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Shooting under LED lights
I already posted this question in the Sony DV forum, but it seems my problem is more of a lighting issue, so I’ll try here. I am shooting live bands at one of the bigger venues in town that uses twenty or so LED cans to light the stage. I believe they are American DJ. My problem is that when I shoot, they cause a flicker on the stage that is not easily seen by the naked eye, but is very noticable on video. I have messed around with various camera settings, but none seem to fix the problem. Is this flicker normally a property of LED lights? If so, what can I do to combat this?
-John
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3 Replies
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John,
The effect your are seeing is due to the fact almost certainly that many entertainment LED lighting fixtures are driven with PWM. (Pulse Width Modulation).
If the pulse frequency isn’t high enough it will cause flicker.
Obviously for entertainment lighting, so long as they overcome persistance of vision frequency, they work for their application – however as you’ve discovered this is not suitable for photography and moving picture image capture.
You are stuck.
At Gekko Technology our lights are LED based but designed for image capture, and although driven with PWM the frequency is so high that it won’t affect filming in any normal shutter speed/shutter angle combination.
So it is not a function of the LED per se, just how these are being driven.
Unfortunately the only way to overcome this is to use a slower shutter speed which will almost certainly be in conflict with your other requirements. Sharp images.
regards
David Amphlett
MD
Gekko Technology Ltd.http://www.gekkotechnology.com
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Was just curious about Gekko pricing, but there don’t seem to be any US dealers listed on the website.
Are there any?
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Todd,
We are just starting the process of establishing a dealer network in the US for broadcast and photographic instruments – entertainment tools will come later
first to the party are –
regards
David
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