CAN YOU LIGHT A GREEN SCREEN WITH APUTURE LS120D??

[Takor Arrey]

Help needed with finding out if any of you have attempted successfully to light a talking head interview or any other green screen gig using Aputure COB lights.

Any input will help.

Any suggestions for good cheap lights will help as well.

Thanks in advance!

 

[M Harvey]

Yes. I'd recommend a softbox or lantern to give you a broad, even spread, and for many purposes it's easier to have at least two lights.

Beyond that, it depends on how much green screen you need to light and what angles are available to you-- you can mount them overheard or on stands on either side of the screen. Any decent tutorial video on lighting a green screen will probably give you the tips you need to make this work for you.

 

[Takor Arrey]

Thank you very much! I have seen many tutorial and they mostly use LEDs, mainly Kino Flo. I am looking to light a 8x10 feet green screen. A friend recommends paper chroma key over clothe because the papers don't wrinkle. Is there a downside to that suggestion?

Many thanks!

 

[Tom S]

I have gone with Westscott wrinkle resistant green screens as they are so much better than paper or cloth. Obviously, the further you can have the talent form the green screen the easier. I used the Space Light modifiers with Aputure 120d to light green screens. It works pretty well. It is most important to evenly light behind the talent because you can always use a garbage matte if you get vignetting on the corners.

 

[Christopher A. Bell]

Seamless paper is great, and what I prefer, because you don’t have to deal with wrinkles like with cloth screens, but it’s a PITA to transport, for obvious reasons. If I still did a lot of green screen like in the past, I’d definitely be considering the Lastolite/Westcott 13’ frame system with the spandex-type material. But most of the software is so good today, wrinkles have to be pretty bad to cause issues.

Lighting a screen that small is pretty straight forward. You can generally do it with two lights, one on each side(honestly doesn’t matter if they’re LED, flo’s or tungsten- I’ve used them all), diffuse them and look at the waveform(and false color, too, if you like) on your monitor to light it evenly all the way across. Separate your talent/subject at least ~7’ or so from the background so there’s no spill/light pollution from the green hitting them and stop down so you get clean sharp edges on your talent so that it’s easier to pull the key.

 

[Takor Arrey]

Tom, Christopher, thank you both so much for the pointers. I'm on a merciless budget, and your combined suggestions make this dream possible.

Thanks