I need your help.

Charles Pike wrote:

I own the Panasonic GX7 and use it with Panasonic 14mm, 20mm, 25mm and the Oly 45mm lens. When I take photos under certain lighting conditions I see lines across the image. I have checked the manual and see where they tell you to use shutter speeds below 1/100 what about still images? Is this condition different depending on which lens you are using? Both the Oly and Panasonic seem to be using the same type sensor (not the same sensor), and Panasonic says in their manual that this isn't a fault with the camera (under video/movies I can't find anything about still images). Do you Oly users also have this problem. Very upsetting to come back from a shoot only to see that part of the take has these brown vertical strips going across an image. Only certain type of lighting has this problem.

www.photosbypike.com

It's generally horizontal stripes (rather than vertical as per the end of your question - maybe a mistype?).  I see it with fluorescent and also a lot of the modern types of lighting like halogen and LED bulbs.  It's normal and affects current CMOS sensors when you are exposing them with a silent (all electronic) shutter function, as it scans the sensor quite slowly and picks up the "beating" of the lights.  Precisely how many bands are captured depends on the scan speed of the sensor (and possibly characteristics of the lighting).  In Europe the power cycles at 50 Hz; in the US it's 60 Hz.  Typically, you will get band-free results in the US if you set your shutter speed manually to 1/60 and straight divisions of it (e.g. 1/30) - 1/120 may be OK but probably not, and anything faster is out.  You'll get bands appearing at 1/50 and 1/60 as they're not in sync.  In the UK and Europe, the bandless speeds are 1/50 and 1/25 for example (and I really must check 1/100 to see how bad that is).

Yes, Olympus models with a silent shutter function also get this.  The only ones I've seen that seem to get away with it at the moment are Nikon 1 System cameras' one inch sensor. It might be that the new high-speed Sony sensor in the RX100 IV and RX10 II is more immune too - I haven't looked out for comments on those on the forums yet.

Charles Pike wrote:

I own the Panasonic GX7 and use it with Panasonic 14mm, 20mm, 25mm and the Oly 45mm lens. When I take photos under certain lighting conditions I see lines across the image. I have checked the manual and see where they tell you to use shutter speeds below 1/100 what about still images? Is this condition different depending on which lens you are using? Both the Oly and Panasonic seem to be using the same type sensor (not the same sensor), and Panasonic says in their manual that this isn't a fault with the camera (under video/movies I can't find anything about still images). Do you Oly users also have this problem. Very upsetting to come back from a shoot only to see that part of the take has these brown vertical strips going across an image. Only certain type of lighting has this problem.

www.photosbypike.com

Hi Charles.

it sounds to me like you are using the electronic or silent shutter in areas with flourescent lighting. If you are that is the issue. Regardless of the chosen shutter speed the total sensor readout happens in 1/10 or 1/15 a second. This causing banding with flourescent lighting. Switch over to the regular shutter and you should no longer have this issue. When shooting video it is important to keep your shutter speed set at a reciprocal of the lighting refresh rate in the country you are in. 60hz or 1/60 in the usa and 50hz or 1/50 most other places. Or 1/120 and 1/100 etc