Greenscreen Questions

[SchochS]

Hi there,
I don't have any 'real' technical issues with OBS, just some questions how to set up my greenscreen-environment properly.

My equipment:
- Sony ZV1 camera
- two Raleno 192 video lights
- a green roller blind (German: 'Rollo') about 50cm behind me (which is quite close, but I can't move it further back)

Problem is: when I set the camera to 'automatic white balance', I always have kind of a 'greenish' skin tone.
When I use manual white balance and the daylight changes during a session, my skin tone goes ever more reddish.
This is quite frustrating and I really would like to solve this to be able to just sit in front of my camera and start recording without all the time worrying about the color setup!

Questions:
What would you recommend given the existing equipment? Shall I go for a) automatic white balance and try to get rid of the greenish skin tone or is it better to b) go for manual white balance?
If a): how do I get rid of the greenishness?
If b): how do I deal with changing light conditions during one recording session?

Thanks for your tips.
If you have a tip for another forum, where this question might be more appropriate, please let me know!

Stefan

 

[deFrisselle]

A greenish cast on you, well, the subject, is due to light reflected off the green screen Kinda the bane of its usage
A way to counter that is to have the green screen lit behind you and a light on you One other thing is to light to eliminate shadows

 

[SchochS]

A greenish cast on you, well, the subject, is due to light reflected off the green screen Kinda the bane of its usage
A way to counter that is to have the green screen lit behind you and a light on you One other thing is to light to eliminate shadows

Thank you!
I tried bringing some more light to the green screen, which made it a little bit better, but still not satisfying.

What would you recommend:
a) go for automatic white balance and try to correct the 'greenishness'? If so, how?
b) use a fixed value for white balance?

 

[AaronD]

It's commonly recommended to use a green screen with entirely artificial lighting - block all outside light - and to light the screen and the subject separately.

Spend a lot of time and effort to light the green screen all by itself, exactly evenly as the camera sees it. (your eyes will likely deceive you, so use an app instead; there are several good ones) Then don't touch that, set the subject (you in this case) far enough away from the screen to not cast shadows on it, and add more lighting that works well for the subject and does not hit the screen.

You might have to buy some more lights to make that work. Most "green screen kits" don't come with anywhere near enough.

Then if your camera supports it, you can have it auto-white-balance on a grey card, in place of the subject with all the lighting on, and then keep that setting. Barring that, you can use a preset for the type of lighting that you have or that it's trying to emulate.

At any rate, try to avoid automatic functions that are going to "hunt around" during your session. White balance is only one of those.

 

[SchochS]

It's commonly recommended to use a green screen with entirely artificial lighting - block all outside light - and to light the screen and the subject separately.

Spend a lot of time and effort to light the green screen all by itself, exactly evenly as the camera sees it. (your eyes will likely deceive you, so use an app instead; there are several good ones) Then don't touch that, set the subject (you in this case) far enough away from the screen to not cast shadows on it, and add more lighting that works well for the subject and does not hit the screen.

You might have to buy some more lights to make that work. Most "green screen kits" don't come with anywhere near enough.

Then if your camera supports it, you can have it auto-white-balance on a grey card, in place of the subject with all the lighting on, and then keep that setting. Barring that, you can use a preset for the type of lighting that you have or that it's trying to emulate.

At any rate, try to avoid automatic functions that are going to "hunt around" during your session. White balance is only one of those.

Thank you for that detailed explanation!
Avoiding the changing daylight makes sense. Didn't know that.
Interestingly, I had a fixed WB setting most of the time (measured with a white card and an app and then set in the camera), problem only was that when daylight dimmed, my face turned ever more red.

I guess when I keep daylight out by letting down the roller blinds at the window that might make the most difference.