Here’s why you shouldn’t use electronic shutter for portraits

Did you know that using an electronic instead of a mechanical shutter can affect a background in your images? After a subscriber pointed it out to Manny Ortiz, he tested it on a Fuji and a Sony mirrorless camera. And indeed, it turned out that an electronic shutter may not be the best option when you shoot portraits.

Manny points out that using an electronic shutter affects your background at a certain point, not all the time. If you shoot above 1/1000 s, you’ll see a pretty obvious change in the images. In other words, if you shoot with, say, a f/1.4 lens, you won’t get a f/1.4 result.

First of all, there’s a difference in the exposure. Manny took the photos at the same settings with both electronic and mechanical shutter at f/1.4. In the video, you can see the differences in exposure. The histogram shows them, but they’re even obvious when you just look at the photos.

Another difference is in the bokeh. There’s clearly more bokeh with mechanical shutter than with the electronic shutter. You can see it clearly when the photos are zoomed in, but you don’t need to have an eagle eye to see the differences even when the photo is zoomed out.

Manny tested this with a Fuji X-T3 and his Sony A7R II, and the results were the same. So, he assumes that this is the case with mirrorless cameras in general. You can read more about this issue here. Have you noticed the same issue with your mirrorless camera?

[Why you SHOULDN’T use the ELECTRONIC SHUTTER for PORTRAITS! | Manny Ortiz]