What is Global Shutter? And How It Works - hbvcam

30 Jun.,2025

 

What is Global Shutter? And How It Works - hbvcam

What is Global Shutter?

Global shutter exposes all pixels on a sensor simultaneously, in contrast to the gradual scanning of rolling shutters. This can be likened to a snapshot, capturing the entire scene at once and avoiding the distortions common in fast-paced action.

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Crucial in photography and filmmaking, this technology eliminates the notorious “jello effect” that often plagues traditional rolling shutters when panning quickly or capturing fast-moving subjects.

How Does Global Shutter Work?

Imagine a camera sensor as a grid of light detectors. Global shutter works like a flash photograph, where an electronic signal quickly turns off each pixel simultaneously, preventing light from being recorded. When the shutter opens, light hits all detectors at once, capturing the entire scene in one instant.

When the shutter opens, light hits all detectors simultaneously, freezing the moment in a flash-photography style. The result is distortion-free imagery, making it ideal for sports, wildlife, or any action-packed scene. While global shutter technology is somewhat more intricate and costly to produce, it ensures precise flash exposures.

The Sony a9III emerges as a groundbreaking solution to the challenges posed by rolling shutters, marking the debut of a global shutter in a full-frame mirrorless camera. Its stacked CMOS sensor not only achieves this milestone but also offers exceptional processing power and speed.

Thanks to these technological advancements, the camera boasts impressive capabilities, including shooting at 120fps in 14-bit RAW for up to 192 frames, real-time autofocus, flash sync at any shutter speed, and a maximum shutter speed of 1/.

The global shutter mechanism offers several benefits over rolling shutters:

- Eliminates rolling shutter distortion: Global shutter captures the entire scene simultaneously, preventing warped lines that can occur with rolling shutters.

- No blackout: Unlike rolling shutters, global shutters don’t cause a blackout in the viewfinder, allowing for easier subject tracking.

- Accurate flash exposures: Global shutter ensures synchronization between the flash and shutter speed, resulting in precise flash exposures.

- Ideal for fast-moving subjects: The global shutter’s ability to freeze fast-moving subjects without distortion makes it perfect for action photography.

Other Shutters

Electronic shutters are powered by electronic signals that complement their mechanical counterparts, offering speed and enabling swift shutter speeds but introducing unique issues—such as occasional banding.

Old-school mechanical shutters operate by opening and closing to control exposure time, often accompanied by a hint of noise. They function either line by line or with a physical curtain, contrasting with the global shutter, which exposes the entire sensor simultaneously.

A rolling shutter, commonly used in CMOS sensors, captures images in a sequential manner, scanning the sensor line by line. This type is generally more cost-effective than global shutters.

Understanding these shutter variants provides perspective on the global shutter’s capabilities. Each has its rhythm, but the global shutter stands out with its simultaneous exposure technique, effectively eliminating distortions and blackouts while ensuring precise flash exposure for seamless photographic performance.

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Benefits of Global Shutter

Unlike rolling shutters, global shutters maintain a clear view throughout the scanning process, eliminating blackout disruptions in the viewfinder. In low-light photography, global shutters shine by capturing sharp, distortion-free images at faster shutter speeds, minimizing the need for high ISO settings and reducing noise.

These shutters are crucial for achieving an authentic film look, as they capture the entire scene simultaneously, erasing artifacts. Additionally, solo creators may benefit from global shutters by experiencing less strobing with non-film-friendly lights, resulting in potential cost savings downstream.

Real World Global Shutter Examples

Sports and Action Photography: The global shutter’s ability to freeze motion without distortion makes it ideal for capturing athletes in action, such as runners crossing the finish line, soccer players kicking the ball, or basketball players dunking.

Wildlife Photography: Tracking and capturing elusive animals in their natural habitat—like birds in flight, cheetahs sprinting, or elephants roaming—requires the capability to freeze motion and eliminate artifacts. The global shutter enables wildlife photographers to capture these moments with exceptional clarity and detail.

Studio Photography: It ensures consistent and accurate flash synchronization, resulting in high-quality, balanced lighting.

Low-Light Photography: The global shutter maintains image quality in dimly lit environments without compromising sharpness.

How Might Global Shutter Affect Photography?

The global shutter has the potential to become the new standard for high-performance cameras, offering significant advantages in image quality and performance. Imagine capturing distortion-free images in dynamic genres like sports or wildlife. Beyond photography, its precision may revolutionize object tracking, motion analysis, and autofocus capabilities.

As global shutter technology continues to develop, camera design and manufacturing will expand, increasing access to cameras equipped with this feature. The overall impact could usher in a revolutionary era of high-quality, distortion-free imaging, shaping the future of visual storytelling.

Final Thoughts

Global shutter represents a pivotal advancement in camera technology, providing a range of benefits for users. With ongoing improvements in resolution, sensitivity, and cost, global shutters are poised for greater adoption among photographers and content creators.

Global Shutter Image Sensor - Sony Semiconductor Solutions

The back-illuminated pixel structure adopted in Pregius S global shutter technology has made both higher definition and smaller size a reality, on top of its non-distortion imaging functionality.This new structure has a superior light collection efficiency compared to the conventional front-illuminated structure and, while maintaining the levels of sensitivity and saturation capacity, achieved a reduction of the pixel size down to 2.74 µm square, about 63% of the conventional models.*1  In addition, rearranging the circuit area from the edges to the back of the sensor area has helped to achieve a 1.7-fold increase in resolution for the same optical size and reduce the package size to about 91% of the existing products.*1

As a result, it can achieve a high-definition small-sized machine vision camera compatible with up to approx. 24.45 M effective pixels in a C-mount 1.2-type sensor, allowing more flexibility in its applications to systems and production lines.

*1) Compared to "IMX253" and "IMX531," Sony’s 1.1-type CMOS image sensors with 12.37 M effective pixels.

The high flexibility in the wiring layout offered by the back-illuminated pixel structure of Pregius S, combined with adoption of the proprietarily developed SLVS-EC interface with an embedded clock, enables high-resolution image data to be read at high speed and output efficiency. This potentially improves the takt time and throughput of the manufacturing systems or equipment.

As technologies such as USB 3.0 and 5 GigE become more prevalent, our standard 5 Gbps-compatible product range is enhanced by an extensive lineup of high-speed products for high-end cameras that use a high-speed band, improving the productivity significantly through reducing the time necessary for inspection, image recognition, identification, measurement, and other types of measurement and inspection.

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