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4K might become a reality quicker than we think
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[Tim Wilson] “People will wear glasses for the right content. Over 80% of the audience for Gravity saw it in 3D. More than Avatar.”
Plot twist: Let us not forget that Gravity was shot in 2D!
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Most are still still shot on Kodak.
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I’m a little late to this party, but I thought I’d chime in since the subject line mentioned “reality”!
We used 4k (Sony f 55) to shoot interviews this season for one of our reality shows. The creative called for TWO people on camera and we were able to use the extra pixels for “Punch ins” on closeups of either cast member. One frame equals THREE angles: WS, CU left cast, CU right Cast. Worked great and was actually a cost SAVER for us. One camera rental not three. One file not Three. I could go on, but the point is, 4K acquisition is a smart tool in the right circumstances.
Delivery in 4k is another conversation. My personal opinion is that it WILL happen, but NOT as quick as we think.
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[Mark Raudonis] “We used 4k (Sony f 55) to shoot interviews this season for one of our reality shows. The creative called for TWO people on camera and we were able to use the extra pixels for “Punch ins” on closeups of either cast member. One frame equals THREE angles: WS, CU left cast, CU right Cast. Worked great and was actually a cost SAVER for us. One camera rental not three. One file not Three. I could go on, but the point is, 4K acquisition is a smart tool in the right circumstances.”
4k acquisition is a great tool for oversampling HD, and this is how we use it, currently.
Here’s F55 footage used for three crops in one interview. The shot is framed at the second shot of the three.
Oversampling is also used in real time, AJA’s Corevid Ultra uses 4k images for realtime HD zooms: https://www.aja.com/en/news/top-stories/35
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] ”
[Mark Raudonis] “We used 4k (Sony f 55) to shoot interviews this season for one of our reality shows. The creative called for TWO people on camera and we were able to use the extra pixels for “Punch ins” on closeups of either cast member. One frame equals THREE angles: WS, CU left cast, CU right Cast. Worked great and was actually a cost SAVER for us. One camera rental not three. One file not Three. I could go on, but the point is, 4K acquisition is a smart tool in the right circumstances.”4k acquisition is a great tool for oversampling HD, and this is how we use it, currently.”
What a cool thread this is! For my meager tutorial needs, I don’t need more than 720p at the moment, but the thought of pan and zoom with 4k footage in a 720p timeline is very cool. It will be some time before I can afford a luxury like 4k, but I already like the idea of it.
Dave
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Sorry for my noob question but why exactly would you need 60 or 120 frames/sec to get sharp 4K?
Wouldn’t faster shutter speeds help?
Another question would be:
is 4K at 24fps looking better at 1080p vs something shot originally at 1080p at 24fps?What I also don’t understand yet is that people apparently can’t spot the difference between 1080p and 4K unless they’re really close to the screen but when shooting in 4K and then downsizing to 1080p makes for a better HD picture then when shooting in 1080p originally? There must be some logic in there but I don’t see it yet…
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[Andre van Berlo] “why exactly would you need 60 or 120 frames/sec to get sharp 4K? “
Try shooting a sharp image at 1/48 with a still camera.
[Andre van Berlo] “Wouldn’t faster shutter speeds help?”
Yes, if you want everything to look like the Normandy scene of “Saving Private Ryan”
The only thing that makes 24p watchable is a heavy dose of motion blur.
[Andre van Berlo] “is 4K at 24fps looking better at 1080p vs something shot originally at 1080p at 24fps?”
Most 4K cameras are 4K sensors. That’s not ideal in a single bayered sensor. Better to do what Arrir does which is basically a 3K sensor down sampled to 1080. This also applies to HD derived from 4K.
John
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Nobody really likes to talk about this anymore, but it was a big deal when Red started claiming their camera was 4K (and it isn’t).
But here you go: https://library.creativecow.net/galt_john/John_Galt_2K_4K_Truth_About_Pixels/1
EDIT: adding the link to the video of Demystifying Digital Cinema Camera Specs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqq8QKMmtYg
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[Richard Herd] “Nobody really likes to talk about this anymore, but it was a big deal when Red started claiming their camera was 4K (and it isn’t).
But here you go: https://library.creativecow.net/galt_john/John_Galt_2K_4K_Truth_About_Pixels...”
They may not talk about it much, but they read about it. It was one of our most-read articles last year, three years after it was first published.
He was certainly right to point out they hype behind claiming a camera was 4K it wasn’t, but it’s worth noting that Sony uses the phrase “True 4K” to describe the new F65, which they claim is the first camera to do what Galt says should be done, which is to have at least one photosite per pixel.
Sony has a fascinating PDF to talk about it. It was hard to miss that they used the same image that I did to show the “marketing pixels” illustration of Bayered processing — not shocking, since it’s from Wikimedia Commons — but I’d like to think that their use of the image, PLUS their emphasis on “True 4K” in the F65 suggests that they read my article at some point. 🙂
In any case, very interesting reading.
Tim Wilson
Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW -
[Tim Wilson] “very interesting reading”
Thanks for the link. I read that article (or parts of it) about once a month.
I think the issue John Heagy was brining up is
[Tim Wilson’s Article] “A number of years ago some IMAX engineers – and I don’t think IMAX ever let these guys out of their lab again — did this wonderfully elegant experiment at the Large Film Format Seminar at Universal Studios Imax theatre. They showed this film they made that began with 2 rows of 2 squares: black white, white black, as if you had 4 pixels on the screen.
Then they started to double and double and double the squares. Before they got to 4K the screen was gray. Do you know what the means? There was no longer any difference between black and white, which is what allows you to see sharpness. It’s the contrast that we see, not the actual information. Technically, the MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) was zero at 4K! …
This is why I honestly think that in the future, one direction we’re going to have to go is to higher frame rates, not more pixels.
Somebody said that the perfect thing would be 60 frames a second at IMAX. Kodak would love that. [laughs].
EDIT: Regarding HDR, I asked once in the cinematography forum in anyone had ever tried modifying a 3-chip camera into an HDR motion capture. 3-ccds, one exposing for highs, one exposing for mids, one exposing for shadows. I keep thinking I’d like to try that with my AG-HVX200, but I’m not even sure where to begin.
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