What is Electronic Front-Curtain Shutter?

June 09,2018

Electronic Front-Curtain Shutter (EFCS)-  We all are facing the problem of Camera shake, vibration, blurry problems in the photography. Sometimes It is known as the camera shock. Sometimes it can be eliminated by using other tricks or techniques and sometimes not possible to eliminate at all.  There are certainly other reasons for the camera shake. But we will not discuss the reason for the camera shake. A revolution technology EFCS has introduced in most high-end professional DSLR cameras (Nikon/Canon), Now we Electronic Front-Curtain Shutter feature in the DSLR camera. Using this feature can really help you to eliminate the camera shake, vibrations, and blurry problem. Let's discuss this.

EFCS Mechanism- The focal-plane shutter is comprised of two curtains, 1- Front Curtain, 2-Rear Curtain. How they work, we need to understand in the deep.

• The front curtain opens at the beginning of every exposure to let the light in.
• The rear curtain closes at the end after blocking the light from reaching the sensor.

While taking photographs, You always hear single click noise because of shutter speed is so fast or so short, that you do not hear both shutter curtains noise (front and rear curtain)  and If your camera's shutter speed is so slow or longer than one second, you would hear two distinct clicks from the focal-plane shutter

When the front-curtain feature is ON or activated. Mostly vibration, shake happens at the beginning of the exposure or vibrations originated from the front curtain. One important thing to know that vibration never happens from the rear curtain. Because It works at the end of the exposure. All the vibration, shakes, blurry problems now can be removed if your DSLR Camera has an EFSC feature and It is on or activated. Now it is possible to eliminate shutter shake or shock completely.

You all must have a question in the mind that If EFSC can eliminate the vibration or shake completely then why all the DSLR has not this feature.

Few Disadvantages- EFCS takes time to read off all the whole sensor electronically at the beginning of the exposure, Sometimes it is no capable of capturing the fast-moving, fast action subject. You can have a shaken, vibration, overexposed, distorted photographs. It is really a serious problem for the wildlife photographer. Because of this, camera manufacturers often limit the maximum shutter speed of the camera to something like 1/1500-2000th of a second, In this case, I suggest you must switch off this feature in your camera to avoid such problematic situations. This is not an issue in DSLR cameras, One important information is, EFCS option never works or disabled when shooting in Single and Continuous Release modes. Everything has a little confusing condition

Kindly check your DSLR camera for this feature. If your camera does not have this feature then please do not exchange your camera only for this feature only. Vibration, shakes, blurry problems can also be rectified from other solutions already discussed in my previous blogs. If you are planning to buy a new DSLR camera then you must have this feature on your camera. Shoot the subject with this feature on and off then feel the difference and share the result.

Keep experimenting and Happy photography to you all.

Photographer & Blogger Prasenjeet Gautam (www.prasenjeetgautam.com). Image courtesy Google. Image used for NIKON Cameras