I recently purchased a Canon GL2. I was camcording at a football stadium at night last weekend and noticed a light fluctuation when viewing the video. All appeared normal on the LCD screen, however, when viewing the captured video, the brightness of the video seemed to fluctuate almost like someone was turning up the lights and then turning down the lights in a rhythmic pattern. I had the setting on the camera set to manual but I don't remember what I had them set for. I had the white balance set to "sunlight". I have a feeling this has something to do with the ocillation of the stadium lights. How do I correct this?

I recently purchased a Canon GL2. I was camcording at a football stadium at night last weekend and noticed a light fluctuation when viewing the video. All appeared normal on the LCD screen, however, when viewing the captured video, the brightness of the video seemed to fluctuate almost like someone was turning up the lights and then turning down the lights in a rhythmic pattern. I had the setting on the camera set to manual but I don't remember what I had them set for. I had the white balance set to "sunlight". I have a feeling this has something to do with the ocillation of the stadium lights. How do I correct this?

Perry,

You said you had "the" setting on manual. Exactly which setting was that? If you didn't specifically have the IRIS on manual, your camera may have been AUTO IRISING based on the changing exposure levels of what the camera was "seeing."

Was the rhythmic shifting also accompianed with a shift in color? That indicates that you might have been shooting with a high shutter speed. This normally happens under flourescent lights but it may still be a possible problem with stadium lights.....depending on what color temp. they are.

Please let us know what you discover. Steph

I don't exactly remember the settings since I didn't know I was having a problem with the video. I know that it was on manual and I changed each of the three iris settings to what looked good in the LCD. There was a change in color from lighter to darker. For instance the the green in the turf changed from green to dull greenish/brown, then back to green. What would be your recommendations under stadium lights?

What editing programs do you have access to?

I previously used Pinnacle 9, however, I am switching to Sony Vegas as of tomorrow.

Perry, see if the auto levels filter from mike crash helps.

http://mikecrash.wz.cz/vegas/autolevels.zip

Donation-ware I think.

Thanks for the help and comments. I am definately a newby to the prosumer equipment. I'm use to everything being automatic on the low end camcorders. Would the general recommendation be to use the "Auto" mode on the GL2 when shooting in open areas at night like a football stadium? I just received Vegas yesterday and I will try out the filters you suggested.

Thanks,
Perry