I shoot a lot of stuff in windowless rooms of swish hotels, pressed into the service of Presentation Theatres. It’s a living. But just last week, whilst shooting in a very new venue next to St Pauls Cathedral, London, I was confused with a problem.

The lighting in some rooms appeared to strobe or flicker. In a subtle manner, not the big horrible flicker of bad Fluorescent or Sodium Vapour lighting. It was so subtle that I reckon many mortals would not have noticed it. I’ve tried to capture it even though the compression process has lessened its effect:

Well, at least you can see it in the viewfinder, rather than when viewing rushes back at home AFTER you can do anything about it. And if you can’t see the ripple effect in the initial shots, don’t worry. It’s just the Vimeo/YouTube compression. It IS very visible on the raw footage.

You’re not seeing things, it is there.

So in these situations, it seems that you can’t stop it, you can only lessen it. Slow the shutter down or turn it off. Experiment with the shutter – you might find a happy harmonic which lessens the effect. At least the compression process seems to minimise it.