Best camera settings for Green Screen

What are the best settings for a camera shooting green screen? I guess what I want to know really is what shutter speed is the best. I have been using 1/30th and recently started using 1/60th. Should I use another setting instead?

You need to provide info on the camera that you are planning on using.

My initial thought would be to to use the highest quality setting possible when dealing with GS. A well lit green screen that does not spill onto foreground is a must.

Even with that, you need to have a really good understanding about keying in FCP to get the best results. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't matter whether you shoot at a 30th or 60th.

Jonathan

Deptu of field helps, getting the subject clear, screen blurred.

Very evenly lit screen with no shadows or changes in brightness across the screen.

Back light (halo light) the subject to burn off the green halo from the light bouncing off the screen.

Subject 10-20 feet from the screen, or as far away from it as possible.

Specific camera settings will depend on the camera & lens used.

• Keeping the subject away from the screen to avoid green splash is important but can be done in 8-10 feet quite easily if you don't over light the background. Having a kicker / hair light can help a lot too.

• DOF is something a lot of people get confused about and try to go too shallow to make the screen blurred. In my experience having a blurred screen is not as important as having the entire subject and all edges sharp, so don't go too shallow.

• Light the screen as evenly possible.

• Use a waveform to check for well lit. If your camera doesn't have waveform built in, take a shot of the screen without a subject and load it to FCPX and view in the waveform monitor. The line needs to be as even and horizontal as possible, though it certainly doesn't need to be perfect.

• I you can shoot 4:2:2 instead of 4:2:0 then absolutely do it, but a good key can still be pulled from 4:2:0 as long as you get the fundamentals right (lighting etc). 4:4:4 is even better but most of use don't have that luxury.

• Shoot progressive if possible.

• Frame rate depends on what your subject is doing, as does shutter speed. If your shutter speed is too low then you can get more motion blur as they move their arms and particularly hands/between fingers and this makes it much harder to key cleanly.

I don't consider myself an expert on green screen, I've done maybe 50 or 60 g/s shoots. There are other people that do them day in and day out so hopefully they'll chime in too where there's extra stuff you need to know or where I'm doing it wrong and they know a better way (and I'm always happy to learn easier / better ways!).

The camera I am using is a Canon XH A1. The footage s 1080i HDV recording on to a Focus Enhancement FS Pro 4 HD recorder. I think I tried to record my footage in progressive but the recorder would not record that way with this camera.

My green screen room is only about 10 x12 with file cabinets behind the camera. So effectively I only have a 10x10 room to use. My subject is about 6 feet from the GS. My lighting is CFL 5000 Kelvin. Two units have 6-60 watt bulbs and one has 9 bulbs. Each unit is an umbrella with a metal shade on the inside and a diffuser covering the front of the umbrella. The screen is lite with 11-60 watt CFL with the same kelvin as the other units. These lights are using the clamp on receptacles, with 10 on two poles, one pole on each side of the GS. The eleventh light is hanging from the drop ceiling in the center pointing down toward the screen. Another clamp on shade is also on the drop ceiling being used as a hair light. To prevent any spillage from the lights pointing to the screen I have used some black foam core to block light from spilling toward the camera. Using the Zebra function in the camera I am able to get a 70 IRE.

Each time I do a shoot using this setup I am getting better footage. Since July of last year I have shot about 35 different setups for as many videos. One tip I saw to use with AE is to use Selective color. I decided to try this in FCPX using Color Correction 2 and making a mask sampling the GS. I then boost the green color. This seems to work fine. But here is the problem, if I am shooting a person from belt to head then if they use their hands to "talk" I do get blur and the key does not look that great in that area. The movement is really very quick so most people will not notice the imperfection but I do,since I am constantly working with the footage. So I started shooting with a shutter speed of 1/60 th and that seems to have helped a bit. Would shooting with an even faster setting help even more or would I start running in to other problems?

This forum is great and I appreciate the help I get for any question I have asked.

Great tips here. I would highly recommend picking up "green screener" for the ipad/iphone for evaluating the evenness of your lighting. Works amazingly well.

www.hollywoodcamerawork.us/gs_index.html

But here is the problem, if I am shooting a person from belt to head then if they use their hands to "talk" I do get blur and the key does not look that great in that area.

I have found that cameras that record in a 4:2:2 color space (like the Canon XF1) will have much better results on motion blurred subjects in front of a green screen. HDV is 4:2:0 I believe so it's gonna look a little weird. If you can record from the SDI out directly into ProRes 422 (or even ProRes 4444) you'll get better color sampling and therefore MUCH better results.

I just bought the Green Screener iOS app, it looks like it will be a big help. The Canon XH A1 does not have a SDI out, only Firewire and Component out. There is not a way to get 4.2.2 ProRes out of this camera. I will be lobbying for a new camera just for shooting green screen since this has become a major part of my job. I have been looking at the Blackmagic cameras and they might be the way to go. For the cost of one good Canon or Sony camera I can get two of the Cinema Cameras. Our public affairs department on campus has one of the BMCC and have ordered one of the 4K models. Our media commons in the Library just received their BMPCC so I might be able to test both of them with the GS setup.

Getting back to my original question from what I have gleaned from these postings that shooting at the fastest shutter speed that I can get with the lighting setup would make moving hands more key able?

Regarding moving hands, because every setup is going to be different, I would just do as many tests as you can with varying different shutter speeds, frame rates, ISO, etc.

If you are using Green Screener and monitoring the bands to be have the highest quality screen, I think you are going to have less of a problem with motion blur because the keyer will be able to cleanly isolate the green and therefore able to get the subtleties of motion blur and transparency.

Unfortunately your HDV recording is going to be a weak link in the chain. BMCC or a DSLR is going to give you better results. Give HDV more light and it will be happier.

I'm sorry Bob I misread and thought you had a Canon XL-H1 which does have SDI out. I had to Google XA-H1 in order to learn that this camera exists. Anyway, good luck!