EOS RP Shutter Status, Silent Shutter and Focus Bracketing

[migEOSRP]

Is the shutter on the EOS RP always open at idle and when the camera is powered off?

I use my EOS RP in Manual mode always for astrophotography mainly for ISO, exposure and WB settings. In this setting, the shutter that activates during the normal single manual shots cases slight vibration even on a tripod.  There is a Silent Shutter available on the RP but not in Manual mode. A workaround that was suggested uses Focus Bracketing (available in Manual mode) and I set it at 2 shots and since no lens is attached there is no focus adjustment and it does work.   The nice thing about this  is that the shutter stays open even for the first of the 2 shots! But it would be nice to also have the Silent Shutter available in Manual mode so that I didn't need to enable focus bracketing to completely disable the shutter movement. A wish item for a future firmware update. 

Is my understanding of this correct?

[p4pictures · Accepted solution]

You are correct the silent mode is one of the SCN modes, so essential automatic exposure. Unfortunately the EOS RP does not have the menu option to allow electronic shutter mode to be selected and so the camera uses 1st curtain electronic for all shooting unless focus bracketing is chosen, which also results in electronic shutter as you have found. Actually this is for the same reason - to avoid vibrations when stacking a sequence. 

Honestly I do not expect a functionality change such as you are hoping for to be made available for the EOS RP camera as it was introduced February 2019, and such change would likely have happened already if it was going to.

[justadude]

I used my RP for about 4 years for astrophotography until I upgraded to the R6 Mk ll.  I never have noticed any of the vibration you mention.  So I'm curious... how sturdy is your tripod?  Also, do you use a delay for the shutter to fire?

[migEOSRP]

The focus bracketing does the job. The seemingly random sensor-cleaning occurs irratically but is manageable and turning off sensor cleaning works.

My tripods are fairly light duty and are fine for my gear .. I really like the RP .. first full frame camera since my Olympus OM1 so many years ago.

[migEOSRP]

I guess at this point is to ask WHY would this happen? If the camera itself has no flaws (firmware or hardware), then what external effect could possibly cause this to happen?

My plan is the following: (1) change the SD card and see if problem persists (2) reset to factory settings and check again after cleaning all contacts (on SD card and battery). The camera is quite new (via amazon.ca a month ago) so I'm sure there is a good warranty on it.  It seems unlikely that my attachment-configuration is so unusual that nobody has seen this before so it is conceivable that some glitch in the camera hardware involving the electrical connection interface would trigger the sensor cleaner. How to unearth the root cause?  Would Canon warranty support replacing the camera with the information I presented? Suggestions on how to proceed to solve this issue?

[migEOSRP]

I'm following up with Canon support about this.

This web page has a short video showing the effect. Note the small sensor-cleaning animation in lower part of screen (as compared to the full screen similar animation that as expected displays at power up and power down):

SensorCleaningInfo 

[p4pictures]

I have now managed to create a similar display to the one you see with the small icon in the lower right corner of the LCD. I don't have the EOS RP to hand, but I do have EOS R10, EOS R6 and EOS R6 Mk2. All can be made to create that icon in the corner. 

In the camera power saving settings, there is a setting for the display off time, if I set any of my cameras to 5 second for this, and the power off to more than 5 seconds then I see the icon briefly appear on the LCD at the end of the 5 seconds. Therefore I think what you have is the icon to indicate the display is going to sleep, not the icon for sensor cleaning as that fills the whole screen.

[migEOSRP]

thank you very much for this. I think this was the problem. The Auto Power Off setting is 1 min which I believe is the default (see screenshot of LCD screen showing my EOS RP default Power Saving settings). And Auto power off does trigger the sensor cleaning (attached search info).

My activity involves a fair amount of time moving the spotting scope and focus adjustment which is easy to reach 1 min Power Off interval. 

I presume "inactivity" to trigger Auto Power Off means not using any buttons or touching the LCD screen on the Camera?

Thanks again for your excellent help.

 

[migEOSRP]

Just to summarize how I shoot without activating the shutter on my EOS RP:

The only mode that supports Silent Mode on the EOS RP is Scn mode. However I always use Manual mode. The method I use to get silent shooting is:

Enable Focus bracketing with the minimum 2 shots. Since the shutter on the EOS RP is always open in normal state, shooting now will not activate the shutter. This disables the "LCD touch to shoot" ability so would need to push the shot button which for camera attached to say a scope causes residual small vibration. So remote shooting (I use Canon Connect app on my Samsung S23 Ultra) works perfectly. Totally quiet, zero vibration and 2 consecutive shots which can actually be handy for star-field shots and checking for Constellation satellite streaks by comparison (I still use the 2 sec delay but probably not necessary). The only slight annoyance is the Focus bracketing setting is reset to disabled on power up. Is there any way to keep it enabled (in Manual mode)?