One more bug

[Chris W]

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2 hours ago, jaapv said:

LED lights?

Yes. 

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[lct]

11 minutes ago, Chris W said:

It's not an issue in natural light. With artificial light you can often mitigate it by using shutter speeds that match the flickering rate of the lighting. But I found it wasn't always perfect and I shot some keeper images that had unfixable banding in them. So I just avoid electronic shutters now.

Interesting indeed. I can't seem to get flickering problems with the electronic shutter of my Sigma FPL, even indoor under LED lighting. What shutter speeds are to be avoided in your experience?

[jaapv]

8 hours ago, Chris W said:

Yes. 

LED and fluorescent can indeed be a pain. It has been discussed quite a few times in the forum. 

[adan]

13 hours ago, lct said:

Interesting indeed. I can't seem to get flickering problems with the electronic shutter of my Sigma FPL, even indoor under LED lighting. What shutter speeds are to be avoided in your experience?

Depends on the camera's flash-sync speed - approximately.

The on-off behavior of LEDs becomes noticeable as banding at about 1/360th second with my M10 (metal-shutter sync speed 1/180th second). So I make sure the exposure time is longer than that (1/250th or 180th or 1/125 or 1/60th or 1/30th).

With a fully-electronic-readout "shutter," that may be different, and more related to the speed where "exposure/read-time-distortion" sets in - such as getting a stretched and distorted picture of a fast car going past.

As famously demonstrated by Jacques-Henri Lartigue in 1912 - his focal-plane shutter moving vertically during the motion exposed/"read out" the wheels first, and then progressively later and later the top of the car and the people, as the car moved past. So they are sloped.

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Now, just imagine the daylight has also flickered on and off a few times during that exposure. There would be exposure "bands" of bright and dark, at different heights, as well as the sloping car.

Data I find for the FPL is that it takes 21.7 milliseconds for the sensor to read entirely, equating to about 1/46th of a second to capture the whole picture (longer than the M10s 1/180th or 1/360th-second). So yes, that LONGER read-out time should show less light-flicker banding - but probably more fast-moving-subject distortion (like Lartigues's).

[Chris W]

18 hours ago, lct said:

What shutter speeds are to be avoided in your experience?

From memory, I think it depends on the frequency of the lighting in different countries. If you can sync your shutter value to a multiple of the light flicker you can often eliminate it.

The problem I've had is that in a music concert or theatre production the intensity of lighting constantly changes. So I would have no banding in a shot, then mild banding, then extreme banding - and this was all quite random. So I just avoid using electronic shutter.

[kiwidad]

On 9/20/2025 at 5:57 AM, jaapv said:

It is just the consequence of dragging all this Rube Goldberg stuff into the M. It is a minimalistic camera and attempting to make it into a camera with as many 2025 bells and whistles as possible crammed in is a recipe for this kind of thing. It is teaching an elephant to walz by dressing it in a tutu and does indeed not bode well for a possible M-EVF. 

Well said! Last time Leica did such debauchery was the m5 and that dint bode well. People talk about a hybrid but none exists! Folk say Fuji but it isn’t a rangefinder when not in viewfinder mode it’s just data projected. I don’t recall an optical rangefinder patch, it just a clip from the EVF. Which brings me to delays! The m11 visoflex 2 has a wicked delay!

 

the m cameras are a fine example of the minimum needed to get the image.

if Leica do release a evf using m lenses I hope it not labeled M. Next we will hear lust for AF!

[kiwidad]

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On 9/27/2025 at 10:04 AM, lct said:

Interesting indeed. I can't seem to get flickering problems with the electronic shutter of my Sigma FPL, even indoor under LED lighting. What shutter speeds are to be avoided in your experience?

Can’t say I ever saw flickering but the image has banding with LED lighting when using electronic shutter. It’s a normal phenominum. Used to get the same shooting CRTs

[lct]

1 hour ago, kiwidad said:

Can’t say I ever saw flickering but the image has banding with LED lighting when using electronic shutter. It’s a normal phenominum. Used to get the same shooting CRTs

I got no banding issues so far so i wonder if all LED lights cause this problem and/or at what shutter speeds it appears.

[LocalHero1953]

No it's not all LEDs, just cheap (and older) LEDs that don't have buffering to smooth out the signal. You can never predict it without trying. The problem occurs mainly at base mains frequency (Europe 50Hz, NAm 60Hz), but some LEDs operate at a high frequency (giving narrower bands).

Edited yesterday at 01:05 PM by LocalHero1953

[Chris W]

3 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

No it's not all LEDs, just cheap (and older) LEDs that don't have buffering to smooth out the signal. 

This was a high end rock concert. I doubt it was 'cheap and old' LEDs

I don't know if the flicker frequency changes as the lights are mixed in different combinations, dimmed or blasted, but the majority of my Sigma FP shots were unusable, some with subtle banding, others with bold stripes across the photograph. So I would never use anything other than mechanical shutter at a concert again.

[LocalHero1953]

1 minute ago, Chris W said:

This was a high end rock concert. I doubt it was 'cheap and old' LEDs

 

Obviously I couldn't say in your case, but there are certainly LEDs that don't cause banding.

[Olaf_ZG]

On 9/26/2025 at 5:15 PM, adan said:

Common newbie mistake - the Fuji X-Pro is NOT a rangefinder camera. 

Having a viewing window does not make a camera a rangefinder camera, any more than having windows in one's house turns it into a "rangefinder house." 🤪

Here are two more cameras with window viewing (but no rangefinders), just like the Fuji. From the opposite ends of the price spectrum. But they are not "rangefinder" cameras either.

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[Chris W]

18 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Obviously I couldn't say in your case, but there are certainly LEDs that don't cause banding.

I'm sure there are -  maybe the ones at the show I was photographing. In my inexpert opinion it's an issue of lighting being constantly mixed, different combinations at different strengths. The electronic shutter can't keep up with the continuously changing lighting conditions.