What a great week in Las Vegas at the first annual Photo Booth Expo. Thanks to everyone who came by the Imaging Spectrum/Darkroom booth. Also thanks who came to mine and Wally Carnes’ seminars. Our seminar on chromakey photography went well but we had no way to get our pdf and notes on chromakey to the attendees.
You can download the pdf file and here are some important things to consider.
- Use an adjustable DSLR camera. Stay away from auto and program modes, it can make your chromakey photos inconsistent.
- Set your camera exposure mode to M.
- Set your WB to the lights you are using, like flash if you are using flash.
- Set your shutter speed to your sync speed or lower if using flash.
- Set your f-stop to match your lights for proper exposure.
- Try to get your subject at least 4 to 6 feet from the backdrop to avoid reflective spill. Try to get most of deep wrinkles out of the backdrop.
- Be careful about criss crossing shadows. With subjects too far apart the shadows on the background can be almost black and nearly impossible for the software to key out.
- Have good software that can easily key out the greenscreen, like Darkroom.
- Make sure your exposures are correct. Too Dark or Too Light photos will not key out correctly, if at all.
