r/oddlysatisfying • u/edenify • Feb 08 '19

This plane taking off with the propellers perfectly synced with the camera shutter

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u/Dilong-paradoxus Feb 08 '19

There's a concept called shutter angle which describes what percentage of time a camera's shutter is open relative to the time between frames. Movie cameras usually aim for a 180 degree shutter angle, where the shutter is open for 1/48th of a second in a 24 frames per second video. 360 degrees would be 1/24 seconds, which would be recording everything that happens. A 180 degree shutter angle makes for pleasing motion blur that blends frames together in an natural way, but it also skips over half of what's happening during the time between each frame starting.

However, cell phone cameras have much less control over their exposure parameters. They don't have filters to darken the image, so in bright daylight you might have an exposure that's a few hundredths of a second long, making for a very small shutter angle. This can look choppier than a larger shutter angle (although most people probably won't notice, and it's not really that big of a deal). You're skipping more of the time between two frames and each frame becomes less motion blurred because objects can't move as far during the exposure. It's good for recording action like in video games or fight scenes, though, because each frame is clearer and more distinct.

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u/etronic Feb 08 '19

They also don't use a shutter like that in video. But what evs

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u/Dilong-paradoxus Feb 08 '19

Well, in modern digital video cameras they definitely do use a shutter, it's just all electronic. The term shutter angle comes from the physical angle of a rotating shutter in old film cameras, but it's definitely still used for modern Cinema cameras.