Lighting help: DSLR important info

MatRich

MatRich

Active member
I have a shoot planned soon and I am looking into my lighting aspect and technical side before starting production.

I shoot with a 7D and have a few fast lenses at my disposal. We need to shoot at a tim hortons (canadian dunkin donuts but better) but there are some technical issues with this.

The 7D is a CMOS sensor which has a refresh rate equivalant to fluoressant lights like in tim hortons. What this means is my 7D sensor displays horrizontal barrs that are very visible under certain settings.

this video shows the phenomenon.

This shows up when shooting above 1/60th and is not visible at 1/30th but it is aparently still there.

Problem Is, I want to find a way to work around this since I want to shoot at atleast 1/100th for certain shots to give the images a jarring look.

I am looking for work arrounds that would help me do this. Im thinking of flooding my subject with external light and working off of that but Im worried that the lights might still show up.

If Anyone has any Ideas or knows of a work around please chip in but mostly this was an informative thread for you newschoolers!
 
The lights have a frequency of 60hz, and as the wave comes at you, the color of the light slightly varies. This is a known phenomenon in photography; when working with flourescent lights, you shoot at 1/30th or 1/60th to capture one full variation, so the color is constant between shots. I'm afraid the only way to do this is to shoot at one of those shutter speeds, because color will be inconsistent from frame to frame if you don't— for photos.

With video, it's the same thing- it's inconsistent from moment to moment. The thing is, there's not a shutter working the deal when you film. It's an electronic shutter, the sensor turns itself on and off. And it does this in a "rolling shutter" fashion, from what I know- this means that it goes down the shutter from top to bottom, and therefore, the color of the light hitting it is inconsistent across the picture plane. Unfortunately, the only solutions are those you mentioned: shoot at 1/60th or 1/30th, or TURN OFF the flourescent lights and use your own. Unfortunately flooding the area with your own lights while leaving the flouros on won't do you any good- there'll always be a spot somewhere in your frame that isn't covered, and the lines will still show through even where it is. That said, if you're already bringing the lights to flood with, you may as well just turn off the flouros.

Are you shooting an ad for Tim Horton's? Nice.
 
Alternate lighting that would work: set up reflectors outside to bring in the sun through windows, or just use your standard light bulbs. Make sure they're the old fashioned kind, because the new eco-bulbs will give you the same effect. I'd use a combination of the two, if I were you.
 
I wish haha.

this is more a case of a tim hortons commercial gone wrong. I will definately post when it is done but it will be in a while given the complexity.
 
If you have full access (i.e. after close with no customers) then definitely bring your own lights and get crazy with the Cheeze Whiz! I'll admit, I'm damned curious. Don't tell me, I want to see and be surprised.
 
ha Yah, Il make sure to make a thread about it but dont expect it soon since we are in pre prod. then we have to shoot and edit, send it to scoring to have a nice moody tim hortons song to it. I think mybee in a month or two.
 
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