Shooting Green Screen With the Canon 5D

I’ve heard many rumors that you can’t get a good key shooting green screen with the Canon 5D.

Nonsense.

The key, (no pun intended), to shooting good green screen in any format, is lighting.

I’ve shot numerous green screen projects, whether they be corporate video productions, direct response tv ads or commercials; and in many different formats. As long as you and/or your gaffer know how to light for green screen compositing, then the format is not an issue.

Many would say that the Canon 5D’s  4.2.0 color space prohibits a “good key”.

Well, we recently completed a project for Brain Zoo Studios shooting live action on green screen to be composited with animation for a spot promoting Disney’s new “Phineas & Ferb” game.

BrainZoo

We hired a great gaffer as part of our video production crew, and shot with the Canon 5D because we love the images it produces, and because we needed to move fast to make the day on time and on budget. We trancoded the native H.264 files in 4.2.0 color space to Apple Pro Res 4.2.2 and handed the footage off to our client.

The footage composited beautifully. The client was happy and therefore, we were happy. So don’t listen to the critics who say you can’t shoot good green screen with DSLR systems like the Canon 5D.

It can be done.

Leave a Reply