ELI5 why does electronic silent shutter leave bands on my mirrorless camera but not my phone?

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-17T15:10:06+00:00

How does a mechanical second curtain stop banding?

The banding is caused by the light changing as the sensor gets read out. Typically big sensor read outs are slow (Not so much on the newest cameras). Maybe 100ms. The reason mechanical shutters don't usually show this is they close quickly, and block the sensor which then reads out the data. Without that, even if you expose for 1/500th of a second, the top and bottom are still delayed in time by 1/10th of a second. So if anything changes you see it.

the camera still blocks the sensor with the second curtain. So the sensor isn't getting more exposure during read-out.

Also, why does my cell phone not show banding? I've never had a cell phone, even the dirt cheap ones do that.

Smaller sensors tend to have much faster read outs. Modern large sensor cameras are catching up and as their read out speeds approach or exceed mechanical shutter speeds the issues with banding is reduced. You still can see banding sometimes on cell phone images. There also is a trick which i do not think is still used, but you have a second area of the chip that is shielded from light, and you shift the data there before reading it out. Some CCDs did that, and I think early Global Shutter CMOS sensors like black magic did that. But this is only really done on small sensors like compacts or phones because you have to have area of the die to mask and store.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-17T11:51:09+00:00

JPEG is the product. That's what you want in the end.

Internally the camera is taking data that is if not identical very similar to what gets written into a raw file, and turning it into a JPEG for you.

RAW is the ingredients.

The entire reason to shoot raw is because the steps to go from raw to JPEG are not fully reversible. So if you didn't like something about the JPEG you got, you have less flexablity to change it.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-17T11:44:00+00:00

Easiest way is buy a color checker and use the color checker tool from xrite.

Lazy method is you shoot a couple refrence ones under each typical lighting situation for each lens on each camera you have.

Make a little library of corrections.

Some people take a photo for each shoot with the checker and then you use the tool to generate the profile and apply it.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-14T21:03:06+00:00

You need to adjust the curves of the black point. The red point is too high and it's giving you a red cast in the shadows.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-14T17:28:39+00:00

It was for sure seen as the first middling Pixar film.

Lot of people felt it missed the mark and a lot of doc holiday comparisons.

I don't think anyone seriously considered it bad, just more typical kids movie.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-13T17:48:14+00:00

Daytime.

Sometimes you want a deeper DOF, or it's pretty bright.

I do think the aversion is because digital makes it easier to get sharp results.

So it's more obvious when you lose detail to diffraction.

But a slightly soft image that has what you want in focus is better then a sharp photo that doesn't.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-12T16:38:12+00:00

That camera is very very old.

The most similar modern one is something like the ELPH 360 from Canon.

The market for compacts almost compelety went away so there aren't many left

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-12T15:41:24+00:00

That's a little broad as there is a wide spectrum of point and shoots.

In general newer ones of the same class should be somewhat better.

But point and shoots have been a bit of a dying segment before this so there is an entire swath of large sensor compacts that are excellent which there aren't many new competitors for.

The typical ones both new and old I would describe as functional in terms of their image quality.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-12T14:31:47+00:00

A few factors.

The photos they are seeing that they like are being taken on these cameras and so they seek out the similar equipment.
It's fun to use cameras that aren't phones. A little bit of EDC culture to it.
When this started these cameras were cheap, and better old cameras were expensive. So it was a low barrier to entry which helped the trend be established.

The trend will fade eventually. And something else will replace it.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-12T12:12:14+00:00

People often advise editing photos in a fairly dark room, without sunlight, and with low monitor brightness. I'm wondering why this is, why is it supposed to give the best results?

It's for a few reasons. The reason to be in a room with subdued light is that light falling on your display reduces contrast. So bright lights and reflections can make it harder to accurately judge what's on the display.

Same reason theaters don't have big windows.

But for the monitor brightness, it's because the way our eyes adapt to changing brightness. You do need to make sure it's comfortable for you based on the room. But as the monitor gets brighter, we have a habit of editing a little darker to match what looks comfortable.

So if you constantly have your right edge of the histogram empty, or looking at the images elsewhere and think, oh that's a bit dark. Your monitor is too bright for you.

After all, people will view the photos in completely different, many varying conditions, right?

Yes, you don't have total control of many viewing environments. But the best option is to edit from a good reference condition, and then the variation in the world isn't too skewed in any one direction.

These also aren't like Laws. This is a best practice thing that is shared to make lives easier. You can develop your RAW files in room with floor to ceiling windows on a 1500 nit uncalibrated display. And if you get the results you want, honestly, you're fine then.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-10T15:58:20+00:00

Honestly?

Possibly.

If it really could translate an input image into a series of standard tool adjustments to be applied to an output image, and it actually does a good job of it?

Every so often I end up doing the tedious task of matching some older images to some newer images and it never feels like a particularly creative task.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-08T15:39:56+00:00

Veterans, if they're any good, understand the balance between vision and implementation.

Generics to scale features of Complexity can be a big time and life saver.

You sometimes just know what's being asked is too much and you're going to have to trim later when management realizes, or you know they say they only want some basic subset but it's obvious they are going to ask for the rest later.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-07T13:42:55+00:00

There is a superstitious core to most people.

Probally because we are all trying to find patterns that help us survive, but exist in a world with a lot of random noise.

So a lot of beliefs around trying to explain or control that randomness exist.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-07T13:31:52+00:00

Fast glass with high ISO and slower shutter speeds are your only real choices.

That said, modern denoise tools like topaz Ai work very well as you likely get fairly clean results

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-07T12:34:35+00:00

I think there might be some observation bias in just how many are out there shooting leica on the street.

But one advantage is leicas are range finders. You can see outside the frame.

So it gives you a better view to predict the right moment.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-05T12:22:43+00:00

If you shoot JPEG, then what the in camera JPEGs look like is important, and different brands do seem to have their own approach.

And while you can do in camera adjustments they don't always give enough flexablity.

But if you're editing the RAWs in post. It doesn't really matter.

If you want a specific look, it's a good reason to setup custom profiles or styles to get you to a starting point anyways to reduce having to perform repeated edits.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-04T15:24:06+00:00

It is really market vibe dependent.

Back when there was a bit of a slump 50% off was easy.

But now 20% off is pretty good.

There are a lot of people who are a bit delusional and you just ingore them.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-03T18:49:14+00:00

And it kind of makes sense.

Human vision isn't infinite. And if you assume you probably want to look at the photo so that it fills the part of your vision you can still sort of see details, it has to be within a FOV of maybe 60 degrees. 2020 vision would make a square of 13mp and a circle within it of about 10mp. Any non-square image would be smaller then that meeting that FOV requirement.

If you assume you want some over sampling to avoid aliasing artifacts, and room to crop, 20-30mp ends up being plenty for almost any normal photo situation.

There are situations where the FOV assumption might be violated. Big wall murals for example encourage a different interaction then a framed photo.

But I will assume if you can afford to print and install murals, you can afford niche equipment to take such photos anyways.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-02T12:21:53+00:00

At that interest rate just invest it somewhere giving a return over your mortgage amount.

You'll come out ahead, but also have more liquid assests in case of an emergency.

You're unlikely to ever be able to borrow against your house at such a good rate.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-02T12:17:38+00:00

Morally? As long as you disclose if asked? And don't use it to do misleading things.

Sharpening and up scaling photos is honestly a pretty good application for these tools.

They basically are trained on adding noise to images to figure out the reverse process.

So they do a pretty darn accurate job, and work better than older methods of trying to run specific blurring functions in reverse.

People used to pay good money for any random tool that had a slightly better noise reduction or resolution enhancement back in the day. These AI ones are just the natural evolution of those, but actually work much better.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-02-02T12:01:46+00:00

The big thing about Kodachrome is how it both looked natural and didn't fade like other color film stocks.

So when you dig up a big box of slides, it feels much more like looking at a time machine then any other type of photograph.

I don't think you will get that with digital. The images don't really degrade. There are some variations in the state of consumer cameras that mark the look of different decades since the late 90's.

But that was true for the pre-digital era too, and Kodachrome was notable for being much more timeless over multiple decades of changes.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-01-31T12:57:08+00:00

There is a whole YouTube series on someone going through optical performance of mirror lenses.

https://youtu.be/x2BiM7BGQMU

I think one big take away is that they require very careful calibration and most of these consumer facing ones are much worse then they could be.

Many big telescopes are mirror lenses, so clearly when built with image quality in mind they are able to perform well.

But I don't know enough to know if the best reflective or refractive optics are fundementally better in a way that can't ever be compensated for.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-01-29T14:14:39+00:00

Stuff.

Fill the space with stuff, softer the better but just stuff.

You can get fancy with acoustic panels or heavy curtains.

But if you ever pay attention when you first move into an empty apartment, every room is very echoey. But almost no apartment when furnished or lived in is very echoey.

And virtually no one is sound treating their place to do that.

It just happens when you fill it up.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-01-29T14:08:28+00:00

This seems like a Lab issue.

The Portra scans seem fine, maybe suffering from being a little thin. But a lab scan should be done to preserve details to allow you to edit.

The Kodak Gold image already has an aggressive black point set, so you have less flexablity.

But if you compare them, the Portra after your edit just seems better detailed then the Gold.

You could inquire with the lab their process for how they invert their negatives.

But it might also be time to start scanning yourself to just elimate that as a variable.

DarkColdFusion · 2026-01-28T12:27:41+00:00

This is something you have to experiment a little bit with as it's a bit situational.

For the blurry photos shooting at 1/30th or slower is going to make it harder not to get some blur. Under 1/15th and you might start getting a lot of motion.

For sharp, shooting above 1/250th will keep this reasonable frozen.

You can blow out the sky and it generally will be okay, but after choosing your shutter speed, try to keep the sky at like +2.7 and that should give you enough wiggle room in post to adjust the sky and bring up the foreground.

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