Bracketting without flipping the mirror up

[moz]

I was wondering last night whether anyone makes a DSLR that can bracket with mirror up. Specifically, for HDR shots I find I'm often bracketting at such a high speed that there seems to point in dropping the mirror between shots. So if I want 1/200,1/400,1/800 exposures, why can't the camera just flick the shutter three times then crank the mirror? I realise there would be speed issues with the shutter cocking and sensor readout, so probably this would still need a few ms between firings, but it should be much faster than the current plan. Perhaps even fast enough to make handheld HDR possible.

Of course, this came up in an odd dream about the 1DsIII and what it's capable of, but it does seem really obvious now I think about it.

[Yi-P]

Modern cameras lack those MLU of old mechanical cameras. You simply flip a knob up and the mirror will stay up all the time without draining your battery (they dont need one to operate anyway). I miss this nice feature of the oldies...

[moz]

Yeah, I am (in retrospect) a big fan of the mechanical mirror lock up. Kids these days would no doubt whine that when engaged it prevents the autofocus and metering from working. I keep thinking that well Canon have the clues to make a 10fps digital camera, so therefore it must take less than 1/10s to cycle the shutter and read off the sensor and hence it should be possible to just reduce the noise if nothing else by not flacking the mirror up and down all the time, and get three quiet frames in ~3/10s with proper bracketing. Or even 5 frames, you know.


Oooops, ah, </whining>