Tips for photographing/video LED lights?

[John Smith]

I'm trying to get a decent video of my new car's setup and flash patterns so I can show it off, and get some critiques and suggestions on how to better improve. However using my phone, Galaxy S7, I cannot seem to capture the LED's well.

On my steady burn patterns the camera catches them, but then they fade out and look like they're off, moving the camera they'll fade in and out, but can't get a position that gets them all.

I also have some slow alternating patterns and it makes it look like those are actually flashing.

Now I'm aware of why this happens, just not what I can do to combat it. Thanks

 

[Jennifer Rose Towing]

Unfortunately the phones do not have adjustments when running into issues like this. I have not had any issues with the galaxy s5 camera recording leds. Strobes on the otherhand are difficult to capture.

Try to find an app that would allow you to adjust the shutter speed, that should help. You could try the camera settings if it has a smooth motion or movie mode, might help. Just surprised it can not adequately capture LEDs. The hertz rate of the led is close in some fraction to the framerate of the camera. That is extermely common with leds. Traffic lights and vehicle tail lights can look goofy like that too on dash cams. The problem tends to be worse on closeups too, try changing your distance to see if that helps at all.

 

[Skulldigger]

It's a problem with modern technology in cameras. Film was done at a flash rate, or speed. For instance 16mm film did 40 frames per foot or 24 frames per second. Modern cameras do it the same way. They take sequences of images and then connect them to make a movie. Unfortunately they are limited by your cameras settings and the record rate of your SD card. If your lights flash rate is faster or slower there will be an out of sync situation where some flashes are missed or caught just at the beginning or end of a flash making ti look irregular or different pattern. When you try to film a rotating light you do not get the pop,, pop, pop of the light but each flash may look a different brightness due to the sync time. To do this successfully you need a very high quality fast flash rate camera to try and catch each flash. Not sure there is anything digital out there yet that equals film.