Using the footage we captured in Jon’s workshop, I set about trying to 3D track it. As mentioned in a previous post the camera we used was set up specifically to make tracking easier. However, an issue arose from the shutter speed that we used. Because we had the shutter speed up to be faster than usual the footage had an issue called ‘Rolling Shutter’ which caused warping in the clips.

Rolling Shutter is how a camera captures each image, not in a single instance, but instead in lines scanning across the scene. When filming fast moving objects or scenery this is particularly visible as the scene will have a slant on anything moving too fast. For example, when filming while traveling in a moving car going down the motorway, the trees may all look like they are slanted. This is due to the rolling shutter. This effect can also be seen when taking images of weather phenomenon such as lightning.

Here is an example from one of my own pictures taken on my iphone a few years ago that demonstrates this.

As you can see there is a line down the right hand side of the picture where it looks darker. This is because this image was taken during a lightning storm, although it looks like daylight, its actually light from a flash of lightning. Because the camera took this image by scanning across the scene it was dark while it was taking the most right hand part of the image but light due to the lighting in the rest of it.

In terms of shutter speed, rolling shutter can still have an effect even if you are not filming fast moving things. This is because of the speed in which the camera can read the image. As explained here:

Source: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-crop-sensor-hd/480720-rolling-shutter-high-shutter-speed.html