Why is mirror blackout a problem?

climbing_vine said:
You're talking about fractions of a second that are outside of the range of time it takes for all but the top .00001% of humans to see something and react to it against physical resistance (a shutter release).

No offense, I understand that it's fun to get off into the weeds like this... but it's nonsense. From a physiological/physics standpoint.
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I'm not sure what you mean that it is nonsense. The post I was responding to said "And what about the very common pro technique...of setting the highest frame rate and holding the shutter down?"

I was just pointing out that technique is not a guarantee of getting 'the moment.' Not really nonsensical that I am aware of. 🙂
 
...and the picture taking at really slow shutter speeds will improve you score at the firing range. Speaking of which, yesteday when I was looking for that 1947 Kodak photo book I discovered five 50 round boxes of 9mm ammo! Burglers don't look at or behind old photo books. I should go to the range and practice my "shooting".
 
I like mirror blackout. Lets me know something's going on.

I don't have many, if any, shots where the subject is blinking. And, a blink is so quick anyway, that i'm not sure i would be certain if i had caught the blink even with a rangefinder.

Since my first cameras were SLRs, mirror blackout is the standard. I'd miss it if they developed an SLR without it. I read a rumor that Canon's working on a dSLR with no moving mirror..... It's kinda like the shutter sound. If they made a dSLR with an electronic shutter, so that it made no noise whatsoever, they'd probably add some sort of sound effect just to keep people 'comfortable.' If i'm using my CM or T3 in a noisy environment, i hate having to look at the exposure counter to see if i actually just exposed a frame....

I especially like the mirror/shutter sounds and blackout on certain cameras. Contax Aria, Nikon F80, Nikon FE2, for example. But, the shutter and blackout on my Leica R7 seem very slow in comparison.

How about the blackout on a Hasselblad 500? The mirror doesn't even return until the film is advanced.
 
Mirror black-out is when an SLR mirror flips up to allow for the exposure. While it' up it covers the ground glass focusing screen. You just see black until the mirror comes down again. Hasselblads just take some getting used to. Have you ever shot using film holders in a press or view camera? The black out starts when you put the film holder in the camera. Compared to that Hasselblads are great!

At one time Canon made the Pellix which had a fixed semi-transparent mirror. There was no need for it to move out of the way.
 
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shadowfox said:
+1

If you give an RF camera to most wedding/event photographers nowadays, they'd just be cranking out super sharp pictures of the back of the lens cap, because they'd forget it was on 😛

To me, the advantage of RF over SLR can be summed up in two sentences:

- brighter viewfinder (because lights don't have to go through mirrors/prism)
- slower shutter speed for hand held shots
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At the last wedding i attended, the wedding photographer (Nikon dSLR) was gushing over my M7. I let him play with it a bit — he was quite familiar, even though he'd never owned one.

Brighter viewfinder? I just compared my Zeiss Ikon to my FE2. If the Ikon is brighter, it's insignificantly so. It actually feels like the FE2 is brighter (50/1.8 lens). The shutter speed thing, though - i really need to test that. I think i'm shaky with either....
 
climbing_vine said:
You're talking about fractions of a second that are outside of the range of time it takes for all but the top .00001% of humans to see something and react to it against physical resistance (a shutter release).

No offense, I understand that it's fun to get off into the weeds like this... but it's nonsense. From a physiological/physics standpoint.
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so true, human reaction is only 1/15 second 😀 :bang:
 
I wonder if the idea of mirror black out as a disadvantage of SLR cameras wasn't invented during the time when RF and SLR cameras were competing against each other for the average consumer's money; an advertising thing?
And there is a big difference between mirror black out with a camera that has an "instant return mirror"--all modern 35mm SLRs(AFAIK)--and a camera with out--lots of current medium format SLRs and lots of old 35mm SLRs.
And didn't Casio(?) just recently come out with a camera that keeps the last second's exposures--60/sec, maybe?--in storage until the photog picks one?
Rob
 
digitalintrigue said:
I'm not sure what you mean that it is nonsense. The post I was responding to said "And what about the very common pro technique...of setting the highest frame rate and holding the shutter down?"

I was just pointing out that technique is not a guarantee of getting 'the moment.' Not really nonsensical that I am aware of. 🙂
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Well, sure. I thought you were making the argument in order to say that with a rangefinder you *are* guaranteed to "get the moment".

If you were saying that neither is, then I agree. 🙂
 
Keith,

A problem, no, at least for me. It's something that I developed a process of looking carefully after to make sure the folks I was shooting are at least close to what I'm hoping for.

More importantly when I use flash the mirror blackout 5UCK5. I love flash with RF, I see what I get every time. Perhaps I love it so much because my first year of real photography was with an old Konica IIIm. I did so many dances, local bands and things without even knowing it couldn't be done.....

As mentioned before, non-instant return mirrors, THAT'S A PAIN!! Perhaps I'm a bit of a masochist, I prefer manual cameras......

B2 (;->
 
This was the first difference I noticed between my 40D and 5Dmk2. The 40D has a smaller, MUCH faster mirror. Blackout times are far shorter with the 40D and it makes the 5D2 (no slouch itself) feel slow. I don't like being disconnected from the moment. Basically, blackout is less of a problem when it's extremely short.

I do notice when people blink during an exposure with a rangefinder.

Another advantage of not having a mirror is that there's no sound before the exposure is taken. By the time a subject hears your RF shutter, it's likely that the photo has already been taken. I notice that some people flinch when they hear the mirror go up, and this happens fast enough to ruin the exposure.
 
Been primarily an SLR shooter most of my photographic life and I've never found it to be a problem with any camera, RB67 included. Heck, consider the length of time with 4x5 you're not seeing through the lens - even that never was a problem really, even for portraits. Maybe an issue for some, but never for me.
 
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