Loves and hates but Camera issues!!

[Buzzchris]

So I've had my Xperia since 4th Oct and I'm on the verge of sending it back 😞😞

I love the size....shape.....form factor.....screen.....stereo speakers.....battery life (the phone needs time to learn your habits)

I'm not loving the poor signal I get from the handset....if I'm driving or on a train I'm hard to get good signal to stay connected. It like everyone around me is fine but I'm the odd one out in a group of people.....I can't google something or find directions when I need to.

SONY!!!! You need to blow the other phone makers out the water with your camera tech within Sony......you could do far better....let us have multiple options/settings

the camera lags......slow to save images.......freezes and hangs and now I'm getting black banding on my photos. I've not had it a month yet!!

[tomo100brt]

I think this is bad unit. I had lots of Sony phones and none of them had flickering issue with some light.

[Strampke]

I recognise this flickering, even without filming I can see it through the viewer of my XZ3.

It's on LED lights.

Must be something with frequency interferention.

Maybe 60 and 50 cycles/second (wild guess)

There are flicker test apps on play.google.com ( I didn't try what they do)

There must be wise guys around who can explain.

@Jonas, @Martin can you shine a flickering light on this matter?

[Axefjord]

I got a the a similar problem here in Norway with a xperia 5 ii.

Recording videos I'm getting a flickering/strobing effect, probably because of dimmable LED's or halogen.

I understand the issue, but my previous phones fixed the issue, probably by adjusting the shutter frequency or duty cycle. The sony does NOT, and it ruined all of my indoors Christmas videos (in ALL 4 houses I have been in !).

The pro video app seems to not have this problem, but then I'm stuck with the extra-wide video and clunky interface, which is useless for unplanned family recordings.

Does this happen with every phone, or do I have a bad phone?

[IamNic]

Hello @Axefjord,

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@Axefjord  wrote:

but my previous phones fixed the issue, probably by adjusting the shutter frequency or duty cycle.

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with NTSC cameras on full auto )which phone cameras are), it is rather luck than anything else that the shutter speed is long enough to not capture the the dimming of an artificial light source during sensor readout (dark band propagading the video).

As you already discovered - with the Cinema Pro app you can set the shutter-angle manually to counter this. You can also use a third party video app (e.g. Filmic Pro) to set your framerate accordingly and make it your standard video app.

- Nic

[Axefjord]

It's not luck if my Samsung and Huawei phones can avoid this problem completely (at least in my house), while the Sony fails in almost all instances...

[Axefjord]

I made a reddit post with an example video here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SonyXperia/comments/kox7hv/flickering_strobing_video_recordings_indoor_on/ 

Looking at the replies, the problem seems to be with the 5 ii (and maybe other devices launched recently), but the problem does not affect the old sony series (xz and so on). So it seems Sony has forgot to include a (completely normal and to-be-expected) feature that removed the flickering from videos (and photos?).

[IamNic]

Hello @Axefjord,

ok, so you create the worst possible situation (nearly no light) to force the camera to expose as long as possible (1/30th of a second if you used 30fps or 1/60th of a second if you used 60fps) - no wonder the effect appears then.

- Nic

[Axefjord]

The camera will always use the lowest available fps (highest exposure time) at normal* indoor videography, normally 25 or 30fps. It's the same for all cameras, yet the flickering only appears on the recent Sony, not on the old xz, nor samsung or huawei phones. 

Also, you are wrong in your statement. Longer exposure reduces the problem, see samsungs information here:

https://www.samsung.com/pk/support/mobile-devices/galaxy-s7-s7-edge-why-do-video-flickers-when-recor... 

And yes, the example shows the problem very clearly and is worst-case. But the problem is as bad in normally-lit living rooms, as long as dimmable/led light dominates the lightning scenario. 

* indoor in norway during wintertime often means no external lighting, only artificial light from the (50hz) power grid.

[IamNic]

Hello @Axefjord,

what was the framerate of the video you uploaded to reddit? Was it 60fps or 30fps?

If it was 60fps as oppose to the 30fps I assumed that might be your answer, why the effect was not as dominant on older phones as they shot with 30fps by default.

Also if it was 60fps, the maximum exposure time is 1/60th of a second of course.

- Nic

[Axefjord]

The problem occurs on both 30 and 60 fps videos (I have not tried 120fps).

The framerate used was 30 fps on the example clip.

I simultaneously took a video using the pro app, using the 25fps setting. The video ended up with 23.96 fps according to windows. This video does not have flickering.