• 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Major Flicker Issues with Milky Way Timelapse

Offline
#1 alexspaeth
I recently took a Milky Way timelapse (Sony a7riii 24mm f/1.8 ISO 5000 6s) and it appears that deflicker is introducing flicker. I don't believe my edits are <i>that</i> strong, since I've edited flicker-free timelapses similarly before, but I could be wrong.

My edits included WB, Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Vibrance, Saturation, and the parametric tone curve. Of those, the only values that I needed ramped were White Balance, Highlights, and the highlights and lights amount in the Tone Curve. I avoided editing blacks, whites, clarity and dehaze, as per your previous blog post.

One picture includes the reference area calculating the luminance curve showing a lot of flicker. The second shows back to back images that show a dramatic increase in exposure from one to another. I've also included my Detail edits.

Here's the link to an example video: https://youtu.be/0spf3jMylxw

I've never had this issue before, but in the past two weeks (since 5/27/19), I've experienced a lot of flicker using LRT. I hope I can solve this issue.

Question: If you set a custom point curve that doesn't change, is that problematic? Should it always be linear?

Let me know if you need any additional info (e.g. XMP files).

Thanks,
Alex
Attached Files
Thumbnail(s)
               
Offline
#2 Gunther
In my opinion the milkyway is way overdone. I've seen effects like that when pushing the limits of the sensors (your on +2 Exposure) and doing too much editing in Lightroom, too much saturation etc.

Check of this photo from me as a reference, how the milkyway should rather look like: https://www.instagram.com/p/BTTimFvhwq_/ - less is sometimes more.

Then reset everything (Metadata/Initialize in LRT, remove the sequence from LR) and start over. Edit in a more natural way.
If the flicker persists [strong]and cannot be removed via visual deflicker[/strong] (try a couple of passes!) try finding out which edit is causing it.

Set a smaller reference area also for deflicker, which doesn't cover the edges, since you'll have vignetting there, which might also change.

Also: yes, you can use a custom point curve that stays the same over the sequence.
Subscribe to: LRTimelapse Newsletter, Youtube Channel, Instagram, Facebook.
Offline
#3 alexspaeth
I wanted to provide an update on this topic, in case anyone else was curious.

I was able to successfully remove the flicker issue by doing the following:
1) deleting the existing XML sidecar folder
2) changing the color profile from Adobe Landscape to Adobe Color
3) updating the color profile also lightened the photo, so this meant not as drastic of an exposure compensation (from +2 to +0.77)
4) only having edits to WB, Exposure, and the Tone Curve. Vibrance stayed the same and was kept to 15.
5) decreasing the size of the deflicker area to the rectangle sky

Here's the final product on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/ByYc1menEZf/

Thanks again for your help and awesome product!
Alex
Offline
#4 masrak
That last part, your update on how you solved it is Very important. Thank you for that.

...also check out: