shooting a flash?

WhiteOpus

WhiteOpus

hey guys,
I am trying to do a music video in which some of the imagery involves flashing lights. I want to use two or three flashes to illuminate the scene in a strobe light kind of way, but I am aware of the way progressive frames can cut off the illumination because it's not illuminated all the way through the 1/50 of a second that the shutter is open.

Is there any way to do this without that ugly half light, half dark look?
 
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A flash is usually shorter than the shuttertime. It is even possible to not record the flash at all when you have your shutter at 1/(2x fps).
And rolling shutter indeed makes the 'half frame flashes' 'possible'.

Not missing it can be done by having an open shutter, but that adds motion blur.

Or test non flashlight while switching rapidly on and off.
Or use a global shutter camera. I believe BMD's Ursa has a global shutter. That way you'll have no half flashed frames. But you can still miss some flashes.
 
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I used flashlights once to mimic nozzle flash light fx in the dark.
I shot at 60fps and 1/60. This made sure I wouldn't miss a flash, but I had to photoshop the frames to make the rolling shutter disappear.

At 0:44:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUQC9-PH_KA
 
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I was thinking I might be able to flash the headlights on my car to get some kind of flashing effect...problem is, I need the light to be directed and to not spill into the whole scene. Maybe I could make some kind of gigantic snoot for the headlights? I'd like the light to be bright enough to not have to go over 1600 ISO at f/8, 1/60, and get a properly exposed subject.
 
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If you're doing something that is fully dark and only with a few flashes of illumination, then yeah, I'd totally do it in post. If you've got a camera with rolling shutter, flashes are VERY noticeable (and not a good way).
 
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