GH4 High Shutterspeed in Low Light

DigitalBard

DigitalBard

Well-known member
Is anyone doing high shutterspeed stuff in low-light with the GH4?

When ever I am shooting with a high ISO (anything 1600 and above) with a high shutterspeed (1/320th or faster) I get rolling bands of discoloration. Both when shooting footage and shooting stills and always with stadium lightning. Both indoor and outdoor. And occasionally with fluorescent lighting when shoot indoor.

I'm trying to shoot sports without any motion blur. No issues if I'm shooting in daylight outdoor or if I'm shooting some place with tons and tons of light, but I was shooting football at K-State University and most of the stuff I shot after the sun went down is useless. I had the same issue shooting a night KC Royals game a couple weeks back and a high school football game this past Friday.

I had the same problem last year and I was told turning off the electronic shutter would fix it, but that didn't fix it. I'm still getting the same issue. I'm not having any problems shooting with a Canon T5i as backup. So it's something in the GH4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK7xIIk5pxE


You can see it here in an interview I shot with the Kansas Governor in his office. I had just come from shooting a basketball game and forgot to fix the shutterspeed. Sadly, you can't see the discoloration in the LCD, so it looked fine while I was shooting it.

Fortunately, the Beauty Box plugin actually fixes the footage if it's not too extreme.
 
That's because your shutter speed is out of sync with the lights. This is the same effect when you are shooting a TV or computer monitor and see horizontal bands, or shooting an alarm clock that appears flickering when to the eye it looks fine. In the U.S. you'll want to shoot at 1/60 to fix this in most cases, to match the frequency light flickers at (1/50 in the UK). Fluorescents can be a bit more tricky sometimes and some more tinkering with shutter speed may be needed. This is what the Synchro Scan setting is for in the Motion Picture menu of the GH4. It lets you fine adjust the shutter speed at smaller intervals than you otherwise would be able to, in order to fine tune things until you get in sync and eliminate the bands.
 
How come I don't have this issue shooting at 1/320th or faster with my Canon T5i?

What I'm trying to do is eliminate as much motion blur as possible during indoor/night games.
 
I don't know enough about the T5i to say really, but when I had a T2i it would exhibit the exact same behavior your linked video shows if I used a shutter speed that disagreed with the lights. To add, if you're trying to take clear sports photos and avoid the banding, you should be able to use a multiple of 1/60 (so 1/120, 1/180, 1/360, 1/600, etc).
 
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Odd... Well, I'll be shooting in a couple of stadiums again this weekend and I'll experiment. So should I turn Syncho On? (it's off now)
 
I'd only use Synchro Scan if a "normal" shutter speed doesn't eliminate the banding. Definitely don't leave it on, it's really only a situational tool.
 
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