4k Video Image Flickers, how to fix?

[Shuriken Steve]

I have been having a very hard time removing a flicker from my 4k videos. It is especially noticeable on vertical white features, like a railings or trees.

It often occurs on a roof, with the roofing tiles causing a resonating wave as the drone pans across.

I've tried to shoot all manual, add an ND filter, reduce the shutter, change the exposure. Nothing solves it.

Has anyone found a way to remove this video glitch? If so, can you please share the settings that you used to shoot the footage.

Thanks!

 

[Droning on and on...]

First, we need to determine if it's actually recorded on the video, rather than a playback defect of the device or software your using.

Can you see blank frames or any other visible artifact when you step through the video frame by frame? If you do see messed up frames, do you see them stepping frame by frame on an entirely different device, hardware and software, like smartphone vs. PC?

Strobing artifacts when panning gridlike patters is a well-known problem recording video. There are no settings changes that can eliminate it. The only solution I know is to pan slowly. This is discussed a lot in the blogosphere, Google it.

If you need a faster pan, you can speed it up in post if there are no visible indicators like moving objects that it's been sped up.q

 

[Shuriken Steve]

First, we need to determine if it's actually recorded on the video, rather than a playback defect of the device or software your using.

Can you see blank frames or any other visible artifact when you step through the video frame by frame? If you do see messed up frames, do you see them stepping frame by frame on an entirely different device, hardware and software, like smartphone vs. PC?

Strobing artifacts when panning gridlike patters is a well-known problem recording video. There are no settings changes that can eliminate it. The only solution I know is to pan slowly. This is discussed a lot in the blogosphere, Google it.

If you need a faster pan, you can speed it up in post if there are no visible indicators like moving objects that it's been sped up.q

Thanks for the input. There are no missing frames. It is a range of hot pixels, or white highlights where mostly seen. Like the edge of the roofing tile alternates between light and dark. The same with railings or trees with a sun facing side. The hottest spot flickers. For consistency, I often use the Circle QuickShot, which pans at set rate. I am not sure if I can alter that speed, but will investigate as an option. Personally, google's search results are biased. I prefer to turn to niche sites like this with kindred pilots since I trust their opinions more. Unfortunately, the dozen posts on the topic did not really solve the issue for me. While, attempting to fix it in Post is always an option to explore, my 'go to' NLE, Videostudio, does not have the advanced features as Premiere. So I'm hoping there's an ideal combination of settings that can minimize the effect in camera.

 

[WanderLost]

I have been having a very hard time removing a flicker from my 4k videos. It is especially noticeable on vertical white features, like a railings or trees.

It often occurs on a roof, with the roofing tiles causing a resonating wave as the drone pans across.

I've tried to shoot all manual, add an ND filter, reduce the shutter, change the exposure. Nothing solves it.

Has anyone found a way to remove this video glitch? If so, can you please share the settings that you used to shoot the footage.

Thanks!

I've noticed similar issues with smaller sensors on cameras as well. They seem to have issues with bright specular reflections. Sometimes they show up as bright vertical lines. If a polarizing filter is available for your bird, this can help a lot to reduce the bright spots.

 

[Shuriken Steve]

I am going to mark this issue as 'partially' resolved. Bumping up the capture resolution has helped remove much of the distortion. Though, on solar panels, it is still visible.

Going from 1080p 30fps to 4k at 60fps got me there. However, it opened up another issue with HEVC compatibility and Windows. Eventually leading me to purchase a license to install Apple's codec.

At first, the codec did not install on my windows 11 workstation. The purchase option was not available via the MS Store. Had to go to my windows 10 laptop to unlock the payment feature and when logging back into the W11 system, it installed.

I can now edit the vast amount of 4k, 60fps video without converting to 1080p (via VLC) and degrading quality - and causing the reverberating flicker issue.

Still running resolution tests on the output, but this appears to have solved the compatibility issue Apple has caused with HEVC codecs on PCs. While I understand the legal requirement for their licensing fee, the growing popularity of this file format should make it a standard upgrade feature included in Windows Update.

The amount of time required to research solutions can kill productivity. Thanks again to WanderLost and Droning On for their input. I will try darker ND filters to see if they also improve the shots.

 

[Drbobk]

I'm having similar issues with my Mavic 3 Pro - flickering and waviness in the video. Any suggestions (no ND filter used for this)

DJI_20250924010558_0072_D

Wavy flickering video

vimeo.com