I would love to be able to use the electronic shutter at will, even if it means losing those 40 fps. As you said, silent Raw shooting and prolonging the mechanical shutter life are huge benefits. I really hope it can be done.

You can already use the burst mode for timelapse, as a timelapse controller will fire quick enough to only take 1 frame.

Good idea.

@Dusty42

Thing that you must understand is that camera uses approach similar to MJPEG videos, not stills.
So, this is essentially video mode saved as separate frames.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev,

I had tried to do a timelapse using this mode with an external timer. I ran into 2 problems.

1. I could not go down to 1/2 shutter.

2. for the first 1 minute or so I got 1 fps as desired with the 1/40 shutter (not good). But as time went on, I got 2fps and worse sometimes 3fps. I had to write a batch script to pull out only the frames needed. The finished timelapse clip was not good because it was not smooth; it was too choppy.

The 2fps or 3fps was probably due to my timer. It was about $70 from Amazon. I would still be stuck with the 1/40 shutter if I had a better timer with the current mode.

Thanks for the explanation of how the cam handles this burst mode. I thought the mode was actually a still mode because I would have to put the mode dial to PASM before I could shoot burst. For mjpeg, I would have to put the dial in the vid mode. So, it seemed to me that the only things missing were the ability to select the size and the quality of the photo. Am I completely wrong?

Thanks.

@Vitaliy_Keselev,

I got you. Thanks. Need to toss a few more coins into the piggy bank for the next cam for silent RAW shooting.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev

Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense now. So I guess we need to promote this to Panasonic instead of to you, right? Can you comment on whether it is feasible to extend the "B" mode 2 minute and 8 second exposure limit or not? Is this a hardware issue?

Shooting RAW images with a silent shutter for unlimited exposure duration would be ideal for Astro Photography. That is something that Canon has embraced but Panasonic has not.

Panasonic clearly sold this burst mode as photo mode because one has to set the mode dial to photo in order to use the burst mode. This procedure is also needed to shoot mechanical shutter. One thing I do not understand is "where does the cam get the resource to process to 4-7fps RAW photos?" using mechanical shutter. If it could be hacked, at the expense of reduced fps to 2-3 for RAW, it would still be far superior than it is now.

"Keep this in mind: the camera should be able to do 5 FPS burst in stills. Are you able to achieve that on your card with RAW mode?"

I quoted the 4-7fps RAW+jpeg from the manual for photo mode. Personally I find that too fast. Most shots are almost the same at this speed. I like to space out the shots a little more. This tends to give the right composure and expression in a shot from a burst.

I factored in some overhead involved. Hence, I stated reduced fps to 2-3. But it does not look like it's going to happen because Vitaliy mentioned that the burst mode was like mjpeg. Of course, shooting RAW in mjpeg will never happen. Not yet.

Thanks.

@duartix, another lesson learned for me today on the well hidden benefit. I have never gone that long on my cam. The longest I have used is the Panny 100mm-300mm for birding. Have gotten some good keepers. Only use mechanical shutter for RAW. Would love to be able to shoot RAW on electronic shutter but...

Another benefit that I found with electronic shutter is that it's not affected by the nasty gamma shift on my cam using 14-140mm from Panny. The gamma shift affects all the vid modes and mechanical photo mode. I remember reading somewhere on PV; Vitaliy mentioned that the cam used different sensor modes for displaying on LCD/EVF and the moment the shutter/record button is pressed; or something along that line. Assuming that Vitaliy is correct, this means that the electronic "photo" mode uses the same sensor that used for displaying before the shutter/record button is pressed. Or it's something else. I mention this because it might shed some light for Vitaliy to look at the gamma shift. Do you notice this too? Or I just have a "good" copy of cam? :)

Stacking the 40fps sounds very interesting. I understood some of the theory behind stacking. Wouldn't it only give you more DR and details? The frames must be exactly the same (minus details and tone) for stacking to work, right? Can you get bigger than the roughly 4 megapix from PhotoAcute?

Need to look up PhotoAcute.

Thanks a bunch for the tips.

"Mysteron Burst" has nothing to do with Photo Burst Modes. It's called Burst because of it's high Data-Rate you will only be able to shoot some seconds of Video.

@duartix That is correct. With telephoto focal lengths an electronic or vibrationless shutter is essential.

There are several ways to overcome this though. One is by selectively choosing the best images and interpolating between them. This is not true stacking because it doesn’t necessarily increase the exposure. It will help with “Bad Seeing” and increase the perceived resolution though.

You can also get a black sheet of paper and place it in front of the scope when you press the shutter release button. If you set the exposure to 4-8 seconds and then use the piece of paper as a manual shutter you can essentially make an electronic/vibrationless shutter.

You can also put a very dark moon filter on the scope and use a high powered barlow. That will allow you to shoot at very long shutter durations that are not affected as much by shutter vibration. I will demonstrate these techniques in my video tutorial.

@mpgxsvcd : Interesting techniques you are posting! :)

Unfortunately they will have little use in the 1/200s to 1/10s SS range which is where I use and need them. :(

@mpgxsvcd Yup, and you go there and tell that to the birds! ;)