WEIRD PROBLEM, Lines in first secs of clips

[Annen James]

So I have an issue. This doesn't occur in all my clips, mainly ones with low-ish light. The first few seconds of my clip will have banding or horizontal lines, then it just goes away. Doesn't happen all the time, and rarely if ever in bright sunlight. Anyone seen anything like this or experienced it?

HELP!!!!!

**Looking into problem, not as prevalent when I export, but you can see some flickering on the Styrofoam containers. Definately there, in FCP and in a lot of clips

[Vincent Oliver]

It looks like noise to me, what Gain setting was used for this shot?

[Annen James]

Gain was 0. Again, first 5 seconds of clip then it goes away. Can't figure it out.

[Leonard Levy]

I can't tell what I'm looking at here because its in some kind of step motion. What did you export here - how many frames - did you duplicate frames or something?

I do see something that looks like compression artifacting. What codec are you using? what is your sequence setting?

[Annen James]

Not sure what you are talking about. not step motion. Your computer perhaps. Here is another clip you can see the flickering at the beginning of the clip and then it goes away.]

Not a lighting hertz/shutter speed issue, as it happens outdoors as well.

[Alister Chapman]

Certainly looks light lighting flicker, it's clearly visible on the wall, illuminated by the fluorescent lights but there is no flicker where sunlight is coming through the window. Looks like you might have been is Asia where the mains frequency is often 50Hz, it's only North America, parts of South America, South Korea and the Philippines that use 60Hz. We need more details of what you are doing. Auto/Manual, shutter speed, frame rate, country your shooting in, how your editing.

One thing to check, have you turned OFF flicker reduce in the menu, this can cause issues.

[Annen James]

Thanks, I was in the philippines. Shots here in the US do the same thing. Again, it only happens for the first 5 secs or so, then, in the same lighting condition, it goes away. Shoot 1080/30p, manual everything, shutter 1/60. Clip I posted was in the philippines, however the first clip was outside under natural light, so that Hz theory is out. Thoughts?

Alister, I checked my flicker reducer setting and it was on "Auto / 50Hz" - that could sound like the issue. I certainly never changed that, it must have come that way. I will check my next round of clips. THANKS in advance, that certainly sounds like that could be it, the camera compensating and then figuring it out after a few seconds. WOuld you advise everyone to turn that off? Sounds like we all should...

[Marty Welk]

Annen James
thanks so much for testing that for me :-)
AUTO? sounds dangerous, so i had turned mine off,but i so wondered what would happen.

[Annen James]

Never even realized it was there, really. Here is another clip example.

[Shaughan Flynn]

You have cache record enabled?

[Don Greening]

This issue has been around since the first EX1 came out. I remember seeing this in my own EX1 as early as Jan. 2008. I solved it by turning the Flicker Reduce to "On" instead of "Auto" and making sure it was set to 60HZ because I live in North America. Sometimes it would still flicker for the first few seconds (even outside) so I ended up turning it off.

I've also heard reports that the lens OIS (optical image stabilization) sometimes contributes to the phenomenon but I can't confirm this.

- Don

[Alan McInnes]

Thanks for posting this conversation. I just checked my EX3 and it was set to "Auto" and "50Hz" !! I too experienced the flickering for the first few seconds on some clips and assumed it was florescent flicker as we have florescent fixtures throughout the school. It would only be for the first few seconds and then would disappear. Thanks for pointing out this issue as I am always learning new elements about the EX3.