Question / Help Green Screen

[wayneakp]

Hiya

I'm setting up green screen and I noticed the webcam has some auto settings - exposure and white balance.

Presumably these need to be fixed so the intensity of the green does not change? I have some 5500k studio lights which I am using on the screen so I set the camera to that.

I have tried that but I am now finding the performer is being bleached out.

Any suggestions please?

Many thanks

Wayne

 

[FerretBomb]

If you're controlling your light (eg: blackout curtains and a closed door to avoid sunlight from getting in, you'd first turn on your lights and let them fully warm up. This can take a good 30 minutes, an hour, or even longer. Turn off ALL automatic settings in the camera that you can. Then you set your white balance in the camera, preferably by using a true-gray card. After that, you set your exposure. These both should be set-and-forget assuming you control the light coming into the studio.

If the performer is being overexposed, you can turn down your performer lighting. Best-case you'd have separate lighting for your greenscreen and performer, rather than having one set of lights doing double-duty.

Additional note, SOME greenscreens are set up to use a specific non-daylight color temperature to give back a 'true green'. This is so you use one color temp on the screen lights, and a daylight set on the performer, helping to avoid crossover and give a cleaner color reproduction. That's normally only in studio-grade stuff though.

I'd also recommend watching through a few tutorials on photography/videography basics (no offense, they go into detail on the stuff above about white balancing and exposure!) as well as some in-depth greenscreen tutorials for maximum results. Here's a really good one on setup for getting the cleanest key possible:

- YouTube

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www.youtube.com

 

[wayneakp]

Many thanks for that, all very helpful

I have thick black plastic sheeting at the windows - the neighbours probably think we are growing drugs! I did have a grey card somewhere from photo days so I will see if I can dig it out.

cheers
Wayne