RAW vs. other recording formats

Doug Jensen

Doug Jensen

Carbonite Member
As we know, probably 99% of professional still photograhers shoot in RAW. But what do you think the percentage is for video? What percentage of production is being recorded as RAW, either internally or to an external recorder. I think it has to be less than 5%, maybe even less than 1%. But I was wondering what other people think, or if someone has seen a statistic someplace.
 
It really depends...

RED is still a leader in video production, and on those sets and commercials it's 99% RAW.

With Blackmagic - BRAW - I'd say it's also a high percentage because you once again get the most out of the cameras with that format, and at this point shooting BRAW and editing it in Resolve is like shooting ProRes RAW and editing it in FCP. (Or something simpler like H.264.)

For ARRI, I've heard and read that many shoot ProRes 444 (12-bit), but supposedly a lot of productions also use ARRIRAW or CODEX applications as well.

Then what do you really have left, Canon and Sony.

Canon's top cameras shoot Cinema RAW Light. When I use the C200 that's all I'll use, but I also have no other choice because the camera pretty much doesn't offer anything else, at least that's worthy. But I think even if I had the C300 Mark III or C500 Mark II, I'd probably still shoot CRL. It's too easy.

Sony...I believe the Venice 2 is the only internal RAW shooting camera - X-OCN. The rest make it an external process, so I think those users (and Panasonic) are the least likely to shoot RAW.

So there are cameras that pretty much force you into shooting RAW if you want the best specs and/or there are those that just make it too easy not to shoot RAW.

With all of that said, the overall percentage could be 99% are shooting RAW depending on how you break these people up, but leave out RED, Blackmagic and Canon, and it's for sure less than 1% of the total general camera operating population.
 
Thanks for the thoughts, which pretty much are the same as mine. It is a slippery number to get a handle on.
Personally, I do shoot RAW sometimes, but I can honestly say that I have never once shot RAW for a paying client. My gut tells me the number has to be less than 1% even if you do factor RED, Arri, and Blackmagic.
 
If you count everyone who ever turns on and uses a camera, especially camcorders, TV people, sports videographers, legal depositions, every aspiring freelancer with a mirrorless, I would think so. The sheer number of humans with access to a non-RAW shooting camera will be much larger.

But focus on the cinema and commercial market, the higher-end productions, the LAs, the New Yorks, the number will easily be over 75% just by default because of the type of cameras they are using.

Take away those big budgets and big sets, and many will be very happy with the XAVCs and XFAVCs.

12-bit ProRes off an ARRI sensor is something else. On paper, it's kind of in the middle between RAW and everything else but to me it's RAW, ha.
 
Well, I am trying to limit the question to professional production where money is paid for work done -- and not include everyone who has a phone that can shoot video.
 
NorBro said:
Would you count YouTubers who shoot 8-bit 1080p but make 6 figures with their sub counts?
Click to expand...

No. They aren't producing video professionally in the sense that someone would hire them to shoot some other content. Most of the Youtubers I've seen are basically making glorified selfies. The video is not the product. Nothing wrong with that, and I wish them well, but they are not video producers in the traditional sense.
 
Doug: are you counting quasi-RAW formats like BRAW and ProRes RAW?

FWIW, I've never had anyone ask for RAW. But often I'm lucky if someone specifies framerate or resolution... The station where I work also doesn't seem to bother with any sort of RAW workflow.
 
For me, it depends on the shoot. I have an URSA Mini 4K that shoots the older style of Cinema DNG as it's RAW format. If I'm shooting a narrative piece for myself, I'll shoot RAW so I can try to retain as much detail as possible. If I'm shooting a commercial for a client, I might shoot RAW for select shots, but typically shoot ProRes 444/422 depending on resolution and how long the day is. I have other clients that I strictly shoot ProRes 422 or even Lite at 1080 because I'm just helping them make a fake livestream that goes straight to YouTube.
 
drboffa said:
Doug: are you counting quasi-RAW formats like BRAW and ProRes RAW?

FWIW, I've never had anyone ask for RAW. But often I'm lucky if someone specifies framerate or resolution... The station where I work also doesn't seem to bother with any sort of RAW workflow.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd count those as RAW. I'd also count X-OCN as RAW. I was just curious to see if it would be possible to put a number on what percentage of professional for-hire production is shot on a RAW format. With photographers it's gotta be just about 100%. For television/video I'd guess it is less than 1% when you consider news. sports, documentary, corporate, event, etc.
Heck, if you read the articles in AC Magazine, a lot of those high profile productions aren't even shooting RAW either.
 
On a related note, I think it is too bad Sony never released a full-featured RAW recorder to compete with those from Atomos and Convergent. I own ad R7 and and an R5, but they aren't the same thing. It seems odd they'd build many cameras with RAW output -- but not give customers a Sony-built solution to record it.
 
Yeah, you have to count all of the RAW formats in the discussion otherwise there would be like 2, mainly one if there was an engineering breakdown considering qualifying factors.

It's like comparing IBIS, or AF...everyone knows there is really only one superior AF system (Sony...sorry, Canon), but when discussing AF you have to speak about all of them because the systems exist, no matter if almost all of them are terrible.

As far as the Sony RAW recorders...I just mentioned something about that this week; it's a real shame and exactly because of that 16-bit RAW output they keep pushing.
 
Also as much as I liked my Atomos Shogun the Ninja V+ kinda stinks. The bulky SDI module adds unnecessary weight and size, as does the additional adapter to use D-tap power. And after barely over a year of use it's starting to come apart. Plus it can't convert Sony RAW into any of the usual ProRes flavors, which severely limits its usefulness.

If it weren't so convenient as a 5" monitor I would happily ditch it.

But back to RAW—I don't work on high end productions but I'm often surprised, when reading or listening to others who do, at how often formats like regular ProRes 4444/422 are used.
 
ARRI set the standard for ProRes for 3-4 years after the Alexa's introduction. There was no RAW yet so that's what everyone used and the monopoly began (which is why you still see those formats going strong because some things never change for people, and maybe they shouldn't).

Grant Petty then wanted to make an affordable ARRI competitor and had all of his cameras with ProRes although I once saw JB say that they initially only wanted CinemaDNG but were convinced to add ProRes and DNxHD.

The Japanese created a variety of their own proprietary formats and never bothered to license ProRes until most recently in the last 5-6 years (Canon's C700, Panasonic's GH6)...same with RED starting with I believe the Raven and Scarlet-W...Kinefinity and Z CAM jumped on board, too.

As much as I personally like PR I think just because ARRI and Blackmagic might have good-looking PR doesn't mean everyone else will or should because it may not be the best solution for their sensors, cameras (and some of these H.265 formats are really nice).

What's next? H.266?
 
NorBro said:
ARRI set the standard for ProRes for 3-4 years after the Alexa's introduction. There was no RAW yet so that's what everyone used and the monopoly began (which is why you still see those formats going strong because some things never change for people, and maybe they shouldn't). ....

What's next? H.266?
Click to expand...

There is/was an old interview with Rodney Charters, then working as a DP on the" Dallas" reboot, where he basically said, "Raw? We're shooting ProRes on Alexa and that'd it".

As to H265, most "consumer" gear uses 10-bit but the codec is also 12-bit capable. And CFexpress cards can, obviously, do higher bit rate even in 8K.
 
If anyone here would like a beautiful Alexa, let me know...special price for this thread, lol

You'd be contributing to an AMIRA for me and then we can be ARRI pals forever and ever <3
 
To keep it simple, $3900 for the body (but I have various accessories that could raise the price by $100 or $1000+ depending on what's needed and the type of work/shooting style).
 
I think that raw suffers from bad juju from the past. Producers think of it as a data and playback nightmare.

The Red One you had a playback box the size of the laptop. (and price of a Ford) The sony f65 (?) was shooing in a manner no one could read or transcode.

The next gen was budget folk buying BMCs and failing to playback on cheap computers

Then DPs and 'educators' were too arrogant to take instruction from serious still raw shootings prefereing espouse thier own BS after whatever 10 min experience.

Im still burned by my F5 'workshop' where clearly the instruction team had no clue about what was being recorded vs what was on the monitor and scopes.

Contrast that rubbish experience vs stll photographers who were presented an image that looked like thier screen, looked thier on computer jpg but with the right software magically you could pull back the sky. Wonderful.

Still people where hooked in a moment even if you did have to shell $500 for a 1gb card. But remember they never saw 'under the hood' - no flat wish wash cr_ap ever for still people.

==

My last feature we shot Red but the (ex film) DP wanted a moody dark look so under exposed the whole film by 3 stops (I was watching the scopes) - none of the younger camera team stepped in as the DP is god.

The film will be riddled with noise and another nail in the Red/raw coffin

The young camera team should have prepared a 'moody lut' and then the DP could expose by eye and fill the data bucket at the same time.

Ineducated DP, ineducated film school tutors.. and now ineducated young camera team a circle of death.

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AFAIK raw is about half the size of baked 444 pro res and maybe 25-50% bigger than decent camera codecs.

With todays computer speeds and storage costs raw is technically here if socially not.

It will remain that way until no-one sees 'under the hood'

When (probably canon) jump a bit further forward in integration with nles and compression raw will come.. of course that may be the day the red patent runs out.

(a patent that should not be granted as one cannot grant 'the obvious' - both me and jannard had nikon D3s in 2005 or whenever and 'obviously' wanted them to shoot long bursts at not 11fps but 24fps or more)

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Now encoding. What light value do you allocate to what number? Here we see that log encoding is more efficient. A lossless log might be best for data.. but that would be called complressed raw anyway.

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in practice my fs7 wa good but lacked a final bit of depth to the file (bit depth geddit!) since moving to the C200 i find that bridge to be crossed and shoot raw always and the increased data rate is OK even with a laptop and $1000 odd of costy cards.

I could not do a conference with 45mins of roll in raw.
 
In the background there was the 'HD' Arri shooting skyfall.

Of course all the switched on arri techs (not the DPs - the techs) were not shooting pro res HD but 3.8k (2.8k?) raw onto a codex box.

Using raw to make excellent work.. just not talking about it in public because back then not everything was revealed on social media.
 
My .02. The bulk of "day-to-day" RAW being shot is on RED's, because almost everyone shooting on a RED is shooting REDRAW(even though the cameras do shoot ProRes), even at the low-end. I mean, it is one of the selling points of RED and one of the cameras strongest features. It's kind of like RAW for stills, really. Everything else RAW, motion wise, is at the very high end. So, outside of RED, RAW is a tiny fraction of motion work. I've been paid to shoot 4K RAW twice. Once for extra/BTS material for a movie and once for Sony for promotional material.

When I bought my F55, I had the ProRes/DNx board installed, because everyone still said they "had to have" ProRes. I bet I have shot ProRes on that camera less than 10 times in seven+ years. And my Amira shoots all kinds of different flavors of ProRes, but I've never shot anything except 422HQ on it(baked-in and LOG). You can also purchase a RAW license for the camera. I asked one of my buddies if he had the RAW license and he said "Yes", but he has never shot it or been asked(kept the $2K-$3K in my pocket)(don't think he's ever shot RAW with his mini, either). I think ProRes 422 works so well with Arri's, because the sensor and image is just so damn good with so much latitude and roll-off that even "just" 422 10-bit is plenty in post, because you barely have to do anything to the image(even a baked-in image). You're not going to "break it" pushing and pulling it to the extremes like you have to with a lot of other cameras/sensors.

As far as stills go, I want to say I agree that the majority is RAW, but I don't know what the breakdown is on Journalism vs. everything else, because some(most, all?) of the agencies/wire services forbid shooting in anything except JPEG and heavily limit what adjustments can be done in post, to maintain the journalistic integrity of the image. But I know that I shoot stills in RAW, on my Canons. My iPhone shoots RAW, as well, but I don't know how much that really buys you on a cell cam.
 
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