50Hz - 60Hz

D

DDirector

Veteran
I am just making sure I am totally clear on this..

In North America, we have 60Hz lighting. Europe is 50Hz.

1/50 shutter is proper film speed. But, we have 60Hz lighting in North America. Does that mean I have to shoot at 1/60 all the time, or would this only apply to when shooting under fluorescent lighting?

Ive been shooting at 1/50 all the time. Only when I am under a fluorescent light that I switch to 1/60.
 
DDirector said:
I am just making sure I am totally clear on this..

In North America, we have 60Hz lighting. Europe is 50Hz.
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Yes

1/50 shutter is proper film speed. But, we have 60Hz lighting in North America. Does that mean I have to shoot at 1/60 all the time, or would this only apply to when shooting under fluorescent lighting?
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Proper shutter speed. Yes, only when shooting under older fluorescents or HMIs, it doesn't matter with tungsten lights because their filaments stay hot when the current reverses so there is no perceptible flickering. Movie flos and even newer ones for homes and offices have electronic ballasts, as opposed to the old iron core transformer ones, with faster frequencies and you don't have to worry about them either. There are now flicker free HMI ballasts too but check with your gaffer because they usually have settings to make them silent which drop them back to the regular 120Hz frequency that causes flicker - flashing, or moving or stationary banding. You wouldn't want to discover too late that the sound mixer had gotten the gaffer to lose the buzz and caused the camera to get unevenly lit frames.

Ive been shooting at 1/50 all the time. Only when I am under a fluorescent light that I switch to 1/60.
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Yes, you're fine.

And under daylight from the sun anything goes including high shutter speeds if you like.

DSLRs use 1/50th sec. and that's good because it mimics the motion blur people are accustomed to from film cinema cameras, whose rotating shutters are usually 180 deg, open half the time and closed half the time, which, when combined with a frame rate of 24 FPS means the shutter speed is 1/48th sec. Make perfect sense?
 
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That's not a hard and fast rule. Magnetic ballasts or cheap electronic ones may flicker. Not all will flicker though so testing is always a good idea. 60 hz is probably the setting you'd use for a magnetic ballast. If the electronic ballast is just one that's not operating at a really high frequency, it could require testing to know what to get away with. 60 is probably safe though.
 
Cool Lights said:
That's not a hard and fast rule. Magnetic ballasts or cheap electronic ones may flicker. Not all will flicker though so testing is always a good idea. 60 hz is probably the setting you'd use for a magnetic ballast. If the electronic ballast is just one that's not operating at a really high frequency, it could require testing to know what to get away with. 60 is probably safe though.
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What's not a hard and fast rule, Richard? What cheap electronic ballasts flicker? Have you tested them? What are their output frequencies? Where are they sold and how are they used?
 
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There are so many electronic ballasts today, most being made in China and being used in commercial lighting. You are likely to see a wide variety of output frequencies in these. They are not thinking in terms of cameras or shutters. They are simply thinking in terms of whats a good speed to not have visual flicker problems for people. I have seen some in the 5KHz range for example that flickered at certain shutter speeds. Certain self-ballasts bulbs may have this issue too. In other words, they are running higher than the mains frequency but not as high as pro lighting fixtures may do. You won't have the luxury of opening flo fixtures in most places you go anyway so its always best to just test and see how it looks.
 
Reviving an old thread here. I've been shooting locked at 1/60 for a few years now. And mostly shooting at 24p, unless a client requests otherwise. But recently, I did a job that had speakers on stage and they had a 42" HD television monitor beside them to show their presentations. I was shooting at 30p and at 1/60 on two cameras.

Both cameras show a flicker in the television. Why would that be? I guess it's possible that the TV could have been set to 120 Hz mode (why TV manufacturers started making this God awful option, I don't know). But that wouldn't have caused that, would it? Or could the TV have been set to 24 fps, and having my cameras at 30 fps introduced the flicker? Anyone know? I can provide a link.
 
Perhaps that 42 inch TV was a LED type ( newer ones) that the PWM frequency of the led driver was not jiving well with your camera setting(s). Just a thought.
 
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