24mm T1.4 MK II L

[Daniel Browning]

Explain to me what's going on with this flicker and why is it happening? I would assume once your Aperture is set in Manual mode, it would stay locked at that F-stop..

No, Canon only stops down for the instant that the shutter opens, then opens back up again. They do this because autofocus and viewfinder brightness require the lens to be wide open except when the photo is taken. Of course, it would be dirt simple for Canon to offer true manual control of the iris for those times when you don't need autofocus or the brightest viewfinder, but they don't.

 

[Rick Darge]

So the workaround is to set aperture, unlock the lens a bit, and go about your timelapse? Does this change focus in any way? Makes sense now, thanks. Do all dSRs do this? Nikon included?

 

[Tom Lowe]

Probably Nikon's new G-series (no manual iris) do it. The flicker is caused because the lenses are not capable of EXACTLY repeating the iris closure several hundred times in a row. The same flickering can be caused by using extremely fast shutter speeds. It's simply too delicate of an operation to be exactly the same several hundred times in a row. On a still, it's not a problem. But when you run these as videos the flickering becomes clear.

 

[Petr Dvorak]

So now I know more about this flickering, thanx. Time to use my old Nikon glass.
... But when I was angry about flickering during clouds timelapse one editor told me that its just natural thing for timelapse footage and I must say he is right.

 

[Andrew Walker]

Here's an example of how the aperture works shot with a high speed camera of some kind but it shows how its isn't exactly the same every time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG5QedhroYQ&playnext_from=TL&videos=btKw5luSAgQ

Good timelapse has no flicker caused by the aperture. Timelapse shot on the RED One has no flicker of course. But a DSLR timelapse can have no flicker as well. You just have to know the limitations of the lenses you are using. So to say that its the nature of timelapse to have flicker is just wrong. People should never accept something like that. Personally I like using my RED for day timelapse and my 5D2s for night timelapse. Different tools for different shots. But when I don't feel like lugging my RED up 4 flights of stairs I use the 5D2 for day timelapse but most of the time I'm using the set of Zeiss ZFs I have, which don't cause and flicker.