Where does this come from, and can I check it?

A rolling shutter exposes rows in sequence, so fast motion or a flickering light bends straight lines out of shape. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a technology fact?

Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

Cheap cameras read pixels one row at a time

A rolling shutter exposes rows in sequence, so fast motion or a flickering light bends straight lines out of shape A global shutter would expose every pixel at the same instant, but that needs more transistors per cell and costs light sensitivity. Reading rows in turn means a moving object is captured at slightly different moments down the frame, so a spinning propeller can look curved. Phone software corrects some of the distortion using gyroscope data. It sits in Mondo's technology collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Britannica

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Technology trivia

More facts like this

The CCD image sensor was invented in 1969Willard Boyle and George Smith sketched a charge transfer device at Bell Labs in an hour and saw its camera use Every pixel got its own amplifier in 1993Eric Fossum's active pixel design put a transistor inside each cell, so cheap CMOS factories could make cameras Two metals in a loop make a thermometerThomas Seebeck found in 1821 that a temperature difference between junctions drives a small voltage around the circuit Phone accelerometers are etched from siliconA microscopic proof mass on flexible springs shifts when the device accelerates, and capacitance measures it Lidar measures distance by timing a light pulseA short laser flash bounces off a surface, and the return delay gives range to within a few centimetres Capacitive touchscreens detect touch using electrostatic chargeHuman body conductivity alters the electrostatic field on a glass-coated sensor array

Tags: cameras, sensors, artefacts

Cheap cameras read pixels one row at a time: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: A rolling shutter exposes rows in sequence, so fast motion or a flickering light bends straight lines out of shape. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a technology fact?: Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.