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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Experiencing a Flicker, need help.

Louis Maddalena

Louis Maddalena

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Hey guys,

I have a Epic-W on set shooting a BMW M 7-Series. Shooting interiors we are getting a flicker on the screen and on the buttons for the air conditioner.

We have played with the shutter, and brought in motion mount.

Some things we noticed:
1) The monitor and the air conditioner are refreshing at different rates
2) When you get the flicker to go away it sometimes will return a few minutes later.
3) The DP is saying this didin't happen with the Alexa he shot the last car with.

Any suggestions, solutions, any car guys out there run into this problem, what did you do?
 
We faced this trouble shooting for pioneer DJ. It’s usually cause by poor LED quality.
After many trials including changing the power source and playing with shutter speed decimals we ended up “fixing it in post”.

Hope someone will have a better solution.


Good luck !
 
This has nothing to do with poor LEDs. It is just the way they are driven by the CPU of the car. They are not lit constantly but are in fact flashing all the time, fast enough to trick your brain making it believe it´s a continuous light. This is used very often now, the same with two buttons you press at the same time, probably only one will react as it is triggering a new set of operations in the software. This is the downsite of everything being digital today.
You obviously tried what´s possible, if you cannot resolve it with a long shutter speed it will probably have a solution in post. I don´t see how an Alexa would behave different here, that´s not a camera related problem. Cheers!
 
gandalf de maupeou said:
We faced this trouble shooting for pioneer DJ. It’s usually cause by poor LED quality.
After many trials including changing the power source and playing with shutter speed decimals we ended up “fixing it in post”.

Hope someone will have a better solution.


Good luck !
Click to expand...


What software did you use to fix it in post? I have never had a time where I couln't the flicker out in prinicpal photography, so I don't have experiiene witht fixing this in post.
 
Chad Lancaster said:
ya probably inconsistent led's in the car. Can you do a multiple passes with a motion control setup and combine in post?
Click to expand...


Thats what I mentioned but there is no budget to get a motion control rig in here, it would mean another day of shooting and rentals + the the rental of the mo co rig.
 
Try different frame rates and shutter speeds, I would doubt that the flicker is there at 12.5fps 360 shutter for example. Tell actors to move and drive twice as slow and the flicker will be gone. The added motion blur might be visible in fast movement but not when fingers are moving over the panels etc....

If yo need to drive full speed etc, shoot low frame rate long shutter plates for the action on the panels and your post guys can do the rest.


Normally the can also take out stills without the flicker and track them back, the flicker is only a real problem if it hits the actors or non solid parts of the interior.


Also, make sure to change DP as he seams not to know much about cameras and how they work....
 
Björn Benckert said:
Try different frame rates and shutter speeds, I would doubt that the flicker is there at 12.5fps 360 shutter for example. Tell actors to move and drive twice as slow and the flicker will be gone. The added motion blur might be visible in fast movement but not when fingers are moving over the panels etc....

If yo need to drive full speed etc, shoot low frame rate long shutter plates for the action on the panels and your post guys can do the rest.


Normally the can also take out stills without the flicker and track them back, the flicker is only a real problem if it hits the actors or non solid parts of the interior.


Also, make sure to change DP as he seams not to know much about cameras and how they work....
Click to expand...

Ha ha. Like this last bit.
 
Make sure the brightness of the console lights are ALL THE WAY UP. Obviously more prone to flicker if they are attempting to electronically dim.

Do this after you change the DP.
 
Easiest way to fix this in post is to duplicate the clip and stack them on top of each other. Then offset the top layer by 1 frame, and adjust opacity of the top layer. Usually 50% works. Different blend modes on the top layer works as well.
 
Matt Bai said:
Make sure the brightness of the console lights are ALL THE WAY UP. Obviously more prone to flicker if they are attempting to electronically dim.

Do this after you change the DP.
Click to expand...


Thats part of our problem. On this particular model you can no longer change the brightness of the display manually, it changes based upon exterior lighting. And since we are lighting the car, the car is dimming the display. There isn't really anyhting we can do bout it unforunately.
 
It's always the fault of the hardware ;). In our case, that's what the manufacturer said...

What Bob linked should be fine. If you still struggle I can look at what we did on that shoot.
 
Louis Maddalena said:
Thats part of our problem. On this particular model you can no longer change the brightness of the display manually, it changes based upon exterior lighting. And since we are lighting the car, the car is dimming the display. There isn't really anyhting we can do bout it unforunately.
Click to expand...

Cover the light sensor with gaff tape. Should be on the dash by the windshield.

Or contact the manufacturer see what they say, make sure car is drawing the least amount of power possible.
 
Well, that "feature" has gone on the latest software and been replaced with "Brightness at Night" instead.


What this means is that the screen automatically dims at every opportunity and it's VERY light sensitive.

I found a post over on BabyBMW where someone had accidentally coded "Brightness at Night" and it was driving them mad. They/he just did a recode to defaults ad put it back to the way yours is.

Trouble is, mine was like this before I did any coding .........

I'll ask over on the main coding forum if anyone knows where the setting is but guessing its something like "Helligkeit_bei_Nacht" - so I'll have to search in the HU_NBT codes.....

Bloody BMW and their updates why can't they leave things alone.............

http://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?p=20325296

Dealer should be able to help you.

You will need to code it back to the old version with just "Brightness" as an option and not "Brightness at Night"

There is a control for brightness in the menu.
 
"This has nothing to do with poor LEDs. It is just the way they are driven by the CPU of the car. "

Also your DP said he didn't have the problem on "the last car" with an Alexa. Same car? Didn't think so...
 
Matt Bai said:
"This has nothing to do with poor LEDs. It is just the way they are driven by the CPU of the car. "

Also your DP said he didn't have the problem on "the last car" with an Alexa. Same car? Didn't think so...
Click to expand...

Correct, previous car was a 5 Series, we are shooing 7 series this week.
 
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