lens shutter vs focal plane shutter for animation

T

themagickite

Well-known member
I know focal plane shutters will burn out after a certain amount of use for animation, is the also true of lens leaf shutters?

I'm also wondering how they would compare as far as consistency goes. I've heard that 1/125th is a good speed to use when animating with a DSLR as it will possibly give more consistent results than really slow or really fast speeds.

finally, can you get consistent exposure using a flash for animation? or are you better off sticking to continuous lighting?

thanks!
 
Any mechanical moving shutter will wear out. How soon will depend on quite a few variables. The manufacturers often publish how many cycles they expect a shutter to last.

The shutter speed should be matched to your exposure. If you can afford enough light, then you can use faster shutter speeds. Consistency and flicker will depend more on your light source than anything else. Some sources (fluorescents are a great example) have a lot of flicker. Slower shutter speeds will minimize or even eliminate this flicker by extending the shutter opening across the flicker cycle, more or less blurring the flicker out.

I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to use flash for animation. The high speed of most studio flash will give you certain unique possibilities, so it could really be in your favor to use flash if you're trying to create stop motion with, say, running water in the background. OTOH, using constant lighting with slower shutter speeds under the same conditions will give you a different look, maybe just as unique.
 
Modern day DSLR's shutter life expectancy is typically between 100k and 300k exposures, I believe. That is about 1-3 hours of animation if captured at 24fps. I think you might be good.

The lens shutter.... is that the iris assembly? That is exposure, but not exposure time, which is the focal plane shutter's job. The only other shutter option, I know of, that isn't a focal plane shutter is an electronic shutter.

I've never heard of the shutter (controlling exposure time) being in the lens. I'd be very intrigued to find one!
 
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I found this chart on another website, but I cannot confirm how accurate it is:

You can see, perhaps some of the cheaper cameras aren't as much:

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS / 1000D - 100,000
Canon EOS Digital Rebel T1i / 500D - 100,000
Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi / 450D - 100,000
Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi / 400D - 50,000
Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT / 350D - 50,000
Canon EOS 50D - 100,000
Canon EOS 40D - 100,000
Canon EOS 30D - 100,000
Canon EOS 20D - 50,000
Canon EOS 5D Mark II - 150,000
Canon EOS 5D - 100,000
Canon EOS 1D Mark III - 300,000
Canon EOS 1D Mark II N - 200,000
Canon EOS 1DS Mark III - 300,000
Canon EOS 1DS Mark II - 200,000
 
Some medium format cameras have iris shutters. Rollie twin lens cameras are a great example. Hassleblad, with certain lenses is another. Iris shutters are the norm for large format lenses.
 
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