Rick Wise
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The cheapest consumer version fixed my immediate problem. Fortunately I was only trying out the free trial. Just as I suspected, Pro Version 11 came out, and for $140 I now have the full (upgrade from 8.1) deal. I know no one here could respond to my observation that if a consumer version 11 is out, the pro version must be coming soon, as you are sworn to secrecy.
Pro 11 handles MP4 files with no problems at all. And I am sure I will find that it easily handles a lot of other “real” video files well as well. Can’t wait to put it through its paces.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
Thanks, Steve. I think for my current needs — grabbing some scenes to present to students as examples of camera work etc. buying the $45 Vegas Movie Studio HD 11 might just do the trick. For this elementary work I don’t begin to need the full power of Vegas. I’ll try it first to see.
That there’s a version 11 for beginners certainly suggests Pro 11 should not be far behind.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
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Good to hear from you, Steve. I’m still using Vegas 8 because it does what I need — usually. This sometimes on, sometimes off with MP4 files is a drag.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
Your prosumer camera has to compress light into something like 7 or 8 f/stops from pure black to pure white. To maintain detail in the dress you will most likely have to stop down more than you’d like for her face and the faces around her.
One trick is to soak the dress in tea to achieve an off-white. Or dye it. An off white will photograph as white.
It doesn’t matter whether or not your are shooting color. The black to white values remain essentially the same.
If you were shooting with the Alexa with its 13-14 stop range from pure black to pure white, you would be fine. Film too is fine.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
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Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
Why not go with Kino Flos in some form? Low draw, low heat, clean light. Otherwise CoolLights has some equivalent units, though better to bulb them with true Kino bulbs as their CRI is much better.
No LED lights at this time have clean, full-spectrum light. Kinos are far cleaner, and actually cost less.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
The Tota lights should work fine. However the white umbrellas let a lot of light pass through them, spilling into the rest of the room. That could be of no importance, or seriously in the way. Lowel also makes a silver umbrella which doesn’t let so much light out the other side but creates a hard light — not an issue here.
The other question is whether or not you would get enough even spread out of these units. The cheapest solution of all is to use Home Depot Tungsten shop lights. They cost $30 a pair. The color temp is 2800K but that doesn’t matter for the green screen.
If you have to worry about client perception, spray paint them matte black (they are canary yellow) and call them something fancy like, “custom green-screen lights.”
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
Also those specific softlights have fans, which may produce enough noise to make it impossible to shoot sync sound. This one, https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/721782-REG/Chimera_7995_TL_Lightbank_Kit_W_O.html, might work better.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
This topic has been covered multiple times on this forum. I suggest you search for “green screen” and “lighting kit” and work through the results to find your answers.
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
part-time instructor lighting/camera
Academy of Art University/Film and Video (grad school)
https://www.RickWiseDP.com