  I suspect that only a few cameras have the processing power, buffer memory, and the bandwidth to storage where this isn't true (The R1 might, for instance, but very likely not the R8).

Shooting portraits with an f1.2 lens on sunny days I don't see why you would require these very fast shutter speeds.  I'm not aware of any bokeh concerns unless you would be moving the camera rapidly or the subjects are moving rapidly, in which case rolling shutter could cause rugby ball shaped oblongs rather than nice buttery circles of light in your background.

I am curious to know why you are interested in more information on these very high shutter speeds as related to portraits.

[SignifDigits]

LOL - I think we were responding at the same time.  I didn't see your response before I posted mine - looks like they were 2 mins apart.

[jrhoffman75]

" For portraits, I can't imagine you needing super fast shutter speeds"

OP said he wants to use f/1.2 in daylight. That is going to need high shutter speeds even at ISO 100.

[SignifDigits]

Good point John. Thanks for pointing out my oversight.  I also don't know the specifics of when the cameras will throttle back color depth, but I'm guessing that they would have designed it to be full 14 bit up to the mechanical shutter speed at, say,  6PFS, but anything beyond that is fair game for losing color depth.  IF (BIG if) that were true then shooting one-shot would probably support the full electronic shutter speed at full color depth.  That's what I think we should expect.  But that's just a guess.  I'm also guessing it's not as simple as that and it is an in-camera dynamic real-time operating system decision based upon buffer memory and write speed.  So a card exceeding the max camera write speed of 170MBs or so is assumed for even sustaining the 14bit color depth, and card speed fits into the equation as well.