I have a venue that recomends me and I'm at the point of asking them not to - they use a new type of LED lighting and it's a pain - everything has a yellow cast (that's not too hard to fix in post but the flickering is a nightmare - unless the lights are on full (which is still pretty dim) there's a flicker which I can't eliminate. a shutter speed of 125 seems to minimise it but it's still significant. I'm told it's due to 'pulse width modulation' but with venues insisting on 'romantic lighting' and constantly wanting to dim the lights its a major drama.

with other venues I can bring along my own lighting to suppliment but with this place I'm buggered - I don't see changing cameras helping and if I start insisting that they leave the lighting on full, they'll stop recommending me anyway. So.. before I bite the bullet and tell them thanks but no thanks does anyone have any ideas?

lighting problem on Vimeo

This isn't about WB - I mention that just in case someone has come across lighting with a similar cast and yes I've tried different shutter speeds. I shoot with multiple GH2's and I've tried evenything I can think of.

This is exactly one of my fears of being hired to film at a venue with this sort of lighting condition.

I don't know of any work arounds unfortunately .. I would like an answer just like you !

Even after manually white balancing with a grey card/cap in the field? I know doing it post will probably turn a lot of things blue while still leaving the yellow.. Weird. Usually it's a problem if there's a mixture of lighting colors. At least this is uniformly yellow.

Anyway, maybe perhaps complimenting the yellow light with a blue-ish lighting fixture?

Sorry, not sure if wanted advice on how to fix future gigs or this one. You could also just desaturate...

Thanks for your input Andrew but - it's nothing to do with WB - it's the flicking that's the problem. I've mentioned & shown the yellow cast in case somone had worked under similar lighting

I've had this problem a number of times, and it is also often noticeable in a marquee in the summer with a coloured lining giving a coloured cast to everything.

As a videographer, I want the whites to look white, and in your video the whites look yellow, but, if you look at the bar staff behind the bar at the back, you can clearly see that their shirts are white. That tells me that what the guests are seeing in the room is exactly what your camera is seeing. Our brains know that the bride's dress is white, but what you are seeing on the video is actually correct. In those situations, I always make a point of saying that the video is showing a real view, which is a reproduction of the yellow cast that existed in the room.

Candle light also gives a cast that makes it difficult to show white accurately, so I feel that it is better to emphasise the reality of the situation, rather than artificially 'normalising' it.

I recently had a problem with a greeny/blue colour of the bridesmaids dresses. They had a sheen to them that showed the dresses as either blue or green on the video depending on the direction of the sunlight. To the natural eye they appeared green, but the bride was concerned that on her video, they sometimes appeared blue. I explained the reason and asked her to look at other matching greens in the video that didn't have a sheen. Sure enough they were consistently the correct colour and she was totally satisfied that it was down to lighting conditions.

Roger

Paul,
you've got it right about shutter speed. I find that 1/40 or 1/60 of a second helps here. It might be worth a trip over with the technical person to test the settings on the lights and see if he can dial it in. I also find that the higher end leds don't flicker while the cheap stuff is a different frequency.
Bill

As I mentioned, the videos are classic examples of LED fixtures that have really basic PWM dimming. The unpleasant strobing is mathematically linked to the mains and camera shutter speeds, and while faster shutter speeds may initially seem to cure it, they often fail over time when mains frequencies drift. I find the slow shutter speeds best. LED architectural lighting has very crude control - just not made with dimming in mind really. The alcove light in the distance a classic example of how rotten it is. DSLRs do seem more prone to this than other cameras, but cheap LED lighting really can be very annoying with unforgiving cameras. What's sure as eggs though, is that the clients who were there, and saw no flickering will never be convinced it's the venue problem - and the only solution/salve I can suggest is to show potential clients previous footage at that venue and let the decide if they can live with it.

Paul -

I'm sure we're all bound to face that kind of thing (sorry you have to go through it!).

I found the flickering most noticeable in the party/dance portion of the footage. What if you were to have some on-camera fill light (ironically, I use dimmable LED litepanels on the camera -- just enough to fill in faces of the dancers). I wonder if a little added light of your own would draw attention away from the background flicker...

It's clearly all nice work (and good low-light cam) on your part. Just those d'mned venue lights.

Hi Paul

I did a venue back in January that had bright blue LED uplights so getting the flickering and trying to keep the whites, white also was tricky ...the entire bridal table had a white background but the blue LED's turned everything blue.

I also use an on camera LED light and that way I can essentially under-expose the background to lessen the uplight effect and then actually use the on camera light to set a correct exposure on my subjects and it comes out quite well. Good method, as Tim suggests as there is no way you will elimate the lights but just lighting subjects when close with an on camera light works really well! It again doesn't help on really wide shots like you have shown but works well on tighter shots.

I'm not sure if you have enough space on the little GH2 to clamp on an LED light but an extra bracket on the side might help. Just also bear in mind that the bride isn't really looking at the lights she's only interested in the content so by keeping content interesting she won't even notice any oddities away from that.

Chris

I reallly dislke on camera lighting, I have a number of LEDs that I can throw up on stands but the problem is that I'm fighting the venue, they dim - I brighten. That may be the only solution but I don't think it's a great one.

I have been mentioning the lighting problem to the brides and I can see that showing them footage would be a clear example but the venue isn't going to be happy with me bagging the stuff out of their lighting.

I might have a chat to the head coordinator and go from there.

I reallly dislke on camera lighting,

I know what you mean. But, again, when used only dimly/as needed, the on-cam LED is there purely to fill in faces (not for deer-in-headlights look). I find that with great low-light cams like a good DSLR or the C100, all you need is a tiny bit of help and it really brings out your subject (and mitigates a venue's poor lighting). I've never dealt with the exact situation you have here, but I've certainly had the flickering backlighting on the walls. Had I not filled in the primary subject with a little help from the camera fill, the flicker would have been far more obvious.

Attached is one example where a reception venue had some flickery blue-light on one of the walls. It would have even been visible on the faces (of the toaster/b/g) in this image had I not filled in a tad:

Paul,
BCC Flicker fixer?

Hi Tim

Those look like the exact sort of lighting I encountered too ...by me using a fill from the camera light it didn't worry the speaker at all but it basically killed any blue cast that came from the uplighting. It certainly works a treat for me. Due to the physical size of Paul's GH2 cameras he might need a dimmable light on a stand next to the camera, but it certainly works well .... I had the same issue while doing guest interviews as the blue lights had been placed all around the room but just a touch of fill from the on-camera light works wonders ...you still get the nasty blue background on the orginal white wall/curtain but at least skin tones are correct.

Chris

Yep, while I agree on camera is more suited for news type work, I've been using it for years for weddings and now with the LEDs that are commonly used to fill the room and the lack of any other ambient lighting the on camera "fill" has become more important than ever. I HATE having green, red, magenta, orange or blue skin tones because of the LEDs in the room.

It sounds like this would be another good item to add to all of our contracts. We'll be able to protect ourselves and educate our clients at the same time.

Alec Moreno
Wedding Art Films - Southern California - Los Angeles - Orange County - Video (http://www.WeddingArtFilms.com)

I think what Paul is facing is much more than a fill light issue.

Al

This is why we only use real video cameras, 2 sony PMW200, Never had the issue. Low light and any type of led, Not a problem. Thats one of the problems shooting video on a stills camera. Sorry but you will all ways have that problem and it will only get more of a problem as more and more people move to led lighting.

I have encountered this strobing kind of effect (grey lines or waves moving from top to bottom of screen) several times last year with one venue that was really bad, changing shutter to a lower speed did help but couldn't get rid of it. I was told also that with ccd you wouldn't have this issue but with cmos you would, there is no plugin that can remove these strobing and you are stuck with it.

Mostly it is because of the DJ light but you are scr*wed if the venue uses cheapo leds as their main light source (which I encountered once last year)
Telling the couple this is no use, they book a venue for different reasons but the fact that our equipment is not up to the task is not one of them, it's like not booking a venue because it has candle lit tables and your videographer says he can't film there because his camera needs lots of light.
Putting it into your contract to protect yourself seems like the best option and hope you won't encounter too many of these situations.

Without question you have to light it to fix it, the flicker is a nightmare I find its not always as noticeable when shooting in those conditions. It really comes down to if you are happy to keep turning work out like that?

Steve

I have experienced this, but switching the camera to AUTO got rid of it. The EA50 was pretty good detecting it.

Robert,
Not to make light of your crass generalization, but I had this problem many times on "proper" video cameras. I would rather put up with strobing occasionally than have to deal with the image I detest from a "proper" video camera :)
Bill

Ahh - you beat me to it Bill - in fact I did say something similar in my email to the venue coordinator

"I don't want to go back to 'video' style footage"

I included an example of the problem and talked about the possible solutions and even included a few quotes from you guy's - how did it go?... well I never sent it.

while checking over the comments I thought I'd have a look at something Jim Schuchmann mentioned

BCC Flicker fixer

**holy snapping duck crap! - it actually works!

BCC on Vimeo

now I havent read up on exactly how to fine tune the tool and what it does to the footage but I think this has got me out of a nasty hole - I owe you a beer Jim!


** Urban Dictionary: holy snapping duck crap (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=holy%20snapping%20duck%20shit)!

That's amazing. Thanks for sharing the result. I need to get myself this plugin too.

Although BCC seems to be a last resort fix, I would still address the issue with the venue AND my clients.

It is something they need to know and understand. Whether they care or not at the end of the day is not something you can control but at least you would have made sure that they are aware of what would happen to the video.

Before sending the email, I would probably look for clips of comparable shots taken from other venues where lighting was ideal and edit a comparison video to show them the differences.

It is also recommended to include some suggestions of reasonable lighting solutions so they can be left with realistic options to choose from instead of feeling like you are just sending a straightforward complaint email.

And most importantly, I would make sure everyone knows that this is not about you and how you do your job but all about THEM. The clients need to understand that your goal is to make them look their best in their video. By showing them the difference between poor lighting and ideal lighting setup, they will most likely desire the better one. And the venue also needs to understand that not only are clients getting educated and more informed about lighting requirements (which will potentially affect their choice of venue), an ideal lighting setup that looks good on video will also make their venue look much more attractive when people watch it.

If you really want to secure your relationship with the venue and make sure they will still keep on sending you clients, you could offer to make them a short commercial video to promote their venue. They will then probably feel like your email is not just a complaint but also an interesting offer. This could make them actually consider listening to you.

As an additional note, Paul, you should probably send your last video to www.borisfx.com (http://www.borisfx.com) because your sample is much better than the elephant clip they have on their website :)

now I havent read up on exactly how to fine tune the tool and what it does to the footage but I think this has got me out of a nasty hole - I owe you a beer Jim!

Glad it worked for you. The people at Boris make some impressive stuff.
John Rofrano does an excellent tutorial about this plug-in here Remove Flicker with BCC Flicker Fixer (http://www.borisfx.com/videos/BCCVegas/Flicker-Fixer.php). Well worth the watching.

Hi Paul and company,

That flicker reducer really looks like a God-send. Nice work.

But I'd still stick with my comment about a little fill light. I know it's a matter of taste. But I still prefer (with or without the flicker issue) a little fill light on the immediate subject to make them pop out. It looks like deer-in-headlights with bad low-light cameras (even sometimes with the XF300); but with good low-light cameras, it looks natural and beautiful. At least to my eye.

That BCC Flicker Fixer looks really impressive but it's not a cheap option as it doesn't appear that you can buy it as a standalone plugin just as a component of Boris Continuum Complete at $995 or Boris Continuum Image Restoration Unit with nine other plugins at £299. However maybe it should be apart of everyone's toolkit as these LED lights are becoming more & more common at venues.

Really impressive! A nice solution, and what also looks like a simple one too! Worth the £300 I think - to those who have these problems.