Green Screen / Chroma Key Backgrounds

[waple]

In order to not threadjack another thread (which I already did... sorry), I thought I'd start a new one.

Does anyone have much experience with shooting against a green screen instead of a standard backdrop?

I saw this one on ebay, and am very interested in seeing if this is a viable alternative. I don't have a lot of room to store lots of backdrops and just having this one unit and background would make things much easier.

Do these actually work well?

Do the subjects look really fake against them?

Any diagrams or tuts that show how to light these?

In the link above, it shows a backdrop that extends to the floor that people can stand on. Is it difficult to light them in this case? I can see how it'd be fairly easy to light one that's several feet behind the subject, but standing on it seems harder.

If I wanted to cast a shadow onto the digital background, would I have to make it artificually or do you shoot so the shadow is on the greenscreen?

Thanks

[FocusingOnFlorida]

I used this quite a bit in broadcasting. I use it to some extend in photography. The trick is to have the backdrop as evenly lit as possible. This will help when removing it. In video, you don't want the person infront of the Green or Blue screen to be wearing the same color. I recommend this in photography as well as it makes removing the subject more difficult. You may end up with a fine green tinge around the subjust that you will want to blend into the background if printing to a large size. I hope this helps.

[jfrancho]

You might to check out what is in here: http://photocamel.com/forum/photogra...ue-discussion/, or even have a mod move this there. There is one member that posts in G/N that does some amazing work. I can't remember his name, and can't dig it up, since I don't have access to G/N anymore. Perhaps another can find it. Also, Mark McCall does some compositing work, though not with a green screen.

[Lee4145]

I think you mean Pelle.

[jfrancho]

Yep, thanks Lee.

[waple]

What's "G/N"?

[jfrancho]

Glamor/Nudity/Erotic

Glamour Forum Access

[pellepiano]

Although shooting with green/blue screen gives you a lot of freedom it also come with some big limitations, and is quite timeconsuming. Hair is usually a problemarea and often needs some manual work, color correcting edges ( as its hard to avoid spill on hair edges ), or paint new hair , especially when making closeup portraits when hair on the back of the head gets a little blurry because of DOF ( even at F8 )).

Also to have the light to be about the same in both foreground and backround image. This of course depends on what kind of light you are simulating. If you are after the look of a image taken outside where the strobes outpower the sun you can obviously get away with more.

Using the same lens type and angle also helps making images look more real. Color correcting the images so they get the same whitebalance is also important.

Its also easier to have the background image first so you can properly adjust angles and lens and light. Finding suitable backgrounds for already shot images can be very hard at times, unless you have used only the most common and straight angles and lenses.

I only shoot bluescreen images as Im no good shooting in the real world. I am getting fond of simulating studio backgrounds at the moment ( which is kind of odd ). I find it easier to light them afterwards, and I can always change my mind using the eiffel tower as a backdrop =)