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Camera
Operation > Shutter
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Shutter in action: Use of the shutter
is most obvious when things move fast.
This clip (shot with a shutter at
1/250th of a second) shows the ceiling
fan--but it doesn't look natural.
It's kind of stuttering. Play it a
couple times if you don't immediately
see the shutter effect. On the positive
side, if you look at the clip one-frame-at-a-time,
(use the right-side buttons) you'll
see that each frame has a sharp image
of the fan. The blades are NOT blurred.
If that's important to you, use a
shutter.
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I
would also classify the shutter control is one of the
dumbest gimmicks ever put on a camcorder. OK, I guess
I need to explain why. Camcorders don’t really
record moving images, instead they record a series of
still pictures and play them back really fast--so the
images SEEM like they are moving. More specifically,
camcorders record 30 still pictures--called "frames"--each
second. Put another way, the camcorder takes 1/30th
of a second to "grab" each still frame. Now,
what if the camcorder spent LESS time grabbing each
frame? Say, 1/100th of a second, or 1/1000th? Would
it make a difference? Would it enhance the image? No.
Yet this is exactly what the shutter control does. In
short, the shutter control is a waste of plastic.
Having
said that, I suppose there is one rare instance (occurring
as often as Halley’s Comet) in which the shutter
control would be useful. That is, the shutter control
can make slow-motion viewing more clear. So if you want
to examine the nuances of Tiger Woods' golf swing in
slow-motion, adjusting your camcorder shutter (to say
1/250th) will result sharper images on playback. The
images won’t be sharper when you playback at normal
speed--ONLY when you playback in slow-motion! In fact,
using the shutter control will actually degrade images
that are played back at normal speed--which is 99.99
percent of what most people watch. Again, put some black
tape over your shutter button (so you won’t be
tempted) and forget it!
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