electronic or mechanical shutter? consider this new concept.

[Albert Chen]

Mechanical mirror shutters are useful if you want an optical viewfinder like in the Arri D21 or a mechanical shutter with a sissor action like in the Sony F65 but the disadvantages are the sweeping action, bulk, heavy weight and sucks power. there's some vibration and noise although minimised. they are very precise and are expensive to build. but the advantage of having them outweighs the costs. is there a better system. a system that is instant, small, light weight, draws minimum power, very fast, no noise, no vibration, cheap and placed in front of the OLPF ? what am i talking about? well, how about a LCD shutter? without the back light, of course, and at 2ms switching either on or off across the full frame in an instant capturing the image. sure they will have to be custom made and the crystals a little larger so they overlap when closed cutting out all light. surely the engineers can design this. i suppose one can call this a mechatronic shutter and base on the principal, it can work well. one can argue "well, there's one more refraction we have to consider in the optical path". but let the engineers work this out. if the glass is completely flat, thin and the liquid clear, then we are on our way to have this a reality.

[Vico Martin]

https://vimeo.com/5976527

It´s alive!!

I think it´s an amazing concept, needs some serious develop.

[Benedict Heinzl]

The Concept sounds amazing, but isn't there a problem with the LCD cristals?
I think they will be visible, or they will at least affect the image quality.

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

Mechanical mirror shutters are useful if you want an optical viewfinder like in the Arri D21 or a mechanical shutter with a sissor action like in the Sony F65 but the disadvantages are the sweeping action, bulk, heavy weight and sucks power. there's some vibration and noise although minimised. they are very precise and are expensive to build. but the advantage of having them outweighs the costs. is there a better system. a system that is instant, small, light weight, draws minimum power, very fast, no noise, no vibration, cheap and placed in front of the OLPF ? what am i talking about? well, how about a LCD shutter? without the back light, of course, and at 2ms switching either on or off across the full frame in an instant capturing the image. sure they will have to be custom made and the crystals a little larger so they overlap when closed cutting out all light. surely the engineers can design this. i suppose one can call this a mechatronic shutter and base on the principal, it can work well. one can argue "well, there's one more refraction we have to consider in the optical path". but let the engineers work this out. if the glass is completely flat, thin and the liquid clear, then we are on our way to have this a reality.

There was some kind of 3rd party LCD shutter thing for a Red One if I remember correctly. It was supposed to be placed in a matte box though.

[Yaque Silva-Doyle]

Could you not just build this in to the sensor's read reset logarithm? sort of a modified sign wave.

[Albert Chen]

Benedict,

you are right that any thing in the optical path may be visible or affect the image. refraction changes, however small, happens when it's heavier or lighter than air. idea is to minimise it by making the glass flat, thin, the liquid clear and the crystals small in the LCD. Placement is also a very important issue. in a PL mount we have about 20 mm from the sensor to play with. the further away it is from the focal point, the lesser the interference. the engineers can produce them almost like glass. the can use the OLPF on one side and the IR on the other with the crystals sandwiched between.

[Mitch Gross]

I know who holds the patent for such a device. It's been toyed with but there are a host of other issues, such as polarization.

[Albert Chen]

Well finally this is now a reality as posted by Jarred Land in his thread NAB13- RED MOTION MOUNT DATED 04-08-2013. but why call it a global shutter when the term is already used for a strictly electronic application. this new method is both electronic and mechanical. electronically triggered to mechanically block out the light path. the term "mechatronic shutter" as I wrote above, may better describe this. now that this is done, why not take it to the next level. I have another new idea and if done right, it will eliminate log tables. anyone interested? Cheers.