Reflecmedia Chromakey

CKC wrote on 6/30/2005, 7:28 PM
Has anyone used the Reflecmedia chromakey ring-lite? I got one in a trade-out with a client who makes one of the components. I am testing it with an XL2 and have not too much chromakey work, though the work I have done has been fair, but not stellar by any stretch. The company claims this is the grail of chromakey. I have my doubts, but am looking forward to my first test tomorrow. Would love to get some feedback from anyone familiar with the this type of system.

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 7/1/2005, 12:54 AM
Never used it for a finished product, but have worked with it at trade events and demos, plus worked with it once at a school we were teaching at; it was incredibly impressive. Search this forum, you'll fid more than one or two posts on it.
Yoyodyne wrote on 7/1/2005, 1:10 AM
I've used it a couple times - it's pretty cool. Works great if you have a fairly small space to do the key in. We had better results when we had the subject closer to the special fabric - I kow that's contrary to the normal chroma key method, but if we got people further away from the fabric we got some thick edge stuff happening around the rim of the key. just something to look out for I guess...

hope this helps
BarryGreen wrote on 7/1/2005, 9:50 AM
My experience parallels Yoyodyne's. Basically as far as I was concerned, Reflecmedia vs. traditional green screen is pretty much six of one, half-dozen of the other -- or, well, probably more like 5 of one, 7 of the other actually...

With traditional chroma keying you have to take special attention to light the screen. With Reflecmedia you don't light the screen at all -- however, you have to take more care with lighting your subject, because you're blasting a green or blue light at them. If you get the camera close to the subject, that light shows -- green teeth, etc.

So with traditional green screen, you want to get the subject as far away from the screen as possible. With ReflecMedia, you want to get the camera as far away from the subject as possible. Also, as Yoyodyne says, you need to keep the subject as close to the reflecmedia fabric as you can get; otherwise you get a gray shadow outline around your subject. The gray shadow is the shadow of the subject on the reflecmedia screen, where the LED's can't illuminate them. The further your subject is from the fabric, the bigger the shadow is.

Either way it takes up space and takes time to do it right. You'll see folds and bends and seams in the reflecmedia fabric just like you would in greenscreen fabric. It's very neat technology, but as a practical tool it's not nearly the leap you would think -- at least in my use of it. But it definitely helps you set up faster, of that there's no arguing -- just drape the fabric, vs. having to take the time and care to properly and evenly light a green screen. Plus it takes fewer lights overall -- with conventional greenscreen you need to light the background, and then use separate lights to light the subjects. With reflecmedia no background lights are necessary.

So I figure it's more like two steps forward, one step back. Not clearly superior in every possible way, but the overall experience is superior if you understand how the system works and use it properly.