OT: Shooting PAL in NTSC land?

farss wrote on 1/1/2008, 1:39 PM
The wife wants to take a camera with her when she travels OS. All the places she'll be going to are 60Hz countries and I gave up long ago taking my old D8 to 60Hz countries due to the flicker and the camera has no way to change shutter speeds. For this trip I did offer her my EX1 but I can understand why she's baulked at that idea.
So might be time to bite the bullet and buy a palmcorder, it'll get plenty of use when she gets back as a crash cam on my Stickypod.

So I'm thinking to buy a HC7, not a bad camera for the money and it does fit in a purse. Question is this, as I have no way to try before she flies. If I switch the HC7s shutter to 1/125 will this cure the flicker problem?

I've tried the reverse down here years ago when the Z1 first came out. Shooting 60Hz in 50Hz land the 1/125 shutter speed cured the flicker problem as did the flicker filter. What I have no way of testing is if the reverse will work. Of course if the HC7 had a flicker filter like the Z1 has would be really awesome, maybe it does but I can't find it in the specs and it'll be a while before I can get my hands on the works HC7, it's gone swimming somewhere.

One thought did occur to me, this is an issue the camera manufacturers need to work on. Years ago when the world was lit with incandescent lamps it wasn't much of problem. Today you're hard pressed to find an incandescent lamp in most Asian countries and there's not much there using HF ballasts so the flicker issue is really bad when you get it.

Bob.

Comments

craftech wrote on 1/1/2008, 2:48 PM
Bob,

It would seem logical that if you set any camera's shutter speed to a frequency that is NOT equal to the frequency of the AC in that country the flicker should not be recorded. Or is my logic faulty on that one?

John
farss wrote on 1/1/2008, 3:54 PM
You could be correct but I'm still a bit confussed.
Down here I did try shooting 60i on the Z1 and lots of flicker off our iron ballasted fluros. Switched shutter to 1/125th and all was pretty good. In fact as I wound the shutter speed up I could see the problem decrease. Now that alone seems counter intuitive to me. I'd have thought at a faster shutter speed every so often you take a frame when the light was extinguished and yet the opposite seems to happen.

Now with our SI-2K camera at 24fps 180deg shutter, again down here the flicker is pretty bad unless I use HF lights.

However there maybe two distinct issues at play. The global / rolling shutter issue might also be contributing to one kind of problem and the 'beat' between the lighting frequency and the fps another.

Bob.
craftech wrote on 1/1/2008, 6:07 PM
You are probably right about that Bob.

How about if she shot in true 24P with a Canon HV20?

While the HC7 may be constructed a little better (Sony cameras usually are) Sony has gone to the most God awful annoying menu systems for doing simple tasks for a number of years now. The HV20 has a simple toggle menu system on the back that works very well and the camera is cheaper to buy. The HC7 does not shoot in True 24P either which as I said may solve the problem.

I haven't read the full review, but here it is.

John