Hi Nikhil,

I saw your post pretty late, as we were busy in a shoot. Ok, whatever you had
asked is very relevant…I will try to answer from whatever I had read and
understood. Before that, don’t apologise for being anal. In life, its much better to
be anal about something, than just be ‘banal’.

Ok, we are not making any herculean task to ‘exactly’ have two pulses of light fall
onto the film plane. We are very much restricted by physics and economics that
we get only those two pulses of light (It is due to the fact that we decided to
produce and distribute electricity as 50Hz AC). The two pulses of light is a
Rosetta stone only at 24 fps, otherwise it can range from 1 pulse of light to 100
pulses of light on a 50Hz AC current.

Flickers appear whenever there is an uneven exposure in the frames. Exposure

depends on the amount of light and the amount of time. If the amount of light
which falls on the film plane is consistent over an amount of time, then there will
be no flicker. When it is not so, flickers will arise.

As mentioned already, the light pulses at twice the mains frequency ie in a 50Hz
cycle, the light pulses 100 times. This means that at every half cycle of the of
current the light pulses once. If we correlate it with the normal frame rate of 24
fps, then,

At 1/24th of a second, the light pulses 4 times and

At 1/48th of a second , which is the amount of time the film plane will remain
exposed, there will be two light pulses.

Now, as long as the light pulse rate remains as an integer multiple of the frame
rate, then there will be no flicker. That is as long as you chose one of the below
frame rate, irrespective of the shutter, there should not be flicker. In this case
what one is trying to do is to match up with the mains frequency. There are some
caveats when you try to do this.

1. The camera should run on crystal controlled motor

2. The generator should preferably crystal controlled. (They did have some
crystal controlled gennies, then when the electronic ballast for HMI
arrived, they dispensed with them)

3. Extreme vigilance should be exercised to have both the mains frequency

and the frame rate in synch, though they have a non-synch latitude upto
4% where there may not be appreciable flicker.
 Light Pulse Frame Rate Pulse rate

1 x 100 100

2 x 50 100

3 x 33.33 100

4 x 25 100

5 x 20 100

100 x 1 100

Your question becomes relevant here, when the camera should be in PHASE with
the AC power. Like you said, it becomes important that the shutter opens at the
same time the peaking occurs in the AC cycle. It does become significant at which
point of the half wave the exposure starts. In my opinion, there is a small rider to
it. I feel that the question of when the shutter should open vis-à-vis the AC cycle
is more relevant when we are dealing with higher fps, irrespective of the shutter
angle. For example, if we set the camera at 100fps in the above condition, we get
only one pulse of light at 1/200th of a second to fall on the film plane. It is then
pertinent to have the opening of the shutter and the Ac cycle in perfect synch. In
this case, if both of them are perfectly synched, then you may not see the image
you are shooting on your viewfinder.

What we had seen above is independent of the shutter angle. The other way to
avoid a flicker is to choose the shutter angle along with the combination of frame
rate. Many cinematographic books and website recommend the following
combos.
 50% 48% 40% 33.33%

180 172.8 144 120

1 50 48 40 33.33 100

1/2 25 24 20 16.66 50

1/3 16.66 16 13.33 11.11 33.33

1/4 12.50 12 10 8.33 25

1/5 10 9.60 8 6.66 20

What you should look at is the flexibility of the frame rates, theoretically.,
Consider the columns mentioning the shutter angles. When the shutter angle is
50% opened, ie 50% of 360, then the acceptable frame rates to avoid flicker
would be 50, 25, 16.66, 12.50 and 10 fps. These frames rates gets reduced at ½,
1/3rd , ¼th and 1/5th of 50 fps. It is the same for shutter angles 172.8 and 144
and 120. What happens when we reduce the shutter angle is that it gets closed
(like at 172.8 degrees, the area of the shutter that is opened is reduced by 2% as
compared to 180 degrees, at 144 -10%, at 120 around 16%) thereby increasing
the duty cycle of the shutter and to maintain the Hertz cycle, we correspondingly
reduce the frame rates so that pulse rate of the light is an integer multiple of the
frame rate. What essentially happens is that with the combo of shutter angle and
the fps we restrict the hertz cycle of the shutter to one of the harmonics of the
Alternating Current. In this case, it does not matter when the exposure cycle
starts, as all half sine waves are identical. As long as we adjust the shutter angle
and the fps to capture one or more half cycles, we can avoid flicker.

Now, whatever which was said above applies to the a magnetic ballast in a HMI
light. Nowadays we usually have Electronic Ballast. In an electronic ballast, the
50 Hz is upped between 65 to 80 Hz so that it produces square waves instead of
sine waves. When compared to the pulsation of the magnetic ballast, the
pulsation of a electronic ballast will ‘appear’ continuous. It is also theoretically
possible to connect 3 HMIs on each phase of a 3-phase AC current to produce a
pulsation of 360 half cycles in, so that there is no delay for a flicker to be felt or
recorded. There are also many studies conducted to study the flicker below 10
fps.

I should admit that I had not tried all of the above combinations when I was in
the Institute. In retrospect, I should have written a script for each of them and
tried it.
It took some time for me to write as I was referring some books and websites. I
am sure there is somebody who is more adept with these technical matters and
put the same in simple manner. I stand corrected if there are any mistakes.

I am sure there will be others who would be adept in answering the same doubt
in a much simpler