Hello,

for some quite time now, I've noticed that when shooting static interviews (for example) there is a very slight an gentle flickering issue, mostly noticeable in dark areas. of course the camera is on full manual, tripod, and the lighting is studio 3200K lamps, that should not cause any flickering issue (25p at 50hz).

Attached is a 4 seconds clip with some flickering (mostly noticeable in the dark left down corner of the frame).

does anyone knows what causes this issue and how maybe to solve it?
does it has to do anything with LCD auto brightness feature (should have, but maybe a bizarre bug)...

Thanks in advance,
Alon.

I really looks like your f-stop or shutter speed is changing OR you're on auto ISO. So maybe an accidental twist of a dial? It has that "pop" in exposure I see when changing one of these on the fly. It doesn't look like what you get when you're lighting and shutter is out of sync. And I don't see you zooming, which would be my other guess if you where using a variable aperture and zooming. I can't remember if highlight tone priority can do this, I don't think it adjusts while recording.

Auto LCD isn't the culprit since it's brightness is totally independent of what's being filmed. Although I highly recommend you always set your LCD brightness manually for every situation you're in by using the exposure bars in manual mode.

Lastly, do you see this on your camera's LCD screen during playback? If not, then it's something happening in post.

Of course everything, including ISO, shutter, IRIS was set to manual.What I sent was a very short example out of a few very long interviews, and this effects continues all over them (I sent one of the most prominent examples, most times it is much gentler).

I do see it in the LCD screen, but I was sure it's the AUTO LCD brightness fooling me around.

Any other thoughts? maybe it's codec related?


Thanks,
alon

Are you using exposure simulation mode? Recent posts indicate since the firmware upgrade - this setting in Liveview overrides manual settings and is like shooting in auto. However as your scene is consistently lit there should be no reason for the aperture to change. Watching the clip on loop there is a point at about 1.4 seconds where the cupboard door on the lower left side increases in brightness.

A while ago I read about the frequency rating of light bulbs causing problems on the 5D. i dismissed it at the time as I think it was a Red owner emoting. I cannot find it now - but those results - if they are in camera - could be effected by the lighting.

Coming from a computing background I am tempted to say you've got a faulty VGA plug on your monitor. Only kidding.

With regards

Jeff

Do you have auto lighting optimizer enabled?

Thanks Jeff,
well - it's not exp. simulation ('m using movie+stills), but it might be the second thing - since I believe i never saw it in a natural lit scenes. The thing is that the interview was lit with 3200K studio lamp, that should give a consistent light, shouldn't it?

Remember where you saw these RED people comments ? ;)

(being a computer guy myself I thought it's the codec breathing. but that's too much breathing...)

With the change occurring with a slight shift or movement of the camera, seems like auto exposure change to me.

1. Was this a zoom wide open that might be on the edge of Fstop range or perhaps a sticky aperature leaf. I notice this happens to me occasionally with the two auto Canon lenses I have. Most of the time I shoot with my vintage non- auto Nikon primes with adapters, and do not see anything like this.

2. As far as exposure simulation (and I don't have my 5D in front of me) at least on earlier firmware, you could have Movie + stills selected and still be in exposure simulation. That was a subcategory of the setting process, and you had to be sure it was changed to movie too! It wasn't clear from your post that that is what you did.

Hi Chris,

Yep, I did change to movie display. as for the len - i'm using Canon 24-70 L 2.8, and no change in exposure is suppose to/or happening de facto.

alon

Now I'm really guessing here, but if you where using 3200k lights, which draw a lot of power, in a place where the power is a bit iffy or over-loaded, you might have been getting a power flux flicker from the lights that you might not have noticed since you where concentrating on so many things at once during shooting. I say take the lights out of the equation and test awhile in sunlight and see if it's still happening? But I really think the camera is compensating for exposure somehow which I believe is what you're thinking too. I don't think it's the codec because if so, we would see tons of this out there with the amount of messing around in crazy lighting environments people are trying.

I don't believe this is an exposure change because the highlights did not seem to change, nor did most of the frame. I believe this is more likely a contrast change from either a fault or some setting that effects contrast like Highlight Tone Priority or Auto Lighting Optimizer. Since Evan brought up Auto Lighting Optimizer and the question hasn't been answered, I would look there first.

Thanks.
I will try to do a test with highlight tone priority and auto-lighting off, and i'll see if it happens again...

alon

Flickr: Discussing Flicker in 5D MkII Movie Mode Caused by Manual Lenses. in EOS Cameras and Manual Lenses (http://www.flickr.com/groups/eos-manual-lenses/discuss/72157623709239921/)

Alon I cannot find that discussion using Google. However the problem is raised again in the above thread on Flickr (no pun intended). I am not sure if there is any truth in it - I have not used my camera much indoors yet. One opinion (if you can go by this) is that Flourescent lighting may cause the problem.

The Auto Lighting setting I guess is there to control it.

With regards

Jeff

I haven't personally tried ALO on video, but it basically seems intended to dynamically shift the gamma in order to improve shadow detail. If it's doing that on the fly I would expect it to produce exactly the type of thing we see in your video.

The new firmware 2.07 looks like it addresses this issue:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-5d-mk-ii-hd/479352-new-firmware-2-0-7-out.html

wow! i'll update the firmware also. it's so good to discover an issue which is real and not human related ;)

For some reasons the shift is mostly noticeable in low light situations (exterior with lot's of light doesn't seem to be that affected). anyhow, hope the firmware will make the problem go away.

Thanks all.
alon

Alon, I'm wondering if you've discovered any solution to the flickering problem. I'm having the same problem... all manual, shooting primarily with an 85mm 1.2... static interviews, low light situations. ISO is locked, shutter is locked, WB is locked. It's just as you described, a slight flicker, especially in the darker areas of the shot... driving me nuts.

I'm seeing exactly the same problem. Slight exposure shifts with everything otherwise on manual. Has anyone gotten to the bottom of this, and is it clear the firmware update fixes it? I'm on a shoot in the Amazon, about 24 hours from being off-grid completely, and would love to know if there's a fix.

2.0.7 doesn't fix this issue. I have a new 5D Mark II with 2.0.7 and using a Fotodiox adapter with the AF confirmation dandelion. As noted in the link to the discussion on Flickr, I see the aperture occasionally bump to 00 from it's normal state of 1.4 and I get a change in exposure along with that. Fotodiox was not sure what it could be either and asked me to send back the adapter and order a new one so they could see if their product was at fault. I suspect it isn't now though based on the frequency of this problem regardless of the brand of adapter. My guess is a software bug but I'm willing to bet Canon won't waste a lot of cycles on running it down if their lenses are working just fine.

Ditto, I have exactly the same problem, especially noticeable during locked down interviews.

It's just as you described, a slight flicker, especially in the darker areas of the shot... driving me nuts.

Don't have a 5d but with my 550d I also see this occasionally in certain lighting conditions (also in darker area's of the image), looks like the flicker you get when filming an lcd screen with the wrong shutter speed, when I then lower my shutter to 1/30 the flicker almost completely disappears, if I choose a higher shutter it gets much more visible. Have not been able to get rid of it completely when it occurs. If I film that exact same scene with my main cam, a xh-a1 I don't have that problem.