Incandescent Quartz Tungsten Halogen lamps, or overshadowing Metal Halide with Halogen will produce better lighting without creating “striations” or “bars” on the image. LED lamp technology is promising, and may be the solution of the future for photo-finish lighting. According to the speed of camera, you should aim to have between 150 to 300 foot candles, evenly spread across the finish line.
So why do you get those “bars” on the images? Artificial light running on an AC circuit is cycling on and off at 50 – 60 cycles per second, so what you’re seeing is a camera at 1,000 fps taking pictures during the portion of the cycle when the lights are off.
The 5L300 cameras have an option called Phased Light Compensation (PLC) that can be purchased. PLC helps to improve the image by sampling frames before the dark line and after the dark line, then blending pixels to deter the effect of the dark lines in the image due to the AC cycle. Contact Sales for a quote if you are interested in this feature.
The 5L500 Vision camera can be purchased with the option of LuxBoost which can dramatically increase image quality in low-light settings. See the image below for a comparison of the EtherLynx 2000+ and the new Vision with LuxBoost. Contact Sales for a quote if you are interested in this feature.
Read tips on enhancing low-light FinishLynx captures here
Keywords: indoor, image, lighting, stadium lights, dark lines, halogen