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Anyone out there with green screen experience?

pondball

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One of the reasons I got my new (to me) D700 was to be able to produce some better product shots. I also want to be able to shoot some rapid shots of a sports delivery and portray In a professional manner on my site. I have been toying with the idea of going with green screen and have done some research as well as taking an online course.
I don't live near a photo shop so have no nearby "experts" to go for help. A couple of weeks ago I stopped into a Henry's (45 minutes away) thinking I was going to get some help and the only answer I got was "I don't know, but my friends have used it!"... And no it wasn't a technical question... Simply something I asked about the material itself.
I don't have a lot of space, 8' ceiling, but would have a runout in front sufficient to put up a 9' x 20' screen... Enough to be able to shoot the 5 frames/second I anticipate I will need for the coaching shots.
I'm still a little unclear about the lighting though as I have 0... No... Zero... Experience with lighting.
I came across this setup today... http://www.amazon.ca/LimoStudio-Pho...TF8&qid=1394983925&sr=1-9&keywords=LimoStudio One of many different ones that had different lights, different lengths of screen etc. is this overkill for what I would need or is it not enough. I wouldn't have to go with this one but the types of light sect are what I'm mostly asking about.
Looking for any help with direction I should be heading in before I spend unnecessarily on equipment that will be taking up space.. I like the photokey software and may even spring for version 6 pro... The westcott matte looks to be top quality as well, offering a relatively wrinkle free option.
 
I have one but don't use it much. The thing with it is that you still have to light it evenly or it's almost as big of a pain in the neck as just a normal background would to cut from.

As to the product set you listed; no, that won't help you much. You need flash -speedlights or monolights- to stop the action, what you listed will give you motion blur because you won't be able to get your shutter speed high enough to stop the action due to it's not putting out enough light.



Today seems to be a "do yourself a favor and read Light, Science and Magic" days. It's really worth your time!

mike
 
Lighting is huge. You want to develop a crisp separation between subject and background. You also don't want to create and color cast off from the green.

Honestly you might be better off going with a medium gray background. Green screens are more useful for video than photo.
 
I use a green screen on occasion as well for portraits. while an interesting novelty, the biggest problem with a green screen is that when you remove the chroma key background and replace it with a digital background, you lose the DOF. I prefer a white or black muslin background. you could also go with seamless paper.


what is it exactly you are wanting to shoot? that will help determine what kind of lighting you need.
for portraits, I use 2-3 speedlights on stands with either shoot through umbrellas or brolly boxes.
you can also get studio strobes. whichever way you go, i would highly recommend flashes/strobes over continuous lighting if you plan on shooting moving objects with them.
 
There are three things that I would like to shoot primarily:

1) sports product that would eventually have all the background stripped out and be able to be laid seamlessly on a background identical to my website... So either white or in most cases a soft patterned grey.
2) a simple delivery sequence (lawn bowls - similar delivery to alley bowling but the game is more akin to curling which makes it a way better game... Eh!) this is not a fast motion but I am wanting to break down the various parts of the delivery and believe the essentials can be caught in bursts of 5 fps. Would a large continuous light not catch this? Shots would be taken from the side... Then again from the front view. Results of the delivery would not be important as it is the motion and sequencing of it that I wish to catch, then include in a video. I've tried videos outdoors but I believe I can be more successful with a setup indoors using dslr
3) shooting video coaching sequences where I am just talking or showing something from a reasonably static position... Then replacing the green screen with another (perhaps bowls related) background .

I understand that separating the subject from the background as far as I can will lead to the best results so as not to have any green halo effects, thus was thinking that I would perhaps be ok with a larger muslin screen... Somewhere in the order of a 9x20... Other colours may work but none of the product that we have, nor any of my present clothing would have a problem with separation issues with chroma key green.

I prigs ally intended on shooting this in my basement where I have only an 8' ceiling, 12' width and about 15' of length. My 24-85 Nikkor was what I was going to use as it will allow me a full head to toe capture. However I do have access to a larger area where there are no dimensional limits. My objective was to keep this as simple and local as possible though.
 
I've done green screen in an open air photo booth. You can see the results here and you can see where the software had trouble with areas that were not evenly lit. The key is evenly lighting the background and exposing the subject and background about equally. You can verify this with a light meter. If those conditions are met, and the exposure is good, green screen will work. I used two Elinchrom studio lights for the subject and two Speedlights for the background. Continuous photographic lights aren't practical for this because they don't overpower most ambient room light enough to affect exposure and they don't freeze motion. Continuous lights usually require high ISOs, which introduce noise to the image. Remember anything that's not a strobe is continuous, including natural light and room light. Technically you only need the subject and background to expose equally for green screen to work, so you could just boost the ISO and use ambient, but that's not professional, especially indoors where the light is crap, and it gives you no control.

Continuous lights look bright, but they're not. Ever try shooting a football game at night at ISO 200, or inside a well-lit reception hall? The lights look bright to you, but to the camera they don't register at ISO 200. I metered the Limo lights at f/3.2 from a foot away at ISO 400. When you move that light to a working distance from the subject or background, it doesn't register. If you wanted to get an aperture of say f/8, you'd have to boost ISO to about 3200 to get it to expose properly from one foot away, and one foot isn't a practical working distance for green screen. Also, the hardware in the Limo kit is as cheap as it gets. The only thing worth getting that kit for is a cheap background support system with a green screen. The lights themselves have no use. If you want to do good green screen, search for green screen or chroma background on Adorama to find a background and support system. Then learn about lighting and use at least three strobes -- one for the subject and two to evenly light the background. It's important the background is evenly lit so it's easy for the software to remove. If the background is dark or has lots of wrinkles, the software may struggle. You also need digital backgrounds to insert. As with anything in photography, doing it well requires understanding equipment and light. The video below explains how to do good green screen.

[video=vimeo;56097425]http://vimeo.com/56097425[/video]
 
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Lighting is huge. You want to develop a crisp separation between subject and background. You also don't want to create and color cast off from the green. Honestly you might be better off going with a medium gray background. Green screens are more useful for video than photo.

If I use a medium or light grey screen it sounds like a better option... I mean, I don't really need to blank out all the background and insert another. I'm really just looking for a clean, white if possible background that will not conflict with my present web background when displaying product. I'd also like to be able to display some images in flyers without having to do too much PS editing ... That's why I thought the green screen might be the ticket... But it sounds like I'll need a lot more background in lighting before I venture into green screen. The video option can come letter is suspect.
 
The trick to creating composites (cutting stuff out of an image and pasting onto another (or web page etc)), is that you want the background to contrast strongly with the subject. Green or blue are common 'chroma key' backgrounds because they tend to be easy to avoid with a wardrobe or costume. One problem with a coloured backdrop is that it can reflect color back onto the subject, which makes any sort of automatic background removal look bad.

As mentioned, for still photography, it's often easier to use something that is color neutral. Grey works well because you can make it look anywhere from black to white, if you can control your lighting. And also as mentioned, you may need something like 4 lights to pull it off. Two for the subject and two for the background. Or if you want the background dark, you can use one or two lights pointed at the back of the subject, to help give it separation from the background.

As for shooting a sequence, that gets to be tough in a studio type situation. As mentioned, flash/strobe is the better option for freezing movement, but you have to give the lights time to recycle between shots. I'm not sure if 5fps is going to work.

Constant lights might be better for a sequence, but they don't put out nearly as much light for each photo, so it's harder to freeze the movement without resorting to really high ISO or really bright (and hot) lights.

I would personally recommend trying to do the sequence shots outdoors with plenty of light. The product shots could be done with continuous lights, provided that you use a tripod. Strobes would also work but it's not as important as when shooting a live subject.
 

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