C300: Why no flicker?

M

Mark Smith

Veteran
I shot a test with my C300 Mk2 where under tungsten light (60 hz) I set my camera up for clear scan and deliberately threw the shutter speed into a variety of speeds which were off speed from powerline frequency, for instance 1/62.74 . This should produce some flicker or phasing in the image but i didn't see a trace of that and I tried a number of random shutter speeds above and below 60hz. Anyone have an answer as to why no flicker?
 
Probably because the tungsten element doesn't have enough time to "cool down" enough to make a noticeable difference before it "heats up" again, so it makes it appear to be a "constant on" source. I remember playing around shooting high speed in my house with my F55 and I got flicker from tungsten at high speeds(above 100 fps). I've also gotten flicker from high pressure/sodium vapor type lights at 72fps.
 
The usual sense of this is that Large tungsten lights are the ones that don't flicker as much because their filaments have enough thermal mass to not cool down during cyclical zero crossings of the AC current. I was shooting with a small tungsten source and throwing off the shutter frequency in order to mimic what it might be like shooting with a shutter speed mis-matched to powerline frequency. I failed to achieve flicker and I want to know why. I'll try some off speed frame rates.
 
I believe there's a setting on the C-series that is supposed to reduce flicker, but whenever I've been getting flicker and turn that setting on I don't notice any difference. Anyone use this function successfully?
 
Something I just thought of, and maybe it would or wouldn't affect flicker. Some "tungsten" light bulbs now are "hybrids" with small halogen lamps inside the bulb, as well. Since the halogen lamps lets the tungsten element burn brighter and hotter, maybe that would reduce flicker.
 
Run&Gun said:
Something I just thought of, and maybe it would or wouldn't affect flicker. Some "tungsten" light bulbs now are "hybrids" with small halogen lamps inside the bulb, as well. Since the halogen lamps lets the tungsten element burn brighter and hotter, maybe that would reduce flicker.
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I'm using a Pepper 300 as a light source, strictly old school tungsten....
 
Mark Smith said:
I'm using a Pepper 300 as a light source, strictly old school tungsten....
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Copy that. I was just spit balling... I guess you could look at it as a good thing. I did a few shoots in a studio last year with I believe 3-4 original C300's. Everything was lit tungsten except for some internal LED lighting in some of the backdrops. We had to use 'clear scan' on the cameras and get into very weird shutter speeds to eliminate the flicker/roll from the backdrop LED. The tungsten stayed solid even when we got the cameras 'locked-in' to the LED's.
 
I found the Sony's FS7 and especially the A7s2 had awful flicker, one of the reasons i really like the C300 MKII, it had noticeably no flicker in the same situations along side the Sony's. It does crop up once in a awhile, like in a club or bar shoot but much more forgiving than on the Sony's for sure. I am not sure what or how but it's a nice thing.
 
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