Help with Green Screen camera

R

Rayk

New member
Hello Everyone
This is my first post here hope you can help.
Our church has a small studio in which we are trying to produce a magazine type show for cable tv we will be mentoring kids in a afterschool program on using adobe premiere, ultra virtual sets and doing green screen productions mostly with the camera. We presently own a canon xl1s and we are not getting the results that we want for the greenscreen without a lot of work. This is being imported through firewire into our computer.

We were looking to go into HD and I have been reading alot about gettting a camera with 4:2:2 color space . I was looking at some of these options: Sony ex1 or ex1r, JvC HPX170, or the Panasonic hpx 2000 or the AG HPX 170. These would probably be in our price range at this time. Are there any others I am missing that are better for green screen?

Any thoughts on what would work out best for us to get a great green screen? I know that lighting is the most important part and we have very good lighting here in the studio.
Also as I was reading in the different forums people were talking about getting an HD camera with an HDMI/SD/SDI out and running uncompressed 10 bit video into something like a Deck Link Extreme- Blackmagic is that feasible without spending alot.

We don't have a lot of money so we want to buy something that will sustain us and works well in Adobe premiere.

Thanks for your help
Ray K
 
Surely you don't mean HPX2000, then. That would be well out of your price range.

I can recommend the HVX200 or the HPX170 without reservation. In 1080, they will give you the best results of any of the cameras you mentioned.
 
I was reading in the different forums people were talking about getting an HD camera with an HDMI/SD/SDI out and running uncompressed 10 bit video into something like a Deck Link Extreme- Blackmagic is that feasible without spending alot.
Click to expand...

thats overkill. ive been shooting green screen with a panasonic hvx200 as well as the newer hpx170 for years with great results.
it also helps to have decent software. the built in keyer in FCP is lame. not sure about the one in premiere...
 
We use a green screen with virtual set for our weekly announcements. We use Adobe Ultra for the keying and set, and I shoot on a 9 year old SD camcorder, the Panasonic AG-DVC200. I get really good results with Ultra. I originally tried both Premiere and Avid Xpress to do the key and was never happy with the results.
 
Yeah, I am still running a 32-bit PC at the church. We have the CS5 Production bundle, but I cannot upgrade the Premiere or After Effects to CS5. So still using the old Ultra.

Rayk, what version of Premiere are you using?
 
I just did a green screen shoot the other week with an HVX200 that was keyed in After Effects CS3 with literally one click. I was blown away, the key was perfect. The HPX170 is newer and better than the HVX200, especially for green screen, because the 170 has a built-in waveform monitor. You may have never used one, but trust me, once you understand it, you will immediately see how helpful it can be in checking to see if your green screen is lit properly corner to corner, which will save you big time in post-production. Also the HPX170 has SDI out, which the HVX200 does not have. You probably won't use it, but it gives you the option of buying a Ki Pro Mini or similar and recording directly to ProRes. Not really necessary, the in-camera codec (DVCProHD) is plenty good, but it's nice to have options.

I haven't used the EX1 or JVC, but I can whole-heartedly recommend the Panasonic HPX170 for your needs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top