Cheap camcorders for green screening?

[mintay]

I'm trying to prepare my equipment for shooting educational series of films for schools (in HD). it's going to look very simple in terms of background etc. Green screening and adding some white background probably in post, eventually some neat pattern. I'm renting a studio with all the needed lights for green screening so I THINK there will be sufficient lighting.
in terms of video recording I'll be using:
-canon hv30
-Sony hdr xr155
-2 other camcorders.

I'd like to know Your opinion on what to pick for still close-up shots just because I'd like to record the series in just a couple tries (not to shoot the same scene over and over again in different angles etc.)
I'm interested in buying sth really cheap, but I'm concerned about it handling low light.
can studio lighting for green screen be coinsidered low light or insufficient light?
any ideas? I'm thinking of purchasing anything under $150 for each camcorder, it can be toshiba camileo, flip mino, idk just to make sure i get crisp image with unnoticable color changes between shots. how about focusing, white balance and other factors? is it all auto? can I handle that somehow? I'll be working with a rode videomic on a boom pole so built-in microphones don't matter.
thanks for Your thoughts!

[drapeama]

I'm renting a studio with all the needed lights for green screening so I THINK there will be sufficient lighting.
in terms of video recording I'll be using: -canon hv30 [...] I'm interested in buying sth really cheap, but I'm concerned about it handling low light.

1) Renting a studio means that there will be equipment? If no, you can always invest less than 100$ of lights and be able to do something nice out of that. I've used some green carton from the dollar store for a project:

It's enough to me, as I was using more than 1200w of light to lit the green screen. In a studio, you'll be able to do something even better as the lighting will be easier to do.
2) About the video quality, you'll notice on the pictures I've linked previously that I've used an HV40 to do the green screen shots. So yes, it's enough quality.
3) Here's some other videos I've worked on that were in low-light:

[mintay]

thanks. I kinda know how the hv works in harsh light conditions. what I'm asking is: will the cheap camcorders do their thing in a studio with "proper" lighting?

[BarteS]

In proper lighting, sure. The key is to get a consistent light on the green screen, have the talent really pop out and you're on the right track. If the setup is lighted for green screen you'll be fine for sure. And if you wish to invest, invest in light! Bring a couple of CFLs with you, make sure they match, a softbox, .. that's a way better investment than spending this amount on a camera. A flip is very portable, fast in usage, .. but if you can take the HV too, why bother? The flip won't be a killer at low light anyway. Really, if you're not sure about light, invest in light. That way you can really play with the character of you talent, in terms of ratio of key and fill, getting a good catch, ..
Concerning the angles, to what will you output, 720p or 1080p? In case of the former you could of course at least make use of the zoom in post.
And do test the cameras first if you'll do a multicam shoot. Make sure the white balances match and see which cameras look a like most. Sure you can correct, if you have to push the footage in post for whatever this could come in handy.

Hopefully you can make use of these suggestions, based on personal experience unfortunately. (Had some excuses, but still, the issue was and is there.)

[Erik Bien]

Be careful about trying to save a buck in production only to end up making a bunch of extra work for yourself in post.

• You'll want your greenscreen to be lit as evenly as possible, with no hot-spots or dark patches. On the HV, try setting ZEBRAS to 70% and adjust your iris until the zebras just show up. That should help you pinpoint places where the background is over- or under-exposed.
• Use the camcorder with the best lens for close-ups: any color fringing, chromatic aberration or softness will make it harder to pull a key.
• Try not to shoot with a wide-open aperture; most lenses perform better at mid-range stops like f/4-f/5.6, and you don't need shallow depth-of-field in camera when you're going to be replacing the background anyway.
• To avoid noisy shadows, don't starve the cameras of light, especially in the blue channel: use daylight-balanced fluorescents, or add CTB gel to tungsten sources.
• For shots with lots of movement, consider using a shorter shutter than you normally would to minimize motion blur for cleaner keys (you can always add blur back in post if needed).
• Try to minimize green "spill" on your talent: place them as far away from the greenscreen as possible, and black out green floors and walls that don't appear in your shot by flagging, covering them with black fabric, turning lights off, etc.
• Lighting a greenscreen shot is really TWO separate lighting jobs: flat and even for the screen, and more conventional 'beauty' lighting for the talent, interacting with each other as little as possible. Hopefully the studio is equipped with C-stands and other grip junk you can use to flag off spill from one to the other.
• Manually white balance all the cameras to a white or grey card held under the 'talent' lighting.
• If you can bring a laptop to the set, consider using something like Veescope to check the effectiveness of your keys in real-time.

[BarteS]

Nice post! Real useful and easy to get.

[drapeama]

Nice post! Real useful and easy to get.

I totally second that!