Re: have to do a Green Screen project of 15 videos, HDR FX7 or Canon DSLR is the question?

Dude, I cant thank you enough for all of yuour help. I litterally learned after effects from the tutorials on this site and happy as shit to be a member of these forums finally. You rock as does this whole community. That being said, can I trouble you for just a bit more help?

I am going to define this project so you may better understand my limitations and concerns.

I am the camera operator, the talent, the post AE guy, audio engineer, whole deal.

I am pretty ok at AE because I have been a MCSE for 10 yrs. I just tend to get computers. I also majored music and have a full recording studio and lots of mics. I need the mic stand because I will be in front of the camera. The reason I am not loving the T3I is because it lacks autofocus apparently, and the HDR FX7 does a pretty good job at auto focus. I dont zoom because I am green screening and the set will move with the talent zoom as I recall so I think I am limited to software camera zooming if needed. I will take ur suggestion and do multiple takes and maybe frame them up a little closer or farther so that I can switch cameras every 5-10 seconds to keep ppls attention. I dont mind doing multiple takes, this is another reason I was not that stoked on the T3I as I understand it only has a 13 min recording time for video??

The reason I was gonna buy the T3I is this dude on youtube did a side by side of the T3I and the HDRFX7. The T3I looks nicer than my very expensive video camera so I was interested in purchasing it for item close up and head shot and stuff like that. The DOF on it just makes everything look like movie quality. I was thinking of trying cinnegamma on the HDRFX7 as I have read that it looks nice. Any experience with that???

So what I am thinking is I will hire this college graphoc artist kid to help me set it up or maybe hold one of the boom sticks for mics or what not and I will shoot and star in these things. I have keyed before and never really had a problem, but I dont think I have ever gotten really truely professional results from it.

I will totally look at the light you suggested but I have to also add the budget for lighting is less than 1k. I was going to buy 3 PBL MX series dual bulb 500 or 1000 watt softboxes with barn doors and a boom hor hair light. That was for talent. After your last post however I was warned about using construction lights for the green screen. So my questions are these:

I have an audio technica 4040 and 3034 and some sm57s and that sort of thing. You think one of those would be better for micing the tallent?

Can I use CFL softboxes for the green screen or will thier kelvin rating mess me up due to the PBL lights on the talent being more like 3000k, more orange than blue?

If I set up everything and test it do I really need a camera operator, or sound guy present? I was just gonna set this shit iup in a spare bedroom and do it thatr way. Use a camera guy mainly for on the scene interviews and field work.