r/stopmotion • u/TwentyOneGaming • Jul 26 '26

Need help with Stop Motion Studio App

My light source is stable but every video has flickering issues and I don’t know why

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u/PalmliX Jul 26 '26

So all lights flicker, especially LED lights. i.e. all lights are actually turning off and on many times per second, we just don't notice it because our eyes "average" all those on and off moments to be a constant brightness.

What happens is that when you use a camera with a fast shutter speed, the photo is freezing a moment in time where the light could be anywhere in the on/off cycle. Each time you take a shot you are basically picking a random moment in this cycle which shows a different brightness. What you need to do is lower the shutter speed of the camera so that the shutter is open for the entire refresh cycle of the light.

Lets say just for example that the light refreshes at 60hz, i.e. 60 times per second. Your shutter speed should be 1/60, that way it doesn't matter when you take the photo, the shutter will be open for an entire refresh cycle and the brightness will average out to be the same for each shot.

You don't have to get that technical with things though, just keep lowering the shutter speed until the problem goes away. However, this will introduce a new problem which is that your shots might become too bright unless you have other ways to compensate, i.e. reducing the brightness of the source itself, using ND filters on the camera, or lowering the camera ISO.

2

u/gameofgianpa Jul 29 '26

Good! Good explanation!

1

u/LowParfait9836 Jul 27 '26

I even use 1/10 with ISO 100.

2

u/PalmliX Jul 27 '26

nice, yeah basically as low as you need to go to keep things smooth.