Vintage lens vs contemporary lens for shooting green screen work

[M Joel W]

I'm planning to shoot something with very old lenses (1950s/1960s Schneider Cine-Xenons and Cinegon) and there is a lot of green screen work mixed in, too. Would it be smarter to rent Sigma Art lenses or Rokinon lenses or something for those days and then achieve a "vintage look" in post? Would it make sense to shoot briefly with both so I could re-recreate the look in comp? Thanks!

[David Mullen ASC]

Good greenscreen composites are about getting clean edges free of flaring or chromatic aberration around the foreground subject, so I wouldn't use old lenses -- or modern lenses if they have CA problems. Yes, shoot a reference frame with the old lens for matching purposes.

[M Joel W]

3 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

Good greenscreen composites are about getting clean edges free of flaring or chromatic aberration around the foreground subject, so I wouldn't use old lenses -- or modern lenses if they have CA problems. Yes, shoot a reference frame with the old lens for matching purposes.

Thank you, David. I've also considered stopping down the vintage lens to t8 or t11 if I can get enough light on the stage so that the optical characteristics will be intact but the "softness" can be added in post. Then shooting a reference at t2.3, which is where I anticipate I'll shoot most of the show. The lenses have horrible curvature of field and a lot of flare but very little CA.

But the curvature of field is so intense on the 28mm cine-xenon it might be worth renting a Sigma Art. 

I recently worked on a show with some green screen second unit inserts that I noticed were shot on anamorphic lenses to match anamorphic plates and spherical lenses to match spherical plates. 

I guess the single coatings on the cine-xenons would be my concern, that there would be a green cast over the entire image. Of course, I could also just not over-expose the green screen.

What do you expose your green screen at? 18% gray through a spot meter? 

Edited February 27, 2022 by M Joel W

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

Can't you just test this all? No budget for it?