Rolling Shutter Problem

[Shawn Lloyd]

I just shot the Tour of California Race and seemed to get hammered by the Rolling Shutter Problem during the winner's circle. Here's a link to an example of the footage: http://digitaldf.com/rolling-shutter-H.264.mov
Is there any way to diminish or fix this?

Thanks

[Zach Love]

With CMOS there really isn't much you can do to eliminate rolling shutter issues, all you can do is try to diminish them.

What was your shutter?

For 1080i60, I ALWAYS shoot 1/60
1080p24 I use 1/24 or 1/48
1080p30 I use 1/30 or 1/60

If I want to go for a special look, I'll do a higher shutter, but most of the time I use my ND & iris for light control.

You could always go into photoshop & create frame-by-frame masks to lessen the flashes.


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On a side note, why do you need a flash in daylight? Ugh... there are many a time when I just don't understand still photogs.

[Zach Love]

I also want to add... I think as CMOS is put into more & more cameras this will get fixed in years to come, but we'll start to see it more & more on TV. As that happens, & it becomes more common place, I think it will be less of a issue & something viewers will accept & possibly even something that people will intentionally put in their productions as a stylized effect.

[Steve Gerhart]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

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On a side note, why do you need a flash in daylight? Ugh... there are many a time when I just don't understand still photogs.

Zach, Why blame photographers for a rolling shutter problem?
They have a job to perform also
I think Sony needs to fix this or they will loose alot of business.

Shawn, what I have read it is very hard to correct in post but a complaint to sony couldn't hurt.
Thanks for uploading your video, looks good except for rolling shutter

[Zach Love]

Originally Posted by Steve Gerhart

Zach, Why blame photographers for a rolling shutter problem?
They have a job to perform also
I think Sony needs to fix this or they will loose alot of business.

For the same reason why I would blame a drunk person for using an air horn in the middle of a wedding. When something is distracting & unnecessary it would be nice if people didn't do it.

In lower light conditions, I know I have to live with flashes going off. But if it is bright enough for me to using an ND filter, a flash isn't needed.

Although, it looks like a lot of those flashes were probably coming from point-and-shoot cameras, which could explain some of it.

Any professional photographer will tell you the easiest way to make your photos look better is to not use a flash. Flashes flatten the image & make it duller.

If average people use to learn their cameras better, their photos will look better, video guys w/ CCD cameras will have better video and video guys w/ CMOS cameras will have video that won't spark another rolling shutter debate.

[Khoi Pham]

The more I see footage like this, the less it bothers me, kind of cool effect, I bet those ccd camera can't do that. (-:

[Steve Gerhart]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

Any professional photographer will tell you the easiest way to make your photos look better is to not use a flash. Flashes flatten the image & make it duller.

Any professional photographer will tell you the easiest way to make your photos look better is to not listen to a videographer.

Zach I hate to sound cynical but Next you will be saying it is OK for a videographer to ask all photographers to turn off their flash so you can get the shot without a rolling shutter issue.

Some people ignore, some people live with it others find rolling shutter unacceptable but we must not blame photographers for it

To blame a photographer for this is like blaming global warming caused your cars air conditioner to not work.


"A Scientist cannot give proof that such a climatic global crisis exist, To demand proof, would be too late. However, Knowing that the existence of such is possible and could happen is what is at stake.. Considering facts and ideas without labels will encourage intelligent discussion . Make a mental image of something with 2 sides and then times it by 500, free thought will see all sides."
Sorry, Just my take on things

[Zach Love]

Originally Posted by Steve Gerhart

Any professional photographer will tell you the easiest way to make your photos look better is to not listen to a videographer.

Zach I hate to sound cynical but Next you will be saying it is OK for a videographer to ask all photographers to turn off their flash so you can get the shot without a rolling shutter issue.

I'm a video guy, my advice about flashes comes from other video guys (who don't like the flat look created by on camera lights in their video), my B&W 35mm professor, but mostly my aunt who has been shooting stills for newspapers for the last few decades.

Most of the time when she uses a flash, she defuses it to add a little extra light to the scene. If she needs a lot of light, she'll use one of her big powerful flashes.

If I'm at an event & her flash goes off, I know that she used the flash because she needed the flash to make her picture work.

Camera flashes are a tool. When used right, they make the photo better. When used wrong, they make the photo worse.

Would I go around and start telling people in a crowd to turn of their flahses? Of course not.

If I'm on a press riser and another photog turns on a strobe light with their flash in a room well lit, I will say something nicely to them and try to undersand if there is something that I don't understand. CMOS or CCD, I'll say something.

On the whole, I know what I have to live with while shooting with a CMOS camera and I'll keep shooting CMOS because I don't think it is that big of a deal.

Steve, we might have to agree to disagree on this one. But for me, since I think these forums are a good source of education, I'm not going to keep to myself that I believe would improve the video & still pictures people take, just because it might hurt someone's feelings.

One last thing, more and more peope are doing video AND stills. For any professional NOT to listen to another professional is pretty dumb.

Just for good measure, for any still people reading this...
Tip #1 from a video guy to still guy:
NEVER turn a videocamera sideways, unless of course you're shooting Adam West "climbing" a wall.

Good day all.

[Steve Gerhart]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

Just for good measure, for any still people reading this...
Tip #1 from a video guy to still guy:
NEVER turn a videocamera sideways, unless of course you're shooting Adam West "climbing" a wall.


Good day all.

I just finished transferring 16mm film to DVD and was watching the shutter motion on my projector and its movement is horizontal not vertical.

So an interesting test might be just that! For you who own this camera, turn the camera 90 degress and run a series of flashes

I don't think it would change anything but it would be interesting.

The most important thing is the shutter opens and then closes once for each frame of video eliminating partial exposure


I also think camera is great for all applications except events where photographer are present

[Tom Hardwick]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

On the whole, I know what I have to live with while shooting with a CMOS camera and I'll keep shooting CMOS because I don't think it is that big of a deal.

Now look at Shawn's video and imagine it's footage of the couple as they have their first dance together as man and wife. In my line of work this sort of flash frequency is common, expected even. In fact I like it - it makes the couple look special under the paparazzi bombardment

But CMOS has effectively stopped me using this clip in any sort of slo-mo montage, because slowed down those sliced-up frames just look plain daft.

Run Shawn's clip again and use the pause control at random - there's a good chance you'll hit quite a lot of partially exposed frames. So should there be a 'peak of the action' that you wanted to export as a still from the timeline then whooh - think again.

I bow to the knowledge that CMOS does indeed bring benefits to the moviemaker and that the well established CCD looks to be on the way out. But I was planning on replacing my Z1 this year and Sony suddenly and quite unexpectedly (again I stress for my line of work) doesn't have a camera for me.

tom.

[Bruce G. Cleveland]

Originally Posted by Shawn Lloyd

I just shot the Tour of California Race and seemed to get hammered by the Rolling Shutter Problem during the winner's circle. Here's a link to an example of the footage: http://digitaldf.com/rolling-shutter-H.264.mov
Is there any way to diminish or fix this?

Thanks

All I see is annoying flashes. Rolling shutter or not, they are just annoying. No less annoying without rolling shutter effect.


Brcue

[Steve Gerhart]

Photography is an allie in this problem a mutual benefit could lead to a fix


Nikon and Canon are aggressively working on a fix for rolling shutters as we speak

A global electronic shutter in a still camera would mean flash sync speeds that were previously only available with a leaf shutter.

20 years ago I could sync my flash to 1/500 but now only 1/200

The global shutter cost will go down when other companies get involved and find a solution


Soooo, please stop pinning the blame of rolling shutter issues on photographers

[Rob Morse]

In some respects it was actually less annoying than CCD's. You didn't lose the entire frame. I'm trying to get on board with this as well. A slow mo would definitely look worse but the footage is great.