Is this Z8 rolling shutter effect?

[tigger4t]

I've never seen this effect in an image before but suspect that the 'blurred' colour at the nape of this gannets neck the caused by rolling shutter effect on my Z8 (with Z 180-600mm).

The entire bird was a frame filler at 600mm and I was panning quite quickly as the bird was relatively close - EXIF data is shown on the right of the image as viewed in Affinity Photo at around 200% zoom. This shot was destined for the bin anyway as it wasn't as sharp as others in the short burst which surprisingly didn't show this effect.

If it is rolling shutter effect, is there any way to mitigate it or is it just a case of either 'live with it' or 'don't pan quickly'.

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[Len Shepherd]

Difficult to say - other than if it is a rolling shutter effect then on a DSLR there could also be a rolling shutter effect as the shutter blades would expose the sensor vertically with a slit height around 1/20th of a millimetre.
This is estimated on the assumption in a pro-grade DSLR the shutter is not fully open at any one point during the exposure faster than about 1/250 of a second - slightly longer than the camera flash sync speed.

I presume if the pan speed was fairly close to the horizontal digital write speed of the image the effect would be relative small - if a rolling shutter effect - as horizontal movement of the bird in the frame relative to the pan speed would need to be faster than the horizontal digital write speed.

The segment of the bird in the image after the crop I estimate around 6 inches wide compared to about 5 feet wide for a tight frame filling image of a gannet prior to cropping.

QQQ - is the image about acceptably sharp without panning?

 

[EricBowles]

I don't think that is a rolling shutter effect. That looks like motion blur (edit to add: "or possibly an IBIS/VR artifact"). Rolling shutter normally shows up when the readout from top to bottom of the frame takes enough time to show motion. With a hummingbird it shows up as wildly swirling wings.

Here is an extreme example with the Z6 and Silent shutter mode.

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[bleirer]

Just speculation but given that it is a different color slightly than the neck, maybe it is part of a wing or joint in the background. I'd be surprised if that camera had any rolling shutter.

 

[tigger4t]

Thanks for all of your comments - it's a strange one for sure.

 

[Len Shepherd]

Just speculation but given that it is a different color slightly than the neck, maybe it is part of a wing or joint in the background. I'd be surprised if that camera had any rolling shutter.

This to me seems the best explanation.
Gannets often fly with their head at an angle to the direction of flight.