Canon 7D and VFX
 

I am doing the pre-production for a short film that has a number of VFX shots which will require some greenscreen work, and was wondering if anyone has shot this kinds of footage with the 7D?

I understand that ssually artifacts in the video is what causes the most problems, and I'm guessing that h.264 compression could be troublesome in this sense.

Has anyone successfully gotten quality greenscreen work with footage comming from the 7D? Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Mauricio

If you want to shoot with the 7D and don't want to record in H.264, you can record (through HDMI) to a AJA Ki Pro. You can record to Apple ProRes and not have to worry about most of the compression artifacts. However, the other problems with the camera (rolling shutter, etc) will still be present.

I've just shot a music video on green screen, which will end up having quite a bit of visual effects work done on it. So far from my initial testing of the footage using the green screen keyer in FCP and keylight in after effects the footage is much easier to work with then anything that I've worked with using the HVX-200 or the JVC-110, and there is no comparison to anything that was on DV. The only problem I've encountered would be the lower resolution of the imaging sensors making the footage not as sharp as I would have preferred, however this is made up for by the fact that I could control the depth of field and keep a very smooth croma backdrop behind the subject. The wide dynamic range helped as well.

While shooting I kept the camera locked down, except for a few glidecam shots. I haven't noticed any issues with the H.264 being a problem once transcoded to Apple ProRes 422. Same goes for the CMOS refresh rate issues. (We shot on a canon 24-105L @ 5.6 for most of the shoot.)

I honestly loved shooting in the studio with this camera. I had a nice selection of lenses to work with, and I was able to monitor and control the camera remotely while it was suspended above the talent. I'll be able to tell more about it once I really start to get into the footage, however at this point I don't know why I wouldn't shoot chroma on it again.

Hoped that helped.

Louis: I understand that HDMI from the 7D outputs 1080i as opposed to 1080p. Do you think this would be more of an issue than compression artifacts?

William: What camera profile were you using? Do you think you could have gotten a better result with a bit more contrast in the settings?

Thanks!!

Mauricio