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Topic: Light flicker with manual settings on

As I've been filming Sharks and Clowns, it's becoming ridiculously obvious that I have a rather nasty light flicker problem.

Of course, you'll probably suggest the typical thing about blocking natural light and setting the camera to manual, but I've taken those precautions. I have a solid lighting set up which work nicely, and my camera is set to manual. I also lean back into the shadow every time I capture a frame, trying to always revert back to the same position as to not cause a disturbance in lighting, so I highly doubt it's that.

It seems even with settings on manual it's still trying to adjust somewhat, and going through the settings I have absolutely no idea what's making this happen.

It seems to happen far less with wider shots, but more in close ups, I'm guessing because the movements are bigger relative to the screen size.

I'm going to go ahead and let this slide for this film since it's just a fun silly thing I'm making in a rush. But I'd really like to avoid this in the future.

Anyone have any ideas?
(my camera's a Nikon D3100 by the way)

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Re: Light flicker with manual settings on

Well, the thing that I have noticed with doing stop-motion on my DSLR is that it is very sensitive to lighting. You said you have your camera in manual but if it has an auto-lighting optimizer you may need to turn that off. Also, I usually turn off the lens's stabilizer. Those two things are fairly minor. The biggest thing that I would suggest is to get yourself farther away from the set. I usually have my laptop sitting on a separate table farther back from my set and I sit behind the laptop and move around to the set to make the movements. It's a bit more annoying because I have to get up and down so much but it helps. Also, I have noticed that movement of white LEGO elements such as figures or accessories can sometimes cause light flicker. I had trouble with this in The Sky is Falling because of Josh's torso I believe.

Also, it may be your lens. I've never used anything but the T2i to animate so I don't have a good comparison, but I've heard that newer lenses can be quite bad with light flicker. The 18-55 kit lens that comes with a lot of the consumer/pro-sumer Canon cameras seems to be quite nice and somewhat manageable. I'm sure you have heard of purchasing older Nikkor lenses that don't have any of the fancy stuff that today's tech offers. Let me know if any of this helps. Light flicker is very annoying...

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Re: Light flicker with manual settings on

I have noticed that I have trouble with light flicker, unless I actually wait a few seconds after I remove my hands to capture the frame. That could be a problem with just webcams though.

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Re: Light flicker with manual settings on

I have found this to be a problem too. On close up shot the flicker is really bad. I found the reason at least for me was that since the camera was so close to the LEGO bricks, the light was bouncing off them into the camera. When you move the LEGO bricks it changes the way the light bounces and causes light flicker. I found it best to move the camera back and digitally zoom in post.

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Re: Light flicker with manual settings on

I have the same problem AnnoyingNoises. Bigger, wider shots don't have flicker at all. But close up shots do, and those are the important shots. (if you know what I mean.)

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Re: Light flicker with manual settings on

Are one of your settings really high?

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Re: Light flicker with manual settings on

If I remember correctly, my setting for most of the film are "1/3 and 13 but I decided to change to 1/2 and 16 since I thought that the depth was a bit too narrow.

A few moments ago I shot the one night shot in the film. Despite sitting still in my chair and only pressing the button over and over again, I still had some flicker.

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Re: Light flicker with manual settings on

I notice the same thing (closer shots having light flicker) happens with my webcam. Especially when I zoom in; I have to because it can't focus on an object really close to the camera (less than about two inches).

An animation I made for a school project a few months ago had some flicker in it, but that was mostly because I didn't have enough light on the set (I didn't move one of my lamps, so the wall was blocking out most of the light from that lamp), some shots being filmed during the day (I had to, I closed my blinds but they didn't do a very good job), and two shots filmed on a set with a celing. One shot was a close-up, and I noticed the most light flicker happened when the minfigure (which took up most of the frame) moved the most.

I know from before that even when settings are on manual, light flicker can occur from minor reflections caused by moving objects. If the light settings on the camera are too high, then the camera picks up these small changes in light.
In this case, the effect of the reflection is intensified because the object that is moving takes up more of the frame. Even more so if the object is a brighter, more relective color. In my aforementioned film, the minifigure in that close up shot had a red torso.

To solve this, add more light so you can turn the settings down. Then the camera won't be as sensitive to small changes in light caused by reflection.

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