January 7, 2018
Happy New Year! This will be my first post this year, and though it is a small one, it is one that hopefully will result in better future videos! Ever since I did my little Silent Night videos, I’ve wanted to get a little more in to the green screen thing, but I had a couple of limitations. First, I was not able to properly light the background as well as it requires and second was that my main lighting, as good a job as it did for me, was just down a little in power. Second, the green screen was really small, too small for all but my most basic and simple needs.
My solution was to first address the lighting, and so I went to Cowboystudio.ca and ordered 4 X 85 watt bulbs and 2X double bulb holders. This takes care of the power, and I should be good to go for a long time after this in that area. Not only does it mean that I have a much stronger 4-bulb setup, it means that I still have the original 3 bulbs with which to get a little creative. I am thinking 2 bulbs to better light the green screen and 1 bulb to use as a hair-light. Of course I have enough light stands from my photography days, even one that is perfect for hair light use!
The second issue was that my green screen was really tiny. I got it originally with another Pinnacle product, we’re talking maybe 10 years ago, and it was small… 5X6 feet at most, and it was barely big enough to cover me from the knees to head! My new one is 9 feet wide (more than enough to give me some vids of me standing, or even of 2 people playing at the same time!), and 15 feet long. It’s actually a bit too big to use in my basement properly but it is better to have too much material and not need it, rather than need the extra materials and not have them.
As mentioned, the original green screen was tiny, here is a picture of it:
This is a quick and dirty shot of the new one:
The bulbs are actually quite a bit bigger as well. I am moving from 60 watts to 85 watts:
Here you can see a bit of the difference in output. I took this picture at a -2 exposure, but you can tell that the bulbs on the right are slightly brighter than the bulbs on the left. I figure a good 1-1.5 stops more, which is a nice increase. What is not evident is that on the right, both bulbs are powered by one wire built in to the double bulb holder, of which I have two, so both left and right sides will be better lit.
All in all, a nice little upgrade, one that will give me hours of fun and pleasure. Now all I need to do is spend some more time making recordings.
Enjoy!