The Image Is Flickering

If your image is flickering like the video below, this article is for you.

This flickering is commonly caused by the interaction between your camera shutter speed and the lights in your room. Long story short, whenever you come accross the issue, look for the option to switch the Frequency (known as oscillations per second) from 50Hz (PAL) or 60Hz (NTSC) to the opposite setting.

Depending on the software you are using, the setting could be called Flicker Reduction, Anti-flicker, Frequency, however, they all do the same job.

The flickering caused in the above demonstration video resulted from filming under a 60Hz fluorescent tube while the frequency was set at 50Hz. By simply changing the Frequency to 60Hz, the problem was fixed under the exactly same lighting environment:

The flickering also can appear when the shutter speed of your camera is slower than 1/50 or 1/60 even though the frequency setting matches the lighting environment. To be specific, this usually happens when the exposure of the camera is decreased on purpose, or when the lighting environment is too dark.

The following video was taken under 60Hz fluorescent tube with the frequency set at the same rate, but with a significantly decreased exposure. As you can see, the image flickers despite the correct frequecy setting.

Therefore, another way for you to reduce the flickering is to either increase the exposure, or ensure the lighting environment is as bright as possible.

Occasionally, the flickering may persist even after you tried all the methods mentioned above. This is usually due to the particular lighting environment you are in. In this circumstance, we recommend that you change the light source or move to a different lighting environment.