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Nikon D3200 and low light flicker
I recently upgraded from the Nikon D3100 to the D3200 for video and have been doing a lot of test shoots to decide on light setups for a new project I’m going to be filming in the fall. I’ve been really happy with the camera so far, but I’ve started to notice when filming with it that I’m getting a distracting flicker but only in certain low-light values. At first I thought it was a problem with my lights which I described in the Lighting Design Pros forum (https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/47/859854)
But today I did a shootout between my old fixtures and the new ones I’m using, along with the LED floods I use vs. HMI vs. Incandescent and they all end up having the same distracting flicker which (when I isolate the areas in FCP) happens between 2 – 5% on the waveform monitor and more on the red and blue channels than the green. It’s not fluorescent/LED type flicker. It’s like the camera can’t decide what the value is so it keeps pumping it up and down every other frame, but only for light values that falls in that region.
The project I’ll be shooting is going to be horror so it will require a lot of shadow, but I don’t want crushed blacks. I suppose I could shoot it bright and darken it in post as the problem doesn’t appear over about 5%.
Has anything this happened to anyone else when filming regardless of camera brand/model?
I realize the D3200 is really new, and also that it’s high MP count is going to give more noise problems than something like the D7000. But I don’t have the budget for that camera and am looking for a way around this.
I’ll try to post sample video soon.
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19 Replies
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I don’t have this camera but people say you can pre-set shutter speed and iso but the camera chooses aperture for you.
Also, its lens/cmos chip may not have good infrared protection. try a IR cut-off filter and see if the problem goes away. -
It has full manual controls including apeture, you just cant change them once you’re in live view. I’ll look into the IR filter, thanks for the tip.
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Andy,
It may be the camera using auto white balance adjusting for exposure, the Nikons do this (I believe) as rote, on the D7000 one can set the device to a manual over ride with the HDMI menu, turning device control on, which leaves exposure set where you have it before engaging record.
Not sure on the D3200, and the D800 does not have this menu option but the same thing can be exacted using the AE button and locking that on before engaging record on all three cameras.
I found this out early on shooting the D7K in a guitar clinic, and that same pumping which a camera one shooter forgot to lock during a concert shoot in April, it’s an easy fix though in pre staging, a nightmare (frames by frames) in post.
I think, that is the issue if not, then ignore the suggestions.
HTH’s
Rob
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Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately it didn’t seem to fix the issue. I use the 3200 on full manual, including setting custom white balance myself with an expodisc. Even still I tried using AE-Lock (set to lock and hold) and had the flicker/pumping. The HDMI menu on the 3200 did have the device control like you said, but it was already set to “on.”
In an email with another user experiencing this problem I found out that turning up the contrast can help reduce the flicker somewhat, but it still happens. But then your also stuck with an ultra-contrasty look (which I’m not a fan of.)
I put in a support ticket with Nikon over it, hopefully they get back to me in a reasonable amount of time with either a fix, or are able to tell me that my specific camera is malfunctioning and I should just exchange it for another.
I would hate to think they’d be okay with releasing a camera that has such a glaring problem at base ISO where you should have a clean picture. Higher up the ISO noise could be expected, but not at ISO 200 -
Thanks Andy,
This does not bode well long term for Nikon if it’s endemic on their technology.
Rumor that they will be moving service from El Segundo to Hollywood aside.
This needs to be addressed/explained/solved I agree.
Rob
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Just in case anyone else out there is using a D3200 and having problems I thought I’d post an update on my issue:
The problem is ISO noise, not light pumping. I did an ISO test with the lens cap on to see what the noise pattern looked like, and while you can only barely see the noise problem at ISO200 in the test (which only shows 0% IRE), when you take the cap off, the pattern appears in dark greys about 2-5% IRE on the red and blue channels, it’s just such fine grained noise that it looked more like the camera having a problem recording the light level.
I found a semi-solution as well, which also works on higher ISO’s and makes them somewhat useable. If you add the “channel mixer” plug in in FCP, and shift Blue-blue from 1 to .5, then Blue-green to .5, and Red-red from 1 to .3, then Red-green to .8 it removes all the color noise. At higher ISO’s shifting a little more gets rid of more extreme noise.
Then your just left with what looks like luma noise, which came out fine with Neat Video. I know Neat video could do the whole thing as well once I realized it was just noise, but I didn’t want to use too much NR.
Of course your colors look a little different after the shift as well, looks a bit like older color film to me, but not so weird that its bothersome. Pumping up the saturation after the color shift seems to help it get back to normal without bringing back the noise also.
Nikon of course was no help with my service ticket, gave me a hassle on the phone, and didn’t even want to look at test footage to see if it was a problem with my specific camera, and not the D3200 model in general.
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Andy thanks for taking the time to illustrate the issue.
No doubt, camera related to CPU gathered data then.
Once Nikon moves their west coast service to Hollywood from El Segundo, perhaps there will be a better response to video questions.
This is good info no matter what for anyone with the post D90 Nikon series cameras.
Thanks,
Rob
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Andy thanks for taking the time to illustrate the issue.
It’s all good. I’d hate to have someone else go as crazy as I felt over the issue. When I first got the camera I was shooting in such generally bright, or high contrast situations where the problem didn’t show and was really in love with the camera. After I started shooting at certain light levels it appeared and I went through troubleshooting almost everything in my setups.
This is good info no matter what for anyone with the post D90 Nikon series cameras.
The strange thing for me is, I never had this problem with the D3100 (which I sold as part of upgrading.) Using grey cards and AE-Lock to trick the sensor into the exposures I wanted I used that camera to do a 21 minute short and it always looked fantastic, including dark situations and chroma-key work. which was why I thought upgrading to real manual controls in the D3200 was a no brainer at the price I got (with trading in the D3100.)
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My D3200 has exactly the same problem…
I’ve sent a question conserning posible fixes via the user support on their website and i’m waiting for a response.Anyway, thanks for the post solution,
Francisco. -
I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for Nikon. I’ve been in contact with them for over a month and they aren’t very interested in solving anyones problems. They asked me to send footage straight from the camera unedited and then failed to give me an upload link or email that could accept more than 2 seconds worth of 24p/1080p footage. I’m not sure that you could even identify the problem easily with such a small test amount. I’ve had phone operators calling me “bro” telling me that “it’s your problem” and been hung up on. Just sayin…
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