Why I NEVER use ND Filters With Drone Cameras

[tuxontodd]

The flickering was probably caused by the props intersecting the light from the sun. It probably would have been there in the ND filter footage as well if you had flown at the exact same camera angle and tilt angle to the sun.

I have had this problem many times with drones; it kind of looks like static, light flickering, or very pronounced flickering depending on how much of the blades intersect the direct sunlight. There is no real solution except point the camera down or change the relationship between the sunlight and the camera lens.



That is a creative way to use an ND filter. Fortunately with the EVO II this isn't an issue. With some of the DJI drones this still happens; so yes my fix for that was to simply tilt the camera down until the props disappeared. For photography since the drone is motionless the props were never a problem.

I have noticed even with the EVO II, if it is fighting a strong enough headwind the props will start to appear in the shot; for those situations I still simply point the camera down more. For commercially viable footage there's no way I will let the props end up in the client's footage even if it is mostly blurred out by a slower shutter speed.

I'm just a hobbyist but shoot in mountainous terrain so pointed the camera down is not ideal. I can see the prop blur with the filters and I have to look tp see them but not nearly as annoying without the filter. I could fly slower and just speed up in post but that waste battery and space. And wind is the big determining factor. I use to record forward and reverse so I knew I would get one clean shot. I know some of the drones have a 30 degree upward tilt on the gimbal. I wonder if props are an issue with those.

 

[herein2021]

I'm just a hobbyist but shoot in mountainous terrain so pointed the camera down is not ideal. I can see the prop blur with the filters and I have to look tp see them but not nearly as annoying without the filter. I could fly slower and just speed up in post but that waste battery and space. And wind is the big determining factor. I use to record forward and reverse so I knew I would get one clean shot. I know some of the drones have a 30 degree upward tilt on the gimbal. I wonder if props are an issue with those.

That makes sense, I live in one of the flattest states in the country so there's pretty much not much reason to have to keep the camera level. The EVO II allows up to 30 degrees upwards tilt and it is great. In my Explore Your World video I demonstrated this and no; the props are not visible as long as the drone is flown slowly and it is not windy.

 

[Rubik3x]

The flickering was probably caused by the props intersecting the light from the sun. It probably would have been there in the ND filter footage as well if you had flown at the exact same camera angle and tilt angle to the sun. In all of my hears of filming; I've never seen a high shutter speed cause flickering with drone footage unless an artificial light source was involved (i.e. LED lights) and in those cases its dark enough that you are probably shooting 1:1 shutter speed to framerate anyway.

I have however had the flickering problem many times with drones in direct sunlight which is caused by the props; it kind of looks like static, light flickering, or very pronounced flickering depending on how much of the blades intersect the direct sunlight. There is no real solution except point the camera down or change the relationship between the sunlight and the camera lens. A slower shutter speed may make it less pronounced since it will be more blurry, but it will still be there and could definitely ruin the footage.

So, going back over the shots again, no flickering. It must have been my imagination.

 

[herein2021]

So, going back over the shots again, no flickering. It must have been my imagination.

It is also possible that your video editor was still caching the footage, I have seen all kinds of strange artifacts when my NLE can't keep up with the footage data rates.

I can guarantee though that high frame rates do not cause flickering in daylight.....every NFL game, the Olympics, car races, and boat races are typically shot at 1/400s and higher.

 

[kSetuni]

Sure no problem, below are what they were shot at.




View attachment 9953View attachment 9954View attachment 9955View attachment 9952View attachment 9956




I agree 100%...there is no right or wrong here. The problem I have is the Internet is flooded with reasons why everyone must use an ND filter with their drone (especially when shooting video) and I haven't seen pretty much any posts stating that it is possible to obtain perfectly good footage without one.

A lot of the reasons on the Internet and posted on this thread have trickled down from Hollywood film limitation days vs. users performing their own tests and reaching their own conclusions; what's ironic is even modern day Hollywood and pretty much any fast action sports venue deliberately shoots video with faster shutter speeds specifically to reduce motion blur yet most users don't hear that side of the story. The first thing I do with my regular cameras if I am filming something like a car or boat race is crank my shutter speed up to 1/320s to reduce motion blur; for photography I go up over 1/600s at a minimum.

There certainly are legitimate use cases where an ND filter is needed like if for some reason you have to shoot with a wide open aperture in bright daylight, but I personally have never encountered those situations when it comes to drone video or photography.

Yet for most, including recreational pilots and especially newer pilots, the ND filters can make things far easier to get a far better shot. I was out dabbling with my mini 2 on its first flights and the difference with an nd filter were FAR superior to those without. Could I have messed with the camera settings and maybe gotten a similar quality? Maybe. however the ease of putting on a lightweight ND filter let me focus on my flying vs dabbling with settings along the way.

 

[herein2021]

Yet for most, including recreational pilots and especially newer pilots, the ND filters can make things far easier to get a far better shot. I was out dabbling with my mini 2 on its first flights and the difference with an nd filter were FAR superior to those without. Could I have messed with the camera settings and maybe gotten a similar quality? Maybe. however the ease of putting on a lightweight ND filter let me focus on my flying vs dabbling with settings along the way.

I can't think of a single scenario where using an ND filter makes things easier. Pretty much all drone cameras have fully auto modes and to get the best footage out of most drone cameras for most scenarios a recreational pilot will encounter all you need to do is to set it to Aperture Priority Mode, F5.6, Daylight WB, auto ISO, and JPG or JPG + RAW. You could literally leave those settings set that way for the entire life of the drone and during daylight hours you will get close to 90% of the maximum quality the camera can produce.

The ONLY thing an ND filter SHOULD do is decrease the amount of light hitting the lens which allows the camera to expose the scene using a wider aperture, higher ISO, or lower shutter speed. In reality however the ND filter might be adding a green cast to the footage as well which is not a complimentary attribute.

So if you are getting far better results with an ND filter on vs. without; it does not mean you need the ND filter, it simply means your settings are so far off from where they should be that the camera needs additional help (ND filter) to keep from over exposing the scene. This could happen if your ISO is too high, Aperture is too wide, or shutter speed is too low; all problems that even a fully auto mode like Aperture priority mode will fix. Other recreational pilots that do not have the same major misconfiguration would see no improvement in their footage or ease of use by using an ND filter.

Its like saying its far easier to just keep riding around in a car on a spare tire vs. fixing/replacing the original tire. Sure it will work but it does not mean it's the best way to resolve the problem, nor does it mean it might not cause other issues down the road or that other people should do the same thing when faced with the same scenario.

 

[Blade Strike]

It’s not all about motion blur but strobing as well. I run them when it’s brights and you can’t keep the shutter from banging away.

I have been in the game Many, Many years.. even helped design and test some of the early brushless gimbals, when we still used servos. I have never had a failed gimbal.. brushless motors do not “burn” out. Maybe the drivers (esc) but not the motors. If anything you would see poor performance before this type of failure anyways.

While I respect your opinion, ND filters have MANY uses on drones shooting video. It should always be in your toolkit and don’t buy cheap!

 

[Rubik3x]

I have been in the game Many, Many years.. even helped design and test some of the early brushless gimbals, when we still used servos. I have never had a failed gimbal.. brushless motors do not “burn” out. Maybe the drivers (esc) but not the motors. If anything you would see poor performance before this type of failure anyways.

To support this statement, I use a homemade eyebrow on my ND16 filter. The eyebrow adds some weight that is not counter balanced. The E2P gimbal has always handled the extra weight without a problem, even during startup and ludicrous speed. I take the filter (with eyebrow) off during gimbal calibration as it would interfere with the drone body.
BTW, the eyebrow helps to keep the sun off of the lens to reduce glare.

 

[MichaeMuni]

That makes sense, I live in one of the flattest states in the country so there's pretty much not much reason to have to keep the camera level. The EVO II allows up to 30 degrees upwards tilt and it is great. In my Explore Your World video I demonstrated this and no; the props are not visible as long as the drone is flown slowly and it is not windy.

49 seconds in the entire background is blown out.

 

[herein2021]

49 seconds in the entire background is blown out.

As it has to be if you need to properly expose skin tones while shooting into a setting sun without a fill light. Anyone who films people knows in a scene like that proper skin exposure is more important than the background. If you were implying an ND filter would have fixed the background then that is incorrect; an ND filter would have simply lowered the shutter speed; but to properly expose for the skin tones without a fill light the background would have looked the same.

Each scene in the video was chosen and shot specifically to showcase a feature of the drone or the camera as well as the camera's limitations...that scene was composed and shot to show skin tones when the dynamic range of the scene exceeds the capabilities of the camera. Obviously for a commercial shoot, a different time of day would have been chosen, that scene would have been shot from the ground with proper fill lighting, or it would not have been composed in a way that had a sunset directly behind the model.

I specifically first filmed the model in a normal DR scene to show the skin tones and the scene in a setting that the camera could handle, then I switched to a composition that I knew far exceeded the DR of the camera so that I could show viewers how the camera and ALOG would handle an extreme scene when the model's skin tones had to be properly exposed.

It’s not all about motion blur but strobing as well. I run them when it’s brights and you can’t keep the shutter from banging away.

I have been in the game Many, Many years.. even helped design and test some of the early brushless gimbals, when we still used servos. I have never had a failed gimbal.. brushless motors do not “burn” out. Maybe the drivers (esc) but not the motors. If anything you would see poor performance before this type of failure anyways.

While I respect your opinion, ND filters have MANY uses on drones shooting video. It should always be in your toolkit and don’t buy cheap!

From my perspective, if the gimbal stopped properly stabilizing the camera then it has burned out; I guess a better term would be prematurely failed. I saw many reports from other users back in the DJI P1 - P3 days where they consistently ran unbalanced loads due to ND filters and other attachments on the front of their camera lenses that caused the gimbal to be front heavy. I myself experienced this as well when I put a different lens on my GoPro in the P2 days....the gimbal would go into limp mode (pointing straight down) until the load was removed.

The reports I saw from other users stated that eventually it would just stop lifting even the stock camera; so for them some aspect of the gimbal had prematurely failed. Obviously the newer ND filters and drone generations simply replace the UV filter with an ND filter; for my original post I was simply adding context to why I initially did not follow the rush to buy drone ND filters and from there it evolved into realizing after years of commercial aerial projects that I had not encountered a single situation where I needed them for the aerial photography and video projects that I had completed.

I still do not understand your strobing statement.....and I also completely respect your opinion as well but have simply never encountered a single scenario using daylight lighting that results in strobing simply due to a higher shutter speed. I have literally shot at everything from 1/200s - 1/2000s at framerates between 30FPS and 60FPS since 2014 with drone cameras in every situation imaginable (direct sunlight, fast moving motion, slow motion, orbit, dolly, pan, tilt, pedestal, etc. etc) and never once had strobing.

I also extend my same challenge to you....provide a link to a single reputable source that discusses a single scenario where a high shutter speed causes strobing when the key light is daylight...or even better yet...get out there and test it for yourself; I will even go a step further.....if you manage to shoot a single scene with a high shutter speed that results in strobing and you provide the source raw footage along with the camera settings it was shot at I will test it in my NLE using my post production process and see if the strobing is still in the final footage.

I have absolutely no problem stating I was wrong....but to date not one person has been able to prove strobing exists due to high shutter speed when using sunlight as the key light. If it did; the Olympics, Red Bull, the NFL,, UFC, and many others would have unusable footage because I can tell you in those situations shutter speeds start at 1/320s and go up from there. Also in my referenced video the shutter speed was anything from 1/30s (night footage), to 1/1250s+ (sunset footage) and there is no strobing in the video.

As I have stated many times in this thread...I love ND filters, I use them nearly daily for both photography and video and I am intimately familiar with their benefits and limitations; yet I have never needed one after hundreds of hours of flight time and many hours of aerial video shot for hundreds of projects all over the country and overseas.

 

[Blade Strike]

As it has to be if you need to properly expose skin tones while shooting into a setting sun without a fill light. Anyone who films people knows in a scene like that proper skin exposure is more important than the background. If you were implying an ND filter would have fixed the background then that is incorrect; an ND filter would have simply lowered the shutter speed; but to properly expose for the skin tones without a fill light the background would have looked the same.

Each scene in the video was chosen and shot specifically to showcase a feature of the drone or the camera as well as the camera's limitations...that scene was composed and shot to show skin tones when the dynamic range of the scene exceeds the capabilities of the camera. Obviously for a commercial shoot, a different time of day would have been chosen, that scene would have been shot from the ground with proper fill lighting, or it would not have been composed in a way that had a sunset directly behind the model.

I specifically first filmed the model in a normal DR scene to show the skin tones and the scene in a setting that the camera could handle, then I switched to a composition that I knew far exceeded the DR of the camera so that I could show viewers how the camera and ALOG would handle an extreme scene when the model's skin tones had to be properly exposed.



From my perspective, if the gimbal stopped properly stabilizing the camera then it has burned out; I guess a better term would be prematurely failed. I saw many reports from other users back in the DJI P1 - P3 days where they consistently ran unbalanced loads due to ND filters and other attachments on the front of their camera lenses that caused the gimbal to be front heavy. I myself experienced this as well when I put a different lens on my GoPro in the P2 days....the gimbal would go into limp mode (pointing straight down) until the load was removed.

The reports I saw from other users stated that eventually it would just stop lifting even the stock camera; so for them some aspect of the gimbal had prematurely failed. Obviously the newer ND filters and drone generations simply replace the UV filter with an ND filter; for my original post I was simply adding context to why I initially did not follow the rush to buy drone ND filters and from there it evolved into realizing after years of commercial aerial projects that I had not encountered a single situation where I needed them for the aerial photography and video projects that I had completed.

I still do not understand your strobing statement.....and I also completely respect your opinion as well but have simply never encountered a single scenario using daylight lighting that results in strobing simply due to a higher shutter speed. I have literally shot at everything from 1/200s - 1/2000s at framerates between 30FPS and 60FPS since 2014 with drone cameras in every situation imaginable (direct sunlight, fast moving motion, slow motion, orbit, dolly, pan, tilt, pedestal, etc. etc) and never once had strobing.

I also extend my same challenge to you....provide a link to a single reputable source that discusses a single scenario where a high shutter speed causes strobing when the key light is daylight...or even better yet...get out there and test it for yourself; I will even go a step further.....if you manage to shoot a single scene with a high shutter speed that results in strobing and you provide the source raw footage along with the camera settings it was shot at I will test it in my NLE using my post production process and see if the strobing is still in the final footage.

I have absolutely no problem stating I was wrong....but to date not one person has been able to prove strobing exists due to high shutter speed when using sunlight as the key light. If it did; the Olympics, Red Bull, the NFL,, UFC, and many others would have unusable footage because I can tell you in those situations shutter speeds start at 1/320s and go up from there. Also in my referenced video the shutter speed was anything from 1/30s (night footage), to 1/1250s+ (sunset footage) and there is no strobing in the video.

One question, have you every shot over snow or water in mid day?

 

[herein2021]

One question, have you every shot over snow or water in mid day?

I live in FL so I have shot many hours of footage over water. For snow not nearly as much but I have shot some projects in other parts of the country that were in the winter; everything from mountains to regular fallen snow........never had a strobing effect. The ONLY thing I have had that was close to strobing when the sun was the key light is when the sun is directly overhead and in a certain relationship to the camera lens...the sun passes through the blades of the drone and creates what looks like static lines or possibly strobing in the footage; but it has nothing to do with shutter speed, it is simply the shadows from the blades hitting the lens of the camera.

This phenomenon however is not caused by the shutter speed; it is caused by the fact that drone cameras do not have lens hoods and simply by the fact there are props above the camera and the sun is above the props. This is a major issue that affects all drones because the effect will completely ruin otherwise perfectly good footage. I imagine that drone makers do not use lens hoods because of the additional drag and wind resistance it would add during forward motion of the drone and there is no guarantee that the lens hood will be long enough to block the shadow especially since the lenses are such a wide angle.

In that scenario, an ND filter could lower the shutter speed enough to decrease the impact of the shadows from the blades falling on the camera lens since the shadow would be blurrier...but it still would not completely remove the effect. I have tested different shutter speeds when this is happening and yes...lowering the shutter speed makes it less noticeable but does not eliminate it. The only fix that I use is to point the camera more towards the ground or rotate the drone until the sun is behind the drone; or simply wait for a different time of day.

 

[Blade Strike]

Blade shadowing is something completely different. Anyways if you haven’t seen strobing due to high shutter speeds then I really don’t know what else to say.. it’s very common if you watch shadows (on a real 4k monitor) during these high shutter speeds, m1 was horrid.

I guess Phillip Bloom is imagining things, he’s done a few videos in the past on high shutter speed strobing.

I will agree that the newer craft with adjustable aperture you really don’t need an ND as bad unless you are looking for motion blur, which a lot of people want just a little, due to a lot of these cheap drone cameras get really “crunchy” due to in camera sharping.

 

[herein2021]

Blade shadowing is something completely different. Anyways if you haven’t seen strobing due to high shutter speeds then I really don’t know what else to say.. it’s very common if you watch shadows (on a real 4k monitor) during these high shutter speeds, m1 was horrid.

I guess Phillip Bloom is imagining things, he’s done a few videos in the past on high shutter speed strobing.

I will agree that the newer craft with adjustable aperture you really don’t need an ND as bad unless you are looking for motion blur, which a lot of people want just a little, due to a lot of these cheap drone cameras get really “crunchy” due to in camera sharping.

I've watched quite a bit of Phillip Bloom's work, if you link a video of his where he talks about this when the sun is the only light source I would certainly be open to seeing what he has to say. I definitely think anyone producing Hollywood grade footage would need ND filters to ensure they match the motion blur of the rest of the footage and I 100% agree...if you truly want the 180 degree motion blur in camera the only way to achieve that on a bright day is with ND filters; but I also think a very high majority of people are not filming for Hollywood and that motion blur is an artifact from the film days limitations.

I also agree that many current drones over sharpen the footage and that motion blur could help reduce the crispiness; the ALOG out of the EVO II 6K is perfect and even with ALOG I turn sharpness down to -2 and Contrast to -1.

BTW...completely unrelated but it's really cool that an Autel employee is a member of this forum, it would be great if my feature wish list managed to be seen by someone at Autel who could implement some or all of it.

 

[Blade Strike]

I've watched quite a bit of Phillip Bloom's work, if you link a video of his where he talks about this when the sun is the only light source I would certainly be open to seeing what he has to say. I definitely think anyone producing Hollywood grade footage would need ND filters to ensure they match the motion blur of the rest of the footage and I 100% agree...if you truly want the 180 degree motion blur in camera the only way to achieve that on a bright day is with ND filters; but I also think a very high majority of people are not filming for Hollywood and that motion blur is an artifact from the film days limitations.

I also agree that many current drones over sharpen the footage and that motion blur could help reduce the crispiness; the ALOG out of the EVO II 6K is perfect and even with ALOG I turn sharpness down to -2 and Contrast to -1.

BTW...completely unrelated but it's really cool that an Autel employee is a member of this forum, it would be great if my feature wish list managed to be seen by someone at Autel who could implement some or all of it.

When I get some time I will see if I can find the Mavic 1 video he did.

I actually just started with Autel but I did pretty much the same thing for DJI over the last 7 years up until April of 2020. DJI was an experience of a life time and really enjoyed my role.. who can say they had major role to play in everything from the naza to m200 series?! My favorite was the i2 package, great PM and team! If you look me up on rcgroups under the same handle you can see I fed back a lot of issues and wish list items back to DJI PM of said products.

I’m hoping to do the same for Autel. They are putting together a dream team and glad to be part of it. I’m still very green on the Autel hardware, so please give me a few more weeks to tear down their systems fully. I’m an IT manager for the city I live in so I do try to fully understand all aspects of a system before I try to fully support it.

I will definitely forward your list over to the correct channels.

Have a wonderful night.

 

[herein2021]

When I get some time I will see if I can find the Mavic 1 video he did.

I actually just started with Autel but I did pretty much the same thing for DJI over the last 7 years up until April of 2020. DJI was an experience of a life time and really enjoyed my role.. who can say they had major role to play in everything from the naza to m200 series?! My favorite was the i2 package, great PM and team! If you look me up on rcgroups under the same handle you can see I fed back a lot of issues and wish list items back to DJI PM of said products.

I’m hoping to do the same for Autel. They are putting together a dream team and glad to be part of it. I’m still very green on the Autel hardware, so please give me a few more weeks to tear down their systems fully. I’m an IT manager for the city I live in so I do try to fully understand all aspects of a system before I try to fully support it.

I will definitely forward your list over to the correct channels.

Have a wonderful night.

That is great to hear and I am looking forward to plenty of additional thought provoking discussions in the future and it sounds like Autel just gained a valuable employee. I shot exclusively with DJI drones from 2014 until 2021 and so I created a pretty comprehensive thread comparing them to the EVO II 6K here.

If you manage to find the Philip Bloom video I would love to see it...I even wonder if it was not simply a problem with the drone itself, entire movies these days are shot with higher frame rates and they even manage to pull it off under artificial lighting which is where strobing truly becomes a problem in certain situations.

 

[The Autelian]

It’s not all about motion blur but strobing as well. I run them when it’s brights and you can’t keep the shutter from banging away.

I have been in the game Many, Many years.. even helped design and test some of the early brushless gimbals, when we still used servos. I have never had a failed gimbal.. brushless motors do not “burn” out. Maybe the drivers (esc) but not the motors. If anything you would see poor performance before this type of failure anyways.

While I respect your opinion, ND filters have MANY uses on drones shooting video. It should always be in your toolkit and don’t buy cheap!

Thanks for that. I hope people will listen to reason. Btw, it is “anyway”! Not anyways! Thanks.

 

[AirStreamPictures]

Blade shadowing is something completely different. Anyways if you haven’t seen strobing due to high shutter speeds then I really don’t know what else to say.. it’s very common if you watch shadows (on a real 4k monitor) during these high shutter speeds, m1 was horrid.

I guess Phillip Bloom is imagining things, he’s done a few videos in the past on high shutter speed strobing.

I will agree that the newer craft with adjustable aperture you really don’t need an ND as bad unless you are looking for motion blur, which a lot of people want just a little, due to a lot of these cheap drone cameras get really “crunchy” due to in camera sharping.

The strobing effect from high shutter speeds is really obvious in GoPro footage shot in sunlight. In most cases, I just hate it. It’s a little less noticeable in most drone footage because of camera-to-subject distance, and because drone shots often move on the lens axis, and that de-emphasizes the strobing. But it’s absolutely a factor. If someone doesn’t mind it, then good for them, but if you do, there are simple tools to control it.

 

[herein2021]

The strobing effect from high shutter speeds is really obvious in GoPro footage shot in sunlight. In most cases, I just hate it. It’s a little less noticeable in most drone footage because of camera-to-subject distance, and because drone shots often move on the lens axis, and that de-emphasizes the strobing. But it’s absolutely a factor. If someone doesn’t mind it, then good for them, but if you do, there are simple tools to control it.

I have a GoPro so I will test this when I get a chance. It could easily be a quality control issue with GoPros or due to some other setting left at fully Automatic. A GoPro has a single purpose; to go where other cameras cannot; quality is not one of their strong points and is not even close to being in the same league as professional cameras or even the 1" sensor of the EVO II 6K. Now if you had said a Red Epic or Arri Alexa or C500 or FX9 that would definitely be an interesting data point. Also, shooting with a camera in fully Automatic mode vs fully manual mode may yield different results since the camera could be making micro adjustments to the exposure which translates into the perception of flickering.

To date, no one has posted a single link to a reputable source that explains how flickering/strobing would possibly occur due to high shutter speeds when filming in daylight; I even found the Philip Bloom video which was referenced by @Blade Strike (I believe this is the one) and once again, even in this video he was dealing with an artificial light source in the background.

Every single person on this forum has watched something on their TV or online at some point that was shot with a high shutter speed. If you have ever watched a single sporting event, the Olympics, car races, etc. then you have seen content shot with shutter speeds at 1/400s and beyond. I don't even understand what would be the scientific explanation behind why people think the "strobing/flickering" would occur. The shutter speed controls the exposure, if the sun is the light source and the exposure remains constant via the shutter speed how could flickering/strobing occur or how that would be magically fixed by slowing down the shutter speed.

 

[AirStreamPictures]

I have a GoPro so I will test this when I get a chance. It could easily be a quality control issue with GoPros or due to some other setting left at fully Automatic. A GoPro has a single purpose; to go where other cameras cannot; quality is not one of their strong points and is not even close to being in the same league as professional cameras or even the 1" sensor of the EVO II 6K. Now if you had said a Red Epic or Arri Alexa or C500 or FX9 that would definitely be an interesting data point. Also, shooting with a camera in fully Automatic mode vs fully manual mode may yield different results since the camera could be making micro adjustments to the exposure which translates into the perception of flickering.

To date, no one has posted a single link to a reputable source that explains how flickering/strobing would possibly occur due to high shutter speeds when filming in daylight; I even found the Philip Bloom video which was referenced by @Blade Strike (I believe this is the one) and once again, even in this video he was dealing with an artificial light source in the background.

Every single person on this forum has watched something on their TV or online at some point that was shot with a high shutter speed. If you have ever watched a single sporting event, the Olympics, car races, etc. then you have seen content shot with shutter speeds at 1/400s and beyond. I don't even understand what would be the scientific explanation behind why people think the "strobing/flickering" would occur. The shutter speed controls the exposure, if the sun is the light source and the exposure remains constant via the shutter speed how could flickering/strobing occur or how that would be magically fixed by slowing down the shutter speed.

I can create the exact same effect with my Red Epic. In fact in certain situations I’ve done that because the effect works. Like shooting whitewater rapids, where a 1/4000 shutter creates a sparkly effect in the water that really works for that subject. It’s not a flaw, like HMI flicker, it’s a characteristic of high shutter speed footage. I don’t like that look for most subjects.

The NFL is really not relevant here. They’re shooting at higher shutter speeds and frame rates so that slo-mo playback will look better and their signal path includes devices capable of frame blending and interlace for 1080i playback.