Early in the morning I was recording a video clip of a piece of acorn cap a spider was using as a web anchor (lifted around 4 feet off the ground) when a moth flew past the light. Except on the recorded video, it doesn’t look anything like–well, anything. Could this appearance of two sets of wings be the result of a CMOS rolling shutter artifact? Or more likely two of something mating?
No mystery.
Shutter artifacts like this happen all the time.
BTW–I have 25+ years in Aerial Photography.
Yeah.
Shutter artifact.
The thing you shot was moving fat, & moving it’s wings even faster.
Two cotton wood seeds flying in tandem?
There’s an SD column about this phenomenon:
There’s also a Wikipedia article about it:
Here is a 7-minute YouTube video that explains the “rolling shutter” artifact very thoroughly, with a whole lot of slow-motion simulations, featuring lots of airplane propellers and guitar strings and other fast-moving stuffs. Mindblowing!
Thanks for that, fascinating!
I appreciate your posting that. I knew about the effect, but his explanation simplifies it so I’ll be able to explain it to others.
Thanks
I’ve watched a number of flight deck videos and every time there’s a Greyhound idling nearby – about the only aircraft with visible propellers – they look curvy. When being launched or coming for a landing they’re spinning too fast and just blur, like people expect.
Generations ago the focal plane shutter had a similar effect on still images, to the point where artists would draw a fast moving vehicle leaning forward to indicate it was speeding.
