The biggest news in photography in recent weeks has been Sony’s announcement of their release of the Sony A9 III, a $6000 mirrorless camera that is equipped with the first-ever global shutter.
Do a web search for “why is global shutter a big deal?” and you will find no shortage of articles and videos explaining why. At the top of all these lists are “rolling shutter” and “flash sync speed.”
As I read and watched these items this week, I kept coming back to this: I know what these problems are, but when do I experience them? The answer kept coming back again and again: never.
So what are the possibilities? Am I somehow divorced from the technology because of my age and experience? Am I cynical about endless technological developments as needless, pointless corporate money grabs? Am I somehow missing the point?
It’s not easy to write off my answers, since I make pictures for a living, sometimes thousands in a week, and I really don’t run into these problems.
Last week another photographer, a Sony shooter, echoed my sentiment: what does global shutter do for us? Are these actual problems that need to be solved, or is this just another technology to buy to “keep up with the Joneses?”
Let me also say that I don’t want to be that old guy shouting, “Back in my day, all our film was ASA 25. You kids and your damn contraptions! Get off my lawn!”
Okay, the final elephant in the room: video. This might be the obvious answer to the question of why global shutter is so significant. I don’t shoot a lot of video, and aside from a few people in my area who work in media relations, I don’t see a lot of “produced” video, just start-and-stop video from smartphones posted to social media.
Video in the last few years has become so self-referential, it’s hard to remain interested. There are so many videos on how good camera are at making video, but very little actual content produced from those cameras. “See what the new (brand) can do! Isn’t it amazing?”
So, is global shutter a solution in making videos? If it is, I’m not really seeing it. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place. Do you have a video that you have produced that benefits from global shutter?
Another angle: digital camera sales have been way down as they compete with the cameras built into smartphones, even to the point that a lot of my photography students are pulling camera out of their bags that they neglected, telling me that want to learn to use it, “but I’ve mostly been shooting with my phone.”
How can they compete? The only way is to produce cameras with more features, with faster this and that, sharper this and that, cooler this and that. Global shutter is one of those things. And you can’t make cameras slower and heavier, even if you are trying to make it more affordable, because no one says, “You saved money? Cool!”
What do you think? Is this a solution to a problem, or a solution looking for a problem?
