I’ve just been testing my A7R mk1 for film capture and run into what I believe is the fairly well known shutter shock issue. I expect there probably isn’t a satisfactory workaround for this camera so I post this just so that others can avoid this camera if possible.
As suggested on other forums I’ve added extra weight to the camera by clamping a locking arm to the camera and tripod but unfortunately it hasn’t helped.
I think the solution is probably to buy a new camera that has a silent/electronic shutter - probably the A7R mk2 or 3
The RH image is less sharp over all, but the horizontal lines suffer a tad more than the vertical lines, which points at shutter shock - if the shutter travels vertically.
According to this page, the Sony lens is not as good at 1:1 as at normal distances, scroll to the bottom of the page for details.
I don’t have a Sony camera, but on my Canon bodies, AF is always (also in live view) set with the aperture wide open, no matter what aperture I set for shooting. I can see the aperture closing as soon as I press the shutter button.
I asked about the shutter speed because it seems that this shutter shock on the A7R ceases to be an issue at exposures of 1/2 a second or so, and is particularly prominent at certain (shorter) shutter speeds. I suppose your light source determines the shutter speed so it’s probably not something you can vary easily.
Also wondering if it makes any difference whether ‘Optical Steady Shot’ is on or off.
I just double checked this - On Sony (at least on my a7r) if you have Live View Display set to Setting Effect ON the live view shows the set aperture throughout, Setting Effect OFF aperture is wide open until AF confirmation.
Sorry yes didn’t mean to ignore your question. It’s a good point and I did test for this by taking shots across the range from 1/250 to 4s. There were better and worse performing shutter speeds - if memory serves correctly it was unusable at 1/2, becoming best at 1/15 and tailing off again as it went to 1/250. None were usable IMO though, and as you suggest my light source was a limiting factor too.
OSS was on for my tests but I haven’t had a chance to test with it off.
I borrowed a friend’s A7R mkIII and tested with silent shutter ON - as predicted it solved the problem so I will likely trade in for a mkIII soon.
I read that, brilliant website btw. For my needs I would argue that the Sony 90mm is entirely usable. For instance it’s weaknesses aren’t nearly as impactful as the shutter shock. However that hasn’t stopped me investigating options to buy the Scanner Nikkor ED
Thanks for the extra information, I can quite see that if changing the camera makes the problem go away then that’s probably the way to go for you. I’m just trying to understand what might be going on because all mirrorless cameras, including my Fujis, will have this extra shutter cycle so in theory might in some way be affected when you are in this demanding 1:1 situation. It’s very strange to me that it gets worse at 1/2 sec, one might think that the reaction to the shutter would last a finite time, and that if the exposure time was long in comparison then the effect would become increasingly less obvious as the shutter speed extended.
It might be interesting to see if there is a difference with OSS off, just as you are supposed to switch it off if using a camera on a solid tripod, it could be some weird interaction I suppose.
This article repeats something I’ve read about before, that the electronic shutter reduces the bit depth and so the dynamic range of the resulting RAW file, this isn’t always the case but he suggests it is here. Also the electronic shutter can cause banding with LED light sources, though clearly it didn’t with your borrowed A7R III.
Electronic First Curtain Shutter - EFCS / EFC - seems to be the best option.
I see this A7R shutter shock has been mentioned on here before:
Richard Karash suggested either flash or “The other approach to shutter shake is a really long exposure (so the shake portion is a very small part of the exposure). ISO 100, f/8 might give 1-3 sec with your light panel.”
I see also that someone using an A7R2 found the mechanical shutter ‘useless’ and had to use the electronic shutter, presumably because there was some camera shake creeping in on their setup even with that camera.
