Rolling shutter

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What rolling shutter is

Most video cameras and phones don't capture a frame all at once. They read the sensor one row at a time, top to bottom, which takes a few milliseconds. Anything that moves during that readout gets recorded at slightly different moments in different rows.

• Readout time

  How long the sensor takes to read from its top row to its bottom row. Phones can take 30 ms or more; fast cinema sensors take a few milliseconds; a global shutter takes none.

• Skew

  During a fast pan, each lower row is captured a little later, after the scene has moved further. Vertical lines like masts and buildings lean over.

• Jello

  Fast vibration, from a drone motor or a car engine, shifts rows back and forth while they're read. The whole picture wobbles like jelly.

• Hand shake

  A handheld camera drifts a few times a second. That is slow next to the readout, so the picture doesn't ripple, but verticals lean a little and change direction from frame to frame.

• Running

  Every footstep lands with a jolt, and the short shudder after it is fast enough to be read row by row. Frames on a footfall kink and ripple while the ones between them only lean with the stride.

• Global shutter

  Captures every row at the same moment, so none of these artefacts appear. Once limited to specialist cameras, it's now arriving in some cinema and mirrorless bodies.

• Reducing it

  Pan more slowly, stabilise the camera, use a faster-reading sensor or a lower-resolution mode that reads quicker, or correct mild skew in editing software.