Best Green Screen Camera for under $3k

[Terry Stone]

Hi Chirs,
Thanks very much for the suggestion. It is really important that we get the best possible camera to use for keying for the money – it doesn’t necessarily have to be like the HVX200, I just like the HVX200 green screen abilities.
Does anyone have any other recommendations

Best,
Helena

[Chris Durham]

Well, I’d hardly call the HVX a decent camera for keying (I hardly call it a decent camera – it’s over-rated and over-priced). You’re going to have a hard time finding much in that range that’s really all that good for the task. The Sony’s have 4:2:2 chroma but those are out of your range, and some of the mid-range P2 cameras have it as well. For sub-3k you’re not going to get the best in chromakeying. If you want something in that price range the competes very favorably with the HVX go for the Canon XH-A1. It’s discontinued, but you can still get them new at b&h for around $2,700.

[Jason Jenkins]

Have you thought about a used HVX200?

Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!

[Terry Stone]

I think they will be hesitant to buy a used one unless sit comes with a warranty. I dont believe you can buy a use done with a warranty?

[Tim Kolb]

Well…

You’ll have to compromise somewhere. A really cheap new camcorder or a semi-cheap used camcorder.

A camcorder for $3K can only be the “least bad” for green screen. None of these cameras in this price category are recording to a format that is ideal for green screen.

If you can get a 3 sensor camcorder, that would be better than a single sensor.

$3K just isn’t much money for a camera acquiring VFX footage of any kind.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Michael Stamp]

I have limited experience with green screen, and I know this camera isn’t in the same league as a regular video camera, but what about the Canon 5d Mark ii for shooting green screen video?

[Chris Durham]

5DmkII puts out an h.264 encoded image, certainly not suited for VFX, compositing, or keying. It also doesn’t do 24 frames which is what I imagine a lot of work will be in.

[Tim Kolb]

I’d agree. The Canon still camera is certainly capable of great images, but the output format is aggressively compressed which certainly won’t help compositing…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Eric Peterson]

Why not buy a small Canon or Panasonic camera with HDMI out and connect that to an Intensity Pro card. Bypass tape altogether and record to the hard drive in Pro Res or some uncompressed format. That file would be much better to key from.

[Zechariah Stamp]

True the 5dII doesn’t do 24fps, but am I correct in thinking that a higher frame rate and progressive scan is better for green screening?
Awhile back I did some green screening with a Sony Handycam that shot 1080HD at 30i, after deinterlacing it, it looked okay, better than what I got from my Canon XL2.

Oh, that Sony Handycam used mpeg4 compression, which would work better mpeg4 or h.264?

Thanks,
Zechariah Stamp