Hey everyone..
Exactly Adrian. It is usually a real problem.
Like also in this music video
(look at the flash effects from about 2:13)These flash effects were produced using our Creamsource LED Lights, simply pulsed (they have a flash button as well as being a flicker-free light source, confusing, I know..) But unfortunately at the time of this music video we had not yet released our sync system (we called it Creamsync) that allows you to take an external sync signal and lock both the RED camera and the light together, so that a frame would not be "broken" I.E. a flash starting or stopping part way throgh the frame and causing what we call flash-banding.
As far as we are aware, this is the first system available to overcome this issue, I would welcome any news to the contrary though ! :)
We're due to put some videos up of the comparison between a synchronised flash and a non- sync flash on the Red fairly soon.
If you're interested, check back to my blog over the coming week, where I will post the video . (the brief explaination / example has been shot, it just needs to be outputed to the right format, which should happen in the coming days .) http://tama.typepad.com/blog/
If you are unfamiliar with our lighting equipment, have a little look at our site (www.outsight.com.au) and please feel free to contact us for more info regarding the lights, especially if you are interested in the flash/ sync issue as I'm aware that we dont yet have a lot of info up on the site about it.
As far as I have seen, the flash-banding effects with some CCD type cameras are not quite as bad as that experienced with the Cmos based cameras, due to the rolling shutter in the Cmos . So if you have a choice, and a chance to test, perhaps CCD may yield better results with a non-sync flash source such as a camera flash or party strobe.
Other than that, if you absolutely need to use a strobe for a sequence using a Cmos based camera, if you can, keep your strobe lengths quite nice and long, it may help, (just somethng we picked up while playing around) and obviously if you can minimize the frequency of the strobes, and total effect of the strobe on the overall picture, then this does help also (put it further away, or turn it down more).
Best of luck, I look forward to hearing how you go !
Tama.