DiY Retroreflective Green/Bluescreen

[Dino Zizzari]

Hello

I made a Green/Bluescreen System similar to http://www.reflecmedia.com/
If someone is interested, I could share my experience.

Dino

[Cedric Akins]

Hey Dino. That sounds interesting. Please by all means tell us more about it. I my self have made a green screen. I tested it out a while back but have yet to put it to any project. Besides I think it is not wide enough. It is approx. 3yds long and 60" in width. I plan on purchasing another similar piece of fabric to sew on to it for full body applications.

Cedric

[Wing Gee]

yeah i would be very interested in how you did it. i've used the reflect media stuff before with the green ring light on a dvx. very very trick stuff.. helps soo much with lighting..

[Dino Zizzari]

Ok, give me some time to prepare the "howto" & pictures...
I made some shots with and it seems to work well. The only mistake I made, wasn't using wide-angle LEDs.

Dino

[Dino Zizzari]

Ok, let's start! First two pictures shows the final LED-ring. My version is very big because I use it on my XL-1s with standard-lens (72mm diameter).

All the used parts I found very cheap in local stores and cost me with LEDs around 30$. To attach on the lens I used a plastic-lenshood.
Pic 3&4: PVC Tube-Cap
Pic 5: Case from 25 CD-Box
Pic 6: Soldering the LEDs

[Wing Gee]

that's awesome. so these are 12v led's? can't wait to see the screens.
do you know which type of led's have wide or narrow beam pattern?

[Dino Zizzari]

2. Part - the retroreflective background

You have to find a retroreflective material. Mostly used for security-wearing. If you have difficulties to find it for a good price write me.
I attached my reflective material with adhesive strips on a 2.5m x 1.5m flexible photographic background. Cost: Reflective material ~240$, photo-background ~50$.

[Dino Zizzari]

that's awesome. so these are 12v led's? can't wait to see the screens.
do you know which type of led's have wide or narrow beam pattern?

These 24 LED's (30° wide-angle) are soldered together in 4 groups with 6 LED's. Every group has a 470 Ohm resistor (12V).

[MikkoWilson]

Very cool.

..Now if only we could figure out a way of making the fabric ourselves!

- Mikko

[Dino Zizzari]

Well Mikko, if we find a way getting millions of microscopic glasspearls in a very thin layer... 

Dino Zizzari

[David West]

has anyone just tried painting skotchcote on a white foamcore board???

[Cody Deegan]

I thought scotchkote was some sort of electrical coating.  Does it give a reflective effect?

Nice work Dino.

Here's a cool site on LEDs:

http://www.theledlight.com/

[Cedric Akins]

That is extremely cool Dino. Thanks for sharing that info. Hey I am not great doing wiring so to be clear on it did you do the groups in series or parallel? also are the four groups powered by the same source? I ask this because electronics is not my strong point. If it is not too much trouble could you draw up a wiring diagram?

This looks like something very worth while, and it could make my work look much more impressive.

Cedric

[David West]

hmmmm... Cody is right....

memory fade from 25 years ago.....

skotchlite makes a paint...  just wondering if it might work.....

[Cody Deegan]

We're getting closer.  Scotchlite is an actual reflective material that would probably be perfect. A little searching turned up that 3M used to make a reflective paint for safety apps but phased it out.  I found Ames reflective paint:

http://www.amesresearch.com/reflect.htm

Cedric, go to the LED link I posted above.  They have diagrams of how to wire in series or parallel with calculators for determining resistors.