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What lights are best for photomontage captures?
I have been doing photomontages for several years using two 60 watt incadescent bulbs directed down at an angle from a stand on to the photos and using a Sony PD100 mounted on the stand to capture the images with zooms etc. Lately I have noticed a tendency toward a red hue on many of the face shots and I have to color correct in my MX-50 mixer or later in my NLE system (Media 100).
I am wondering if I switched to another light source if the problem with red would be lessened or eliminated.
What types of lights are other people using?
Any comments would be appreciated,
thanks, Jerome
jerome
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2 Replies
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In theory, the colour temperature of your light source shouldn’t matter if you do a white balance. Unfortunately, there’s so many variables when it comes to processing video, it can be very difficult to nail down any one specific cause when things start to ‘go funny’. Maybe it’s something else in your system… starting at the back end, what are you using for a monitor? Have you used colour bars to set your hue and chroma? Do you have ‘Blue only’ set-up capability? Does the red hue show when you play back on another monitor? Is the red hue there when you play back the original tape before digitizing?
Personally, I don’t capture photos using a video camera unless I absolutely have to. I use a flat-bed scanner and do the camera moves in After Effects… this may be a somewhat longer process but I feel it offers much more flexibility.
Gary
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Hey Jerome, I just read Gary’s post and have gone the same route. We used to shoot these with our vx1000s/2000s but found we could avoid lighting problems with glare and shadows by flat bed scanning. I usually scan fotos at about 400 dpi to allow for ultra closeup zooms and manipulate them in the m100 timeline using boris fx. Just apple/click hold and drag in the va or vb track and you’ll stretch out a comp. Then hit edit when the render box opens. Then click the photo media Icon in boris and navigate to your saved scan. When you select the photo it opens in boris and then select your transformations button and using your x, y, z adjustments you can zoom in/ out, left right up down and create some nice smooth moves a camera can’t. Then hit appy and your back in M100. If you made a static photo you can go right to m100 or if it has a move you’ll need to render. It takes a bit, but If I can do it …. It allows much more freedom of moves that you can do with a cam. Plus every batch of photos have different finishes etc that wreak havoc on your patience for lighting. Hope this helps. Best Regards Chris
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