Recently, this blog post came to my attention: https://blog.kasson.com/nikon-z6-7/how-fast-is-the-z7-silent-shutter/
This gives a method for measuring rolling shutter of any camera, by filming some flickering light, as long as you know its frequency.
Examples of flickering lights:
- a plain old incandescent bulb in PAL land will flicker at 100 Hz (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Full-wave_rectified_sine.svg) (caveat: mains frequency is not exactly stable (http://wwwhome.cs.utwente.nl/~ptdeboer/misc/mains.html), but still reasonably good)
- some laptop monitors will start to flicker when you reduce their brightness; this frequency might be a little more stable
- many LED lights are also flickering; some at hundreds of Hz (useful for us), others at some kHz (not useful for us)
- if you've got an Arduino and a LED, you can program it to flicker at arbitrary frequency -> pwm.ino (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/pwm.ino) (default: 500 Hz)
- or, just move the camera around, looking for something that flickers
Unknown frequency?
What if you've got a flickering light, but you don't know its frequency? You can measure it with any ML-enabled camera, as we already know the sensor readout timings (https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=12656.0):
- open the FPS override submenu, without actually enabling it (i.e. select FPS override in ML menu, leave it OFF and press Q)
- look for Main Clock => camera-specific constant (5D2 and 5D3 use 24 MHz, 700D/650D/M/100D use 32 MHz and so on)
- look for Timer A => this gives line readout speed. Timer A / Main Clock = line readout time. Example: 5D2 25p => 600 / 24 MHz = 25 microseconds per line.
- look for Timer B => this gives frame rate: FPS = Main Clock / Timer A / Timer B.
- write down these values; the Octave script below will do the math for you.
Octave script
I've prepared a small Octave script to perform this measurement: rolling.m (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/rolling.m)
Requirements:
- Octave 4.x with the following packages: image and signal
- to analyze DNG files, you will also need read_raw.m (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/read_raw.m) and dcraw
You can either run the measurements on your own (caveat: the script may require some fiddling), or you can upload test images for me to analyze.
Sample test images
All converted from silent picture DNGs:
5D3-500hz-25p.jpg (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/5D3-500hz-25p.jpg) (using pwm.ino (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/pwm.ino) at 500 Hz)
5D3-500hz-24p.jpg (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/5D3-500hz-24p.jpg) (same light source)
5D2-100hz-25p-weak.jpg (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/5D2-100Hz-25p-weak.jpg) (mains frequency, very weak light, but still usable)
Sample output
octave rolling.m 5D3-500hz-25p.jpg 24e6 480
Using blue channel.
Pattern repeats every 100 lines (method: pwelch).
Pattern repeats every 100 lines (method: overlap).
Pattern repeats every 100 lines (method: zerocross).
Method: pwelch => 100.00 lines
Line readout clock: 50.00 kHz, i.e. 20.00 μs/line (known).
Light source frequency: 500.01 Hz (measured).
octave rolling.m 5D3-500hz-24p.jpg 24e6 440
Using blue channel.
Pattern repeats every 109 lines (method: pwelch).
Pattern repeats every 109 lines (method: overlap).
Pattern repeats every 109 lines (method: zerocross).
Method: pwelch => 108.98 lines
Line readout clock: 54.55 kHz, i.e. 18.33 μs/line (known).
Light source frequency: 500.52 Hz (measured).
octave rolling.m 5D3-500hz-25p.jpg 500
Using blue channel.
Pattern repeats every 100 lines (method: pwelch).
Pattern repeats every 100 lines (method: overlap).
Pattern repeats every 100 lines (method: zerocross).
Method: pwelch => 100.00 lines
Light source frequency: 500.00 Hz (known).
Line readout clock: 49998.86 kHz, i.e. 20.00 μs/line (measured).
Rolling shutter: 25.80 ms for 1290 lines.
octave rolling.m 5D3-500hz-24p.jpg 500
Using blue channel.
Pattern repeats every 109 lines (method: pwelch).
Pattern repeats every 109 lines (method: overlap).
Pattern repeats every 109 lines (method: zerocross).
Method: pwelch => 108.98 lines
Light source frequency: 500.00 Hz (known).
Line readout clock: 54488.46 kHz, i.e. 18.35 μs/line (measured).
Rolling shutter: 23.67 ms for 1290 lines.
octave rolling.m 5D2-100Hz-25p-weak.jpg 24e6 600
Using red channel.
Pattern repeats every 401 lines (method: pwelch).
Pattern repeats every 20 lines (method: overlap).
Pattern repeats every 21 lines (method: zerocross).
Method: pwelch => 400.68 lines
Line readout clock: 40.00 kHz, i.e. 25.00 μs/line (known).
Light source frequency: 99.83 Hz (measured).
# From the blog post: "So, the scan time is a bit over 60 milliseconds [...]"
wget https://blog.kasson.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Z702693.jpg
mogrify -resize "8256x5504" Z702693.jpg
octave rolling.m -v Z702693.jpg 120
Using red channel.
Vignette fix...
Pattern repeats every 736 lines (method: pwelch).
Pattern repeats every 20 lines (method: overlap).
Pattern repeats every 733 lines (method: zerocross).
Method: pwelch => 736.36 lines
Light source frequency: 120.00 Hz (known).
Line readout clock: 88363.15 kHz, i.e. 11.32 μs/line (measured).
Rolling shutter: 62.29 ms for 5504 lines.
Accuracy?
That depends on:
- how stable your test frequency is (mains frequency is probably +/- 1%, maybe more);
- how accurate our stripe size measurement is (let's say +/- 1 pixel, so it depends on stripe size).
A few tests with 5D3 at 1080p25 with the same 500Hz test light, input files 1 (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/36290001.DNG) 2 (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/36290002.DNG) 3 (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/36290003.DNG) 4 (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/36290004.DNG):
for f in *.DNG; do octave rolling.m $f 500 | grep "measured"; done
Line readout clock: 50123.14 kHz, i.e. 19.95 μs/line (measured).
Line readout clock: 49898.92 kHz, i.e. 20.04 μs/line (measured).
Line readout clock: 49932.19 kHz, i.e. 20.03 μs/line (measured).
Line readout clock: 50137.52 kHz, i.e. 19.95 μs/line (measured).
Not that bad.
Wanted: test images
I'm looking for some test images from recent models not yet running ML, i.e. all DIGIC 6 and newer (including, but not limited to, 80D, 750D/760D, 7D2, 5D4, 5DS, 200D, 800D, 77D, 6D2, M50, EOS R), cross-checked with images from a camera already running ML.
Test conditions:
- blank wall under flickering light, without stray objects (e.g. please don't include the light bulb)
- focus doesn't matter (the script will average every row of the image)
- lens doesn't matter at all (you can perform the experiment without a lens if you want)
- choose any shutter speed that makes the flicker obvious (usually faster shutter speeds are preferred)
- ISO and aperture are not important; just make sure the image is reasonably clean
Test set should include:
- For the camera already running ML:
- two simple DNG silent pictures from movie mode, one at 1080p24 and another at 1080p25
- if you don't want to install ML on the test camera, a frame extracted from H.264 video will also work (in this case I'll have to guess the captured resolution)
- I'll use these to measure (or double-check) the frequency of the light source.
- For the camera not (yet?) running ML:
- a video frame (extracted from video) at each resolution x frame rate setting from Canon menu
- if the camera has an option to take completely silent pictures in LiveView, please include one of these as well (full-res JPG)
I'll use these tests to estimate the sensor readout speed and to verify some hypotheses about LiveView configuration for 80D (https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=17360.msg200479#msg200479), 5D4 (https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=17695.msg206730#msg206730) and other recent models I've looked into.
This method can be used with images from non-Canon cameras, too; feel free to submit them if you are curious, just be aware this won't magically bring ML to your camera :)
First test: EOS R from kitor, using the 500Hz LED on Arduino Uno, cross-checked with 5D2. I've analyzed the first 8 frames from each test clip.
Results:
Silent still: 17.47 μs/line, 78.25 ms full readout at 6720x4480 => 385 MPix/second readout speed?
4K24/23.98/25/30: 14.45 +/- 0.019 μs/line, 31.2 ms at 3840x2160
1080p24/25/30/50/60: 14.12 +/- 0.067 μs/line, 15.3 ms at 1920x1080
720p25/30/50/60: 21.20 +/- 0.087 μs/line, 15.3 ms at 1280x720
720p100/120: 9.47 +/- 0.204 μs/line, 6.8 ms at 1280x720
Timings expected on 5D4, from this chart (https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=17695.msg206730#msg206730) and related notes (some numbers were guessed):
- Silent still: 17.46 μs/line (1:1 readout)
- 4K24/25/30: 14.44 μs/line (readout appears to be 4104 x something; likely cropped to 4096x2160 without resizing, i.e. 1:1 readout)
- 1080p24/25/30/50/60: 12.10 μs/line in RAW, 12.10 * 1260 / 1080 = 14.117 μs/line in 1080p output
(readout 2256x1266 (https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=17695.msg205999#msg205999), possibly cropped to 2240x1260 or maybe 2244x1262 or something close)
- 720p50/60 (120p standby): 12.10 μs/line in RAW, 12.10 * 756 / 720 = 12.705 μs/line in hypothetical 720p output
(guess: 3:2 squeezed readout with 5x3 ratio at 2256x902 cropped to 2240x896)
- 720p50/60 on the R: 12.10 μs/line in RAW, 12.10 * 1260 / 720 = 21.175 μs/line in 720p output
(guess: same readout size as 1080p on the R)
- 720p120: 9.0 μs/line in RAW; expected readout size 2256x762 (5x3 squeeze), possibly cropped to 2240x756
=> 9.0 * 756/720 = 9.45 μs/line
Full details, including raw data and everything you need to reproduce the measurements:
rolling-eos-r.html (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/rolling-shutter/rolling-eos-r.html)
Quote from: a1ex on November 17, 2018, 10:45:02 PM
Silent still: 17.47 μs/line, 78.25 ms full readout at 6720x4480 => 385 MPix/second readout speed?
~12,5 frames per second in Full resolution :)
As in ~16 MPix frames (5K/6K) in 24 fps :D
Yeah, I had this hypothesis earlier after looking into 5D4 firmware, but could not believe my own eyes :)
Quote from: a1ex on October 16, 2018, 10:28:42 AM
- 1746: same as with 2194; 12.57 FPS?! 380 Mp/s?! [take with a grain of salt; not confirmed experimentally]
Looking forward to test images from 5D4 and M50, as these models also appear to have a silent shooting mode.
This is very interesting ! :D
Actually I was going start a thread asking questions on Sensor readout & frequency -- frame rate etc. ...
But it seems you have started it , that great .
Quoteoctave rolling.m 5D2-100Hz-25p-weak.jpg 24e6 600
Line readout clock: 40.00 kHz, i.e. 25.00 μs/line (known).
So compared to 5d3 & 5d4 the 5d2 readout is very very slow , if I understand correctly .
Need to learn more about this .
Seems others have looked in to this with a EOS R -- https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/61723181
Quote from: reddeercity on November 18, 2018, 04:13:17 AM
So compared to 5d3 & 5d4 the 5d2 readout is very very slow , if I understand correctly .
Line readout speed is given by Timer A / Main Clock (from FPS override). The latter is constant, so it all depends on how far you can push timer A (lower values = higher speeds). For the entire image, you would just multiply the microseconds/line with the image height.
Both 5D2 and 5D3 have a 24MHz clock, but use different values of timer A.
5D2: default is 600 in 25p and 572 in 24/30p; that means, with default Canon firmware, 25p is read out slower than 24p/30. There's no good reason for that; you can already reprogram the timers from FPS override to reduce rolling shutter. In plain 1080p, timer A can go down to 552 units according to old notes from fps-engio.c (2012); need to double-check. One timer A unit reads out 4 horizontal pixels; there is some overhead, not sure where it comes from.
5D3: default is 480 in 25p and 440 in 24/30p. Both can be "overclocked" to 398 without introducing image artifacts. Some numbers in this thread (https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=21379). One timer A unit reads out 8 horizontal pixels; the overhead is even larger; it might have something to do with binning.
In other words, in 1080p, 5D2 sensor is about 40% slower than 5D3. In photo mode, 5D2 reads out 5792x3804 at 4.2 FPS (from this post (https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=12523.msg121962#msg121962), 24e6 / (0x5db+1) / (0xedc+1) = 4.2), while 5D3 does 5936x3950 at 7.65 FPS, so the former is about twice as slow.
5D4/R appear to have similar configurations (the matched timings are unlikely to be just a coincidence, but let's wait for the measurements). My initial impression is that sensor readout is somehow throttled in video mode, possibly to avoid overheating; the silent mode uses a pretty fast readout, and I'd expect it to match the maximum sensor readout speed.
I've got some graphs over here (https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=19300.msg207723#msg207723), some more complete than others:
(https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/lv-resolution/5D2.png) (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/lv-resolution/5D3-edmac0.png) (https://a1ex.magiclantern.fm/bleeding-edge/lv-resolution/5D4-lv2.png)
The red-black diagonal on the 5D3 graph shows exactly when the readout process takes place. Note to self: publish the code to get this graph from other models.
Quote from: reddeercity on November 19, 2018, 03:45:05 AM
Seems others have looked in to this with a EOS R -- https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/61723181
Very cool. This shows just how weak my google-fu is :)
I came across this measurement (https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/9nhx7x/canon_eos_r_rolling_silent_shutter_speed_measured/) before running the test, but wasn't aware of this dpreview post.
Expecting something similar from M50 (possibly 27 MHz for the main clock):
timer A = 772, B = 4061 (6176x4061 8.612 fps?) @ e19ebb78
timer A = 534, B = 4061 (6408x4061 12.451 fps?) @ e19ebbd0
The exact same numbers (at different addresses) can be found in M5, M6, 200D, 800D, 77D; are these using the same sensor?!
First line also matches the 80D, which doesn't have a silent capture option IIRC, but why it has two different readout speeds?!
Quote from: a1ex on April 24, 2018, 04:41:05 PM
6288 x 4057 (timer A = 772, B = 4061, 8.612 FPS) @ feb47c28
6288 x 4057 (timer A = 1064, B = 4061, 6.249 FPS) @ feb47cb8
Let's measure them to find out what is actually used.
Great info , I'm getting a better understanding of the readout & head timers .
This helps me.
I can do any thing to help on 80d. But am noon is there any way to instruct me step by step how to help u. Am ready.
I can do any thing to help on 80d. But am noon is there any way to instruct me step by step how to help u. Am ready.
Detailed instructions: Post 1 of this thread.
Derp, never mind. Mistook Hz for 2x freq of light transitions at a given Hz.