What string will show up the best in a video filmed outside? Just a quick question.
Toxic thick metz
It really depends on your environment.
Orange, neon green and neon yellow work best more often than not as they tend to contract well against a lot. Neon green seems to especially be a stand-out. Pink isn’t bad either but doesn’t work well in softer light environments.
White is too high contrast against dark and will “glow” in a bad way if it gets picked up and it gets lost outside. You need to select your background colors carefully. You don’t want to be against a black background for white string, or a super dark shirt either. This is a color you’d want to do multiple tests. It could be corrected just through lighting adjustments.
Black sucks for almost anything unless you’re going in a totally negative direction, but then you get a reverse of the white string and similar problems, except you can’t correct with lighting, you have to go with backgrounds. You’d most likely end up having to go with lighter greys and various light pastels, as well as do similar with your shirt/attire.
Red just ends up getting lost unless your lighting is very bright and done properly. It works well against light backgrounds, especially in the near contrasting colors. You don’t want a direct contrast or it just ends up looking bad.
Do short test shots, anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute. See what seems to work best. Don’t trust your eyes, trust what the camera sees. Our eyes are more sensitive than the camera.
Other than that, don’t stress stuff about type of string. See if your favorite string comes in the colors you need.
BTW: I find thick metz to be too thick for my preferences. Good stuff though, I just prefer a thinner string. Normal Metz, now that’s some good stuff!
I use blue string for outside near grey or snow color wise and may I just say it looks great standing out between those two colors! On the other hand, I find neon yellow or green works well against very thick forests or just plain old grass.
Thanks!! Exspecially studio42 that was a very well thought out and presented answer!!
I live in South Carolina so there is no snow, and most everywhere is green.
I just ordered a 100 pack of neon yellow kitty string and a toxic sampler pack. Hopefully the kitty will work great! And if it doesn’t than I can find something in the sampler to work.
Yes, neon yellow is probably the best colored string to use in videos…
Like this:
(Hehe)
Wow!! What a great example!! How did you stumble upon that so quickly?? 
Thanks, hopefully I can all my shooting done before my Christmas break is over!
Have a good color camera, it will make the string brighter. ;D
Thanks! Haha, if you want to subscribe to me you can… :
Subbed! Just because I’m in a good mood.
Haha, that made me happy. 