"Why You Should NOT Shoot 4K"

[macsoft]

Opinions from a Post-Production Panel at Sundance 2014.

http://www.mentorless.com/2014/04/14/shoot-4k-youre-indie-filmmaker/

 

[ianwood]

I would never shoot in 1080p if I could shoot in a higher resolution. This is despite delivering everything I do in 1080p.

 

[Mal_PV2_Ireland]

While what they say maybe true for indie film makers the same doesn't translate too much to the sort of small videos we may make. Aerial videos are normally amazing scenic shots where you want every extra tiny detail and pixel you can get into your clip. Whereas they could be shooting any scene from a dark alley way or close up of people talking where you don't need or want to see every facial hair on an actors face.
File size doesn't matter to us because it's normally going to be an under 5 minute video as opposed to their short movie/documentary to full movie of up to 2 hours.
saying that you can't see the difference is nonsense, even on my galaxy note 4 screen I can see a huge difference between 1080p and 1440p. Unless I have super eyesight and the general public are blind as bats I can't understand when someone says they can't see the difference between SD and HD, HD and 4k.
Most of my videos are for online work, Web pages and 1080p will do, but shooting in 4k and rendering it back to 1080p is still going to give a much better video quality for what we do or shooting and uploading your finished video in 4k means that when bandwidth and 4k screens are in much more of an abundance I won't look back on a video I have done and said "****, I wish I had shot that in 4k" as I'm already thinking with 2 videos I shot a year ago that went viral.
Just my thoughts on it.

 

[macsoft]

Well I'm not an extremist in the matter, and I can see good arguments on both sides.
You say size "file dize doesn't matter" because we do under 5 minute videos with our birds? Well I think it does matter. Lets say an indy film has 90 min. how many "5 min videos" do you have? if you add them all up, how many 90 min video does it cover?
I shoot with my phantom every week. Adding up all the hours of footage, it does take lots of more space than the footage for 1 indy movie.
I can see the advantage of cropping, and digital pan with 4k video. But if you do that, its no longer a 4k video, so the quality argument is lost. You get a 2k video.

About people with 4k cameras that can see much more quality than everyone else on their footage, it reminds me of the "discovery" of N-rays in the 1900's. A french scientist discovered them, and only french scientists could see them! Nowhere else in the world could scientists replicate the experience and observe them... Of course in the end it has all in their mind after all. (If you don't know the story, its a very cool piece of history, check it here: http://www.wired.com/2014/09/fantastically-wrong-n-rays/)

4K TVs are few and sparse . 4K projectors even more.
If its proven that, at the distance you view a movie, the human eye can't tell the difference, why do we keep feeding the hype and defending our investment defending that it is different?
Just my 2 cents.

 

[scott rich]

From someone who works for a storage vendor - everything should be shot in 4K, pushed to the cloud and copied 4 times to make sure you don't lose it. Raw footage and final copies.

 

[Mal_PV2_Ireland]

From someone who works for a storage vendor - everything should be shot in 4K, pushed to the cloud and copied 4 times to make sure you don't lose it. Raw footage and final copies.

Haha well played

 

[mirrorimage]

Well I'm not an extremist in the matter, and I can see good arguments on both sides.
You say size "file dize doesn't matter" because we do under 5 minute videos with our birds? Well I think it does matter. Lets say an indy film has 90 min. how many "5 min videos" do you have? if you add them all up, how many 90 min video does it cover?
I shoot with my phantom every week. Adding up all the hours of footage, it does take lots of more space than the footage for 1 indy movie.
I can see the advantage of cropping, and digital pan with 4k video. But if you do that, its no longer a 4k video, so the quality argument is lost. You get a 2k video.

About people with 4k cameras that can see much more quality than everyone else on their footage, it reminds me of the "discovery" of N-rays in the 1900's. A french scientist discovered them, and only french scientists could see them! Nowhere else in the world could scientists replicate the experience and observe them... Of course in the end it has all in their mind after all. (If you don't know the story, its a very cool piece of history, check it here: Fantastically Wrong: The Imaginary Radiation That Shocked Science and Ruined Its ‘Discoverer’)

4K TVs are few and sparse . 4K projectors even more.
If its proven that, at the distance you view a movie, the human eye can't tell the difference, why do we keep feeding the hype and defending our investment defending that it is different?
Just my 2 cents.

I think you underestimate the number of retina display. Every mac laptop, iPhone, iPad, Android Phones, Android tablets are almost certainly capable of taking advantage of footage higher quality than 1080p in some form.

I don't know a SINGLE person without such a device.

 

[macsoft]

I think you underestimate the number of retina display. Every mac laptop, iPhone, iPad, Android Phones, Android tablets are almost certainly capable of taking advantage of footage higher quality than 1080p in some form.

I don't know a SINGLE person without such a device.

I think that you, as many, are confusing phones that RECORD at 4k, with phones with a 4K SCREEN. So, except for the Sony's Xperia Z5 Premium, no iPhone, iPad, Android Phones, Android tablets have nowhere near 4k screens, and only the new iMacs come with 4K screens.
The iPhone 6s Plus for example, has a Full HD screen.

Its because of people like you, that are easily fooled by the hype, that everyone is talking about shooting 4K, with almost no 4K medium to see it on. They've exapanded the 4K RECORDING technology way before the 4K VIEWING technology is massive, and now they are trying to sell it to you.

 

[TheMap]

Exactly not a lot of people have 4k displays to watch the resolution. The downscale will be 1080p regardless. So if storage is an issue don't shoot 4k. A8 and A8X chip that the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 plus and the iPad Air 2 has, can play 4K video but that doesn't mean you see 4k. Playing it an seeing it are two different things.

 

[Jussaguy]

While what they say maybe true for indie film makers the same doesn't translate too much to the sort of small videos we may make.

Let's just stop there. It most certainly matters to the indie film makers. The indies often need the wiggle room to fix their shot or the extra space to stabilize or the ability to make it look more like film because they are coming from a hight resolution to begin with and they need to drop to 24 1080p and that will help.

When was that article written? No matter when, I disagree with most of it.

 

[tcope]

Agree with Mal. The article was on presenting a film in that environment.

I shoot in 4k for one main reason... the future. Some video I may never be able to get again. So I worry about what it's going to look like in 5, 10, 15 years. Granted 1080 looks good... but 4k _will_ look better. However, it is a _pain in the butt_ to process!

 

[Mal_PV2_Ireland]

Let's just stop there. It most certainly matters to the indie film makers. The indies often need the wiggle room to fix their shot or the extra space to stabilize or the ability to make it look more like film because they are coming from a hight resolution to begin with and they need to drop to 24 1080p and that will help.

When was that article written? No matter when, I disagree with most of it.

Did you read my post before you quoted it?

 

[Jussaguy]

Let's just stop there. It most certainly matters to the indie film makers. The indies often need the wiggle room to fix their shot or the extra space to stabilize or the ability to make it look more like film because they are coming from a hight resolution to begin with and they need to drop to 24 1080p and that will help.

When was that article written? No matter when, I disagree with most of it.

I'm not sure what lead me to quote you but in general, the things you've said in this thread are dead on. Others, not so much.