Why do fluorescent tubes show evenly spaced bands in phone photos?
Asked 9/28/2014
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2 answers
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When photographing a fluorescent tube with a Moto G 2013, evenly spaced bright/dark lines appear along the tube, and the spacing changes as the camera gets closer. The bands also seem stronger when the camera focuses on the tube. What causes this effect: internal reflections, or something related to the light source or camera sensor/shutter?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
9
I don't know that camera, but this looks like a classic case of focal plane shutter artifacts with rapidly changing light.
The output of the fluorescent tubes changes significantly over each 1/2 line cycle, which is at 120 Hz or 100 Hz depending on what part of the world you are in. At short exposure settings, only a part of the picture is exposed at any one instance. The shutter is then actually a slit traveling across the image. Each part is exposed for the specified time, but different parts of the picture are exposed at different times.
You can get a idea of how fast the shutter moves across the image by seeing what the X-sync speed is. That is usually the fastest shutter speed at which the whole shutter is open at one time. Let's say that's 1/100 s as example. That means it takes the shutter 10 ms to traverse the image, regardless of how narrow the slit is. 10 ms happens to be a half line cycle at 50 Hz, which is the period over which the light will go thru a full cycle of brighter and dimmer. Some part of the picture will be exposed at the bulb's brightest time, another at the dimmest.
The "lines" you are seeing is what the light looks like during a brief time around it's dimmest output. Do not expect the output of a florescent tube like this to be a smooth function, like a sine at twice the line frequency. The tube could "pop" between lower and higher output states.
Originally by user7603. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user7603
11y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
This is most likely banding from the fluorescent light flicker interacting with the camera’s rolling/electronic readout, not internal reflection.
Fluorescent tubes powered by mains electricity don’t emit perfectly steady light. Their brightness varies rapidly, typically at 100 Hz or 120 Hz depending on local power frequency. Phone cameras usually don’t expose the whole frame at exactly the same instant; they scan the image line by line. If the lamp brightness changes during that scan, different rows are recorded at different brightness levels, producing evenly spaced light/dark bands.
Why it changes:
- Closer framing / different distance: the tube occupies more of the frame, so the bands become easier to see and their apparent spacing changes with magnification.
- Focus differences: focus/exposure changes can make the contrast of the bands more obvious.
This is a common issue with fluorescent and some LED lighting.
To reduce it, try:
- using a slower shutter speed,
- enabling anti-flicker/50 Hz/60 Hz mode if available,
- photographing under non-flickering light,
- or shooting at settings matched to local mains frequency.
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