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Z6 III shutter lag measurements

  
 
snapsy
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p.1 #1 · Z6 III shutter lag measurements


I've measured the shutter lag of the Z6 III.

Setup

Arduino board connected to the Z6 III DC-2 remote shutter port via a DC2-to-2.5mm sub cable, electrically isolated through optocoupler.

Methodology

Audio: My Arduino code triggers the shutter programmatically, at the same time it turns on an Arduino-attached buzzer. An audio of the resulting exposure is captured with my iPhone. I pull the audio into a waveform editor and measure the time between the start of the buzzer and the start of the mechanical curtain sounds.

LED: There are three LEDs on the Arduino board. I turn on all three LEDs before triggering the shutter programmatically, then progressively turn them off:

  1. I turn off the bottom (red) LED after 35ms (milliseconds)
  2. I turn off the center (green) LED after 40ms
  3. I turn off the top (blue) LED after 45ms

By counting the number of lit LEDs in the resulting captured image, the shutter lag including exposure time can be calculated.

Results

  1. Fully-mechanical shutter: 65ms
  2. EFCS: 35ms
  3. Electronic shutter: 38ms

I also measured the minimum pulse duration (width) required to trigger the shutter. It's 160 us (microseconds).






Z6 III Arduino shutter lag measurement setup







Z6 III shutter lag audio waveform and measurement







Z6 III shutter lag LED measurement




Jul 31, 2026 at 09:50 AM
RustyRus
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p.1 #2 · Z6 III shutter lag measurements


This is pretty cool-

Crazy you enjoy this but cool

Whats the lag introduced by the circuit? Is that measurable? Has to be something but my guess would be minimal?

Also would be very interesting if you did this with the Leica M11- sometimes I swear its 600ms



Jul 31, 2026 at 09:53 AM
loudtiger
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p.1 #3 · Z6 III shutter lag measurements


RustyRus wrote:
This is pretty cool-

Crazy you enjoy this but cool

Whats the lag introduced by the circuit? Is that measurable? Has to be something but my guess would be minimal?

Also would be very interesting if you did this with the Leica M11- sometimes I swear its 600ms


The Decisive Moment indeed



Jul 31, 2026 at 12:50 PM







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