Color TV Screen Shots

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

All good advice above.

Reasons why:

Regarding shutter speed: you need 1/30 of a second to capture a full NTSC frame. This is still too fast for good results because the start point and end point of the shutter opening will not be exactly synced to the TV and will show as a light or dark bar across the screen. This bar can be horizontal, diagonal, or other, depending on what sort of shutter mechanism (mechanical or electronic, vertical-moving or horizontal-moving) your camera has. Practically, you need to use 1/15 second or slower.

My Nikon Coolpix S3700 and other digital cameras I've worked with DO sync their shutters to ~60Hz light. I can point my camera at my TV screen with the basement fluorescent lights on, and it will synch to the flourescents (which are slightly off frequency from vertical scan frequency) instead of the TV and a rolling bar on screen will be seen with the camera...Kill the florescents and the bar instantly disappears as the camera syncs to the TV...If I use lights that do not flicker at 60Hz such as incandescent lighting or the sun the camera will always sync to the only source of flicker: the TV.