Does stopping down the aperture affect shutter lag on a DSLR?
Asked 3/4/2013
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On a DSLR, pressing the shutter makes the camera stop the lens down to the selected aperture before the exposure. If you choose a small aperture, the diaphragm has to move farther than when shooting wide open. Does that change the delay between pressing the shutter button and the shutter opening, or is shutter lag essentially fixed regardless of aperture?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
13y ago
2 Answers
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Well, seing as the camera also has to swing a honking big mirror out of the way of the sensor before the picture can be taken, I think we can safely assume that it has plenty of time to stop down the aperture while it is doing this. Typical shutter response times for higher end models are on the order of 100 milliseconds, or 0.1 seconds, mostly because of the mirror. Unless it is a fixed pellicle-mirror camera (some new Sonys and a couple of old Canons) I cannot see how stopping down the aperture could possibly make any difference one way or the other.
Originally by user3458. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user3458
13y ago
0
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Usually, any effect is negligible in normal DSLR use. The camera must also move the reflex mirror out of the way before the exposure, and that typically takes longer than the lens diaphragm needs to stop down. So in most DSLRs, shutter lag is dominated by mirror movement, not by whether the lens is stopping down a little or a lot.
There can be some variation between systems because different brands use different aperture actuation methods, such as mechanical linkages or electronic/servo-driven control. That means stop-down time is not identical across all cameras and lenses. But in practice, for most DSLR shooting, the difference is too small to matter.
With mirror lock-up, the mirror is already out of the way, and many cameras also stop the lens down when the mirror is locked up, further reducing any effect at the moment of exposure.
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