How to shoot an iPad / iMac screen without rolling black bars

seanothon

seanothon

Active member
I have a shoot tomorrow that involves some scenes of an iPad. From what I have read there should be no issues with modern LCD screens but after a few tests I noticed some of them to still have rolling black bars, especially when I had my 25mm 1.4 lumix on wide open (or close to). I had my AF shutter set to 1/50 or "off". Should I be shooting at 1/60?
 
seanothon said:
I have a shoot tomorrow that involves some scenes of an iPad. From what I have read there should be no issues with modern LCD screens but after a few tests I noticed some of them to still have rolling black bars, especially when I had my 25mm 1.4 lumix on wide open (or close to). I had my AF shutter set to 1/50 or "off". Should I be shooting at 1/60?
Click to expand...

....and try Dial Shutter SYNCRO SCAN ??
 
Not degrees, but fractions.

Go into VIDEO CAM, then Syncro Scan will scroll 1/60.1 etc.

Scroll until you don't see a black bar, or better yet, scroll until you do see a bar, then reverse until it goes away.

Practice on a monitor at home before the shoot.

Hope this helps.
 
scrolling black bars is easily fixed by altering your shutter speed

what you should really be worried about is moire and for that there is no perfect solution, mainly because you are
shooting the screens pixel grid and capturing it with the sensors pixel grid. Some of the shoots I've been on have faced this problem
and solved it by
- shooting the screen slightly out of focus
- covering the screens with greens and comping the content on in post
- using an ultra high resolution camera where the camera's pixel array is beyond the nyquist limit of the screen you are trying to shoot
- shoot film
 
Last edited:
I pushed the shutter up to 1/60 and haven't had the issue. I am getting the moire issue at certain angles but I think I can work around it.
 
J Davis said:
covering the screens with greens and comping the content on in post
Click to expand...

This is by far the highest quality option (I would never shoot a screen outright if I could help it). With some caveats however.

You don't need green unless something moves over the screen. The green should be physical green on the surface, cut to the proportions of the display area and attached to the front.

If no object passes over the display (i.e. fingers, arm, ect.) then all you need is some tracking marks. I would do this even if you don't have movement as it will help see how the orientation of the screen works on camera during post. Markers should be positioned slightly inward from the actual edges that you need, maybe around half-an-inch to 1/3 of an inch.

If you have an arm of fingers on the display and you need tracking markers, make them a different shade of green so you can still key them out.
 
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