Helicon Soft Forum

I hope this topic has not been already discussed.

I noticed something quite useful when trying to fine focus a Nikon D800 on a fixed subject running Helicon Remote on an Android Tablet (Nexus 7).

When having the camera Live View switch set in Camera mode, the image displayed on my tablet at maximum zoom ratio is flickering (it seems quite normal since it is a video stream which comes from the Nikon).

But when the D800 Live view switch is set in Video mode, the same image on the tablet is very stable and does not flicker at all, which helps a lot for fine focusing.

I don't really know the reason, but I hope this will be helpful for other cameras as well.

That's interesting. What light did you observe that under? Sunlight, fluorescent lamps etc.?

The pictures were taken indoors, but we natural light coming through windows.
The subject was not under direct sunlight however.

The reason I'm asking is I've tried it with our D800 and didn't notice any difference at all between movie live view and still photo live view, I also didn't notice any excess flickering. When shooting under artificial light created by non-incandescent lamps (LEDs, fluorescent lamps, other type of a gas-discharge lamp), flickering may occur as a result of a stroboscopic effect created by combination of flickering light and live view picture being updated at discrete time intervals (same effect that causes an image of the monitor / TV flicker when viewed on live view or recorded in the movie). If that is the cause, then, say, different live view framerate in movie and still modes can make or break this effect.

Maybe, though, there's some other, simpler explanation. I didn't test for the difference between live view modes in low light conditions yet. Perhaps, live view brightness adjustment works difeerently in these modes.

It seems to be related to low light conditions, what is flickering is the noise
and not the light:

At f/4 with Camera Live view: little noise At f/16 with Camera Live view: flickering noise At f/16 with Video live view: no noise

Thanks! We'll experiment in low light to confirm it.