reflecmedia

Al MacLeod

Al MacLeod

Well-known member
Is this led ring of green or blue lights and reflective cloth the real deal or just a waste of money?
It looks cool as all get out and the posted videos are really nice, but is this a main stream kinda product or is it too good to be true?
 
Al:

What are you going on about? I am sitting in a hotel room in NY, getting ready to shoot an interiew this morning with the ReflecMedia ChromaFlex System. Works great, not cheap, lousy if your talent wears glasses, you get a small green ring dancing around in their glasses that is a PITA to repair. Other than that, it's a great system.

Dan
 
Under the heading of too good to be true, how does the reflect material hold up?
Do you get wrinkle lines where the reflect properties suffer or any other "little details" that the manufacturer has omitted from the brochure?
I see the datavideo competition is less expensive, but also is smaller than the hvx200's lens...is that an issue?
What is "PITA" to repair?
 
PITA - PAIN IN THE A$$ I can only imagine the time involved in removing the reflection and keeping the eyes looking normal/natural.
 
Hi Al:

Wrinkles are not a problem at all, I FedExed this screen to NYC from LA and it is wrinkled but does not matter. If you spill makeup on the screen, you are hosed, it does not come out. My screen here has a makeup or paint smudge and I have to avoid positioning the screen so that I can see that little smudge on camera.

I have seen the DataVideo setup on the B&H Catalog but have never used it or heard if it works as well. It is certainly cheaper than the ReflecMedia.

The little dancing green ring in the reflection of your talent's glasses lens is the pain to fix in post. It can be done, but it requires a separate matte layer, sometimes a travel matte and you have to play with how gray you key that little ring reflection to make it appear to be merely a highlight, rather than a circular, alien-looking green ring of light.

If they could only invent a way to position the ring behind the talent, rather than on the camera, it would be 100% perfect. Other than glasses, it is a great system and I highly recommend it. If a lot of your talent wears glasses, it is good, but a time-consuming mess in post to fix those reflections.

Dan
 
What gray halo?

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Sounds like you may need to turn the intensity of the ring up Barry.
 
Every time I've used it there's a gray halo around everyone, exaggerated the further you get the subject from the screen. I ended up trying to get everyone three inches away from the screen to minimize the halo.
 
Barry_Green said:
Every time I've used it there's a gray halo around everyone, exaggerated the further you get the subject from the screen. I ended up trying to get everyone three inches away from the screen to minimize the halo.
Click to expand...

Where is your knob on the intensity scale of the controller?
 
mcgeedigital said:
Where is your knob on the intensity scale of the controller?
Click to expand...

Hi Matt:

I put the controller onto "7", that seems to work best for us. Where do you put yours at?

Barry, I do get somewhat of a halo but it is never a problem to key it out.

Dan
 
Last edited:
puredrifting said:
Hi Al:
If they could only invent a way to position the ring behind the talent, rather than on the camera, it would be 100% perfect.
Dan
Click to expand...

You actualy can do that. But only in static scenes (interview) cause the ring has to align and be 100% square with your camera.

The DataVideo fabric is the same and works the same. (I used both systems). The ring is a smaller diameter (makes it problematic for wide shots with a HVX) but has green and blue in it.
Both systems delivered tha same results but at different price tags.

I wish I had one aviable for UNZEIT.

Here in Germany you can buy the fabric by the yard and build your own ring (I saw pretty good results with just 4 LEDs)

Frank
 
mcgeedigital said:
Where is your knob on the intensity scale of the controller?
Click to expand...
Tried all different settings. The halo is always there, and the further the subject is away from the screen, the thicker the halo is.

It's caused by the subject blocking the light from hitting the screen, so the gray halo is the gray of the fabric because no LED light is hitting it. The further away the subject is, the more of a shadow the subject casts, so the thicker the line.

How are you keying out gray? I do a ton of greenscreen and I'd like to recover some space in the studio by getting rid of the screen-to-subject distance, but I found the gray halo annoying enough that so far I've gone with conventional greenscreen instead. The DataVideo setup is affordable enough that I'd consider revisiting it (it's about $1,000 for a screen and a dual-color light ring) but I really didn't like that halo...
 
Keylight has some nice controll sliders for that.

But I never had that halo problem - maybe your ring wasn´t 100% square to the lens?
If you only 1 or 2% out of the right angle you get problems with grey spots and seems.

That´s why it is called RetroReflective - It reflects back the exact angle only where the light comes in.



Frank
 
So how do you keep the dancing green ring in someone's glasses from keying out too and causing weird "hole" problems around the eyes? A moving, keyframed garbage matte?
 
Mask the rings on a adjustment layer and desaturate.

Yeah, sounds like a real PITA as Dan sayed.

Frank
 
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