You seem to be making progress. As you have noticed, it's all about the light. Take a look at this little tutorial video:
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-properly-light-green-screen-and-create-illusion-292687/
The site has a few more videos on the same subject.
As far as your lights are concerned, this will all depend on your budget. If you can afford it, get a few more of those 300W Home Depot worklights, as those give you the most flexibility. I looked around HD site and saw some cheap stuff. Fluorescents are a bit more expensive, less powerful, but significantly cooler (as in "cooler temperature") than halogens:
If heat is not an issue (or money is a serious one), perhaps something like this:
The biggest problem with the ordinary work lights is that they are not designed as photo/video lights. They tend to be uneven, and there is nothing there that will let you control them. To neutralise the unevenness, putting some frosted glass pane in front can help. Those halogen worklights get very seriously hot; hot enough to shatter glass, if they go on/off in a cold area.
As for that focus thing, if you get a chance to figure out how to do manual focus, you may try propping up something (a doll/teddy bear) in the place of your talent (yourself?) while focusing.
One last thing, which I'm sure you may have noticed, but just in case you didn't. Chroma key effects look best when camera does NOT move in either shot (foreground / background). In your last example, you had some panning background shots, which shatter the illusion that you are in fact there, since your face magically slides across. If this was intentional, then disregard what I just said.
Thanks for checking it out...I am realizing the importance of lighting in all of this.
I am begining to wonder if I shouldnt just invest my money in somewhat decent lights. Now I am using so many darn lights to light the place it takes time to actually go through and light them all. I have several goosneck desklamps situated all over the place, wires everywhere. I have to walk around a pool table so I don't trip over the wires because I am blinded by the light to adjust anything on the camera. Its very ridiculas to look at but I suppose its that way anywhere.
So I was checking out amazon and tubetape.com they have pro lights. I figure anything I invest in a diy store will probably cost as much.
I would much prefer lights that DO NOT heat up.
The cost I could pay would be in and around 200.
Any suggestions?
thanks.
Actually I was checking out the reviews on some of those light packages on amazon.com (cowboy studio)... and on youtube and they appear pretty cheaply made. Maybe I am just better off with home depot anyway.
Oh yes, and the background is intentional. While I muted out my voice (yeah its me) I was actually talking about the scene behind me..some kind of idea I have for something local.
Another thing I noticed is the color seems different in the background and foreground. You should probably color correct one or the other and try to make them similar. I think the combination would look better then.
RJSchwarz
RJSchwarz
Several different cameras may be the thing with the different colors between the background and the foreground. The background shots were done over the past year with a flip camera and a Vado..cheap cameras but be frank I think they look pretty good.
The foreground is with an hf200 which I am still trying to figure out..without the use of the manual. Someone told me how to do white balance in it (because I couldn't find anything on youtube.com showing how to do that in this camera) so I hope I remember it.
The other thing is the lens. I have to use a wide angle lens otherwise I am too big for the picture. The place where this is shot is not big enough to move the camera that far back. So the camera is not that far away. The wide angle lens allows for me in the picture and the background...but the lens is cheap - really cheap. I paid about 40 for it more or less.
Mostly I think its me and my knowless of this camera and what it can do. Fooling around is my best bet.
In the meantime...this lighting issue. I checked out light packages on amazon.com and then read the reviews and went to youtube to see the reviews...they seem like crap. So I guess I will stick with the worklights for now.
Tonight or tomarow morning I am going to fool around some more. Mainly because once I 'get it' I can do so many things with that.
Thanks for checking it out. Its great to have other eyes look at it. People that can actually see something wrong...rather than have some family member check it out on facebook and say 'wow thats so cool'...because that is all I would get.
If you could possibly take a still camera (preferably, with wide enough an angle) and snap a picture from behind it all, so that we could get some idea what exactly you're doing with your lights, that might help in figuring out how to get better results with what you have.
As for your white balance, here is the section from the manual explaining how to do it:
Select a recording program other than the Special Scene recording programs;
Press ?FUNC.? > ?AWB Automatic?, then choose Custom WB (icon that looks like ?*/ );
Point the camcorder at an evenly lit white object and zoom in so that it fills the screen completely;
Press (SET) button. The ?*/ symbol will stop flashing when the white balance is successfully set.
Press ?FUNC.? again to save the setting. The setting is preserved even if you turn off the camcorder.
You can find the whole manual here:
http://www.usa.canon.com/app/pdf/camcorder/VIXIA_HF20_HF200_IM_N_EN.pdf
Thanks! I am seriously fooling around with this camera saturday. In the meantime I will see if I can put a photo on here to show this lighting scene...but I am considering buying some lights at home depot. It would save me the use of a lot of small lights scattered around..plus the time it takes to turn each one on.
But what I am doing now was experiemental , to begin to understand what I am doing.
