If you’ve ever taken a photo with a TV in it, you might notice just how hard it can be. The picture can seem squiggly or, as in this photo, not even visible. You don’t have to be a Photoshop pro to replace the screen in post production. The answer is in shutter speed.
The screen on a TV is rolled down one pixel at a time at lightening speed. Use a speed of 1/30 or slower to catch the fully ‘rolled out’ screen of pixels.
If your camera doesn’t allow you to set a shutter speed, take a look at the automatic modes. For example, ‘sports’ mode wouldn’t be any good because the shutter is too fast.
Today’s new television technologies don’t present this problem because they no longer work with a scanning electron beam like older televisions. But as you can see from my photo, some us still have the old types 🙂
Other factors that present themselves when setting such a low shutter in an indoor environment are camera shake and motion blur from your subjects. A tripod or resting your camera on an object can help with camera shake as can IS (image stabilisation) lenses. As for your subjects – well – tell them to freeze! And if they’re kids and there’s a TV in the room you probably won’t have to tell them 🙂
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