Whether you usually record videos with your mobile, or if you do it sporadically, you may find that on occasion when using creativity and resorting to slow motion, the result is not what you expected. A problem can appear and it is based on the fact that the lines, waves and flickers prevent you from seeing the moving image and therefore the result is horrible.
Many causes that produce this can come to mind and if we have never suffered it, we may think that the camera or the mobile has broken, but it is not like that. This has an explanation that is difficult to understand, but that we are going to try to facilitate, in addition to fixing it so that you can immortalize in slow motion that moment in video that you want to capture in all detail.
The logical explanation
As you can imagine, slow motion tries to capture a greater number of images per second than a normal video recording would, and can reach 120 fps or even more. Meanwhile, a traditional recording is usually set at 24 or 30 fps. The more frames per second the video has to collect, the more detail it will be able to collect so that slow motion production is possible.
The problem that appears on occasions when waves, lines or even when the screen appears black with micro-cuts, is that the light waves emitted by some artificial lights are not constant . Our human eye is not capable of seeing light waves in all detail, however, and especially fluorescents, have this particularity in front of cameras that they do collect a high number of frames. This means that the frequency of each video frame is higher than the frequency of the lights that we have in the place where we have generated the video.
This not only happens when recording in slow motion, but we can also find it through the mobile screen in a normal recording if we point directly at the lights. If the speed of the frame that is transmitted does not match, the so-called Flickering effect will also appear. We can see this clearly when recording a monitor or television with the mobile camera, although in this case it also has a great relationship with the hertz that the images on the screen exchange at one speed or another.
Reasons why they appear
Although it would be necessary to know each of the situations, with the known explanation we can get an idea about the main cause and it is not other than that the lights in our house are fluorescent or similar and do not transmit light constantly. But this can also be given in other lights, if the speed is higher in the video recording than what this light offers us.
This also has a close relationship with the natural lighting that we have at our fingertips. Sunlight travels much faster than any artificial lighting and therefore we will not find the dreaded effect of flickering light recording on the street or if the necessary light enters the window. When combining natural light and artificial light, the percentage will have the key to be sufficient or not and of course depending on the type of lights. We cannot forget that in Europe the frequency of the current is 50 Hz and therefore even if we change the lights, this cannot be easily remedied no matter how much we change between halogen, fluorescent or LED.
Finally, the final reason for the waves to appear is in our mobile and is the number of frames that it captures according to the configuration. This leads to the confusion of many users that perhaps in a lower-end smartphone they have not suffered this problem before and if in others that exceed 120 fps.
Does it occur in all models?
As much as we spend more money on a higher level smartphone or better cameras, indoor slow motion recording will be accompanied by this effect as long as the light is mostly artificial and the configuration level exceeds the possibilities of light. It does not matter if we use an Android mobile from any of the existing brands, an iPhone or even if we make an investment in a video camera since the result in all cases will be the same.
In social networks and in the forums we come across many users who wonder why this happens and we see the case in as many and as many smartphones as there are models. It is true that the software also has something to do with it, since manufacturers are capable of reducing this effect, but they will not always be able to eliminate it no matter how much it is perfected.
How to solve it?
In order to optimize video recordings and especially those we make in slow motion, manufacturers integrate various options into their software. The first to which we can accept is that it allows us to modify the frame rate per second. We will do this within the camera itself, first choosing the slow motion option and modifying the parameter. Keep in mind that the lower the number of fps, the less light fluctuation will affect the result.
But we are also going to be able to benefit from an anti-flicker option that integrates more and more smartphones. In this case, it is also within the camera settings of our mobile, specifically identified as Anti-band mode , which we can configure to 50 or 60 Hz manually, but we recommend opting or the automatic option, which will allow us to choose the correct option without having us to worry about it again.
Although it is not an option designed for this, changing the resolution will also help, in some smartphones we will notice in a wild way how waves and lines disappear or at least reduce when passing between 4K, 1080p or 720p resolutions. With all this set of options and always trying to support ourselves in natural light, we get that it does not affect us again when recording in slow motion with the mobile.
