The Division of Image Quality

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Posing the simple question that has pretty much defined digital cameras, but was never present in film:

Should image quality be reserved for professional cameras?
 
Finally, manufacturers are selling cheaper 10bit video cameras. But the attitude still prevails that image quality should be drastically reserved for professional bodies.

The problem is as prevelant amongst shooters as it is with marketing.


For me, the difference between a professional camera and a prosumee camera should be ergonomics and industry standard connections.

Why am i passionate about this?

Because the industry is so defined by image quality, and generally how bad it is, everytime a new consumer camera that comes out with half way decent image quality, some genius gets the idea that we should shoot on it to save money. Then that camera somehow trickles its way into the industry because it is somehow thought of as a name.

If all cameras had a good image, then professional features, ergonomics, extreme low light, higher color fidelity and so on would be the pursuit and hall marks of a professional camera.

But in today’s climate, since everyone is distracted by image quality alone, we continue to get very odd professional cameras in the $10K range, and we have bad image quality in the prosumer range.

We should have better ergonomics and more value adding improvements on pro bodies than just a few more mbps in a codec, or inlocked dynamic range from the sensor.

It is perhaps a little late to discuss this, as cameras are now starting to get log and 10bit in much more accessible bodies,

However, we still have some odd pro camera designs in the $7K-$25k range. And i think they get away with it because of the way we focus on image quality alone.
 
Unfortunately (or fortunately?), image quality is the only thing that's really going to sell at this point.

It's a very visual world (more than it's ever been), and those who value ergonomics and connections are a dying breed (not an insult; just a reality). The TV/truck/etc. guys & gals are going to need the equipment they need, but there's a different mindset for everyone else who is mostly interested in a well-rounded camera with a lot of - now considered customary - features like AF, IBIS, and 10-bit.

Sure the ARRIs and REDs do not have continuous AF and IBIS but those cameras are for the 1%.

So maybe it's best to touch on if we're talking about professional cameras for the 1% or cameras for the rest of us?
 
I don’t think anything should be reserved anywhere, and I appreciate the push from competitors to reduce the artificial pricing barriers that still exist in the high end market. (Yes, it’s more complicated than that factoring in volume, R&D, support, highly custom parts, etc.)

But all in all, as volume has expanded and competition expanded, I think it’s time to look past the old divisions of pricing gates.
 
Maybe, but you can only innovate so much.

At the end of the day, they are just cameras.

The most important innovations since the development of cameras (still) began have been resolution and AF. IBIS being the third, IMO.

Any innovation of better ergonomics and connections would be a 'special order' for James0b57.
 
10-bit and RAW are also highly desired, but I feel like they are more of a technology that's been available for quite some time but just not being provided to us in more cameras (for whatever reasons).

The AF has of course drastically changed and the IBIS only became a reality in the last few years.

Resolution is in a weird place right now.
 
everytime a new consumer camera that comes out with half way decent image quality, some genius gets the idea that we should shoot on it to save money. Then that camera somehow trickles its way into the industry because it is somehow thought of as a name.
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Complaining about today's image quality is comical to me, knowing that a standard-def 4:1:1 DVX100-shot film won the "best cinematography" award at Sundance.

Furthermore, I would submit that you're about 11 years late with this observation. I raised holy hell about the "DSLR revolution" for precisely these same reasons. The 5D Mark II was a horrible thing, shooting on it was miserable, the aliasing was terrifying, the workaround hoops you had to jump through were obscene, and it got "a name" and everyone thought we should shoot on it. I was pretty much alone, even though I was dead-to-nuts right. It took years for people to abandon that thing.

So what you're proposing, some sort of artificial wall being built, is the wrong approach. People will have to learn for themselves, as it has always been and as it will always be. And they will, eventually. Well, some will. There will always be those who are unable to learn. Some need to learn from firsthand experience, some can learn from the experience of others, and some just will never learn. Each will find their own level. You cannot control people, and you shouldn't try.

I found an interesting quote in a motorcycle review, that I think may be appropriate here:
Several years ago, two of my uncles were sitting around a backyard barbecue. Uncle Number One mentioned that he was wearing a $300 pair of handmade shoes. Uncle Number Two pointed to his own feet: “These shoes? Twelve bucks at Walmart.” Each one laughed, thinking he’d gotten the better deal and the other poor sucker had gotten scalded.
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lol, you weren't right, IMO...the 5D Mark II's image quality was light years better-looking than a DVX100 at the time. And it's important to consider that term and not paper specs because that's all that mattered. The perceived image quality, the look.

Just like today - a decade plus later - which camera is better-looking to someone is what matters the most.

And the only reason it was abandoned is because it was replaced over the years by 5-10-15 other new & better models, and DSLRs (now mirrorless') are stronger than ever.
 
Oddly, I don't agree with the notion of image quality once it reaches SD quality. Here in the UK, virtually every TV set sold is HD capable. However, historically, our TV channels were always 1=BBC1, 2=BBC2, 3=ITV, 4=CH4 and 5=CH5. then satellite and digital free TV broadcasting popped up quickly - but this 1-5 is always the same. On many systems, we have BBC in SD on channel 1, and although HD BBC is on channel 101 (and 102,3,4 and 5) not everyone watches in HD. Indeed, BBC regional opt in stations, like BBC East in my region do not broadcast in HD at all, and nobody has noticed. when we had resolution in the low 200's in the Beta and VHS days, the move to SD was so obvious. However, the difference between SD and HD is not as obvious, and for many viewers, they don't notice.

I've got recorded material from the 80s onwards, recorded on loads of formats. once we got to SD at the uK spec of 720x576, the quality was very very good. I then moved to 720 HD, before going to 1080. lots of my work involves older material so I edit in 720, bringing in sD and 1080 Hd, and nobody seems to ever query quality differences. Even worse, at a training day at pinewood Studios with Sony it was so obvious that real 4K video from wonderful cameras and lenses simply got thrown away by the domestic 4k displays. The Sony pro displays were amazing, but the domestic 4K sets were rather lacking. My cheap Chinese 4K go pro style camera may well record in 4K, but next to a Sony studio 4k camera and lens, the 4K is really totally different. there may be lots of pixels, but does the sensor and the lens really have the ability to resolve what it's pointed at/

So I am now a sceptic - totally happy with the formats and the pixel count on paper, but underwhelmed by the actual end result. A long time ago I bought a blurry drive and some blanks and have never had one customer ask for HD. They are still requesting SD DVD because it's perfectly good enough.
 
paulears said:
My cheap Chinese 4K go pro style camera may well record in 4K, but next to a Sony studio 4k camera and lens, the 4K is really totally different. there may be lots of pixels, but does the sensor and the lens really have the ability to resolve what it's pointed at.
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This was (and still is) always incredibly true for all resolutions and cameras.

Do you remember when consumer and prosumer HD cameras started coming out? They were 720p and/or 1080p on paper but many looked like absolute garbage compared to high-quality HD cameras (and even SD cameras!).

Still today it varies. Very expensive cinema cameras shoot 4K but may produce extremely underwhelming images, while some systems that cost less than simple production accessories - like the Blackmagic Pocket 4K - produce beautiful motion pictures.
 
On a side note, if anyone doesn't know or remember - or any younger individuals are reading this thread - the following video was one of the most - if not the most - popular 5D Mark II video in the world.

Personally, I think it officially launched the DSLR revolution.

At the time when most people were shooting SD or some just breaking into HD (or even 4K!), this look, this shallow DOF changed the world forever. Canon - accidentally - changed the world forever by enabling their stills cameras to shoot full-frame video (even though the D90 was the first to offer it on a APS-C sized sensor).

https://vimeo.com/7151244
 
I think most prosumer cameras these days are capable of putting out a cinema quality image if you know how to light a scene and grade properly. I just screened a 2K DCP of my GH4 shot feature at a film festival, in a big Multiplex theatre and was stunned by how well it held up. The image was sharp. The colours bang on. No banding or visible compression artifacts. It did not look deficient in any way.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley directed a film I produced on a GH1, it was the short film that opened the red-carpet opening night at Slamdance that year. On a GH1. An un-hacked, original, out-of-the-box GH1, with the terrible codec and the banding and everything. Vincent Pascoe's cinematography, and Jack's writing and directing, made that comparatively-decrepit camera shine.
 
NorBro said:
lol, you weren't right, IMO...
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In your, and everyone else's opinion at the time, I wasn't right. But in mine, and I dare say the professional world today's opinion, I was. At the worst, I was just really, really early. Why else is everyone shooting on FS5's and FS7's and EVAs and Varicams and Arris? Why aren't they still shooting on the 5D or other DSLR? Because whether the image quality is there or not, the process of shooting on it sucked then and sucks now.

because that's all that mattered. The perceived image quality, the look.
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To you, yes. To some, yes. To those that james (the OP) is talking about, yes.

To me, no. The process of working, the reliability, being able to get the shot, everything that the overheating fussy aliasing DSLR failed at, those were all as or more important than the ultimate end image quality. If the DSLR cost me a shot because it's overheated or it aliased all over the place and we didn't notice it, I've got to schedule a reshoot or a delay, and that would easily cost more than the camera did. On a professional set, IMO, the DSLR's downsides were never worth the risk, and I said back then that the day a fully-professional (in the traditional sense) camera includes a DSLR-sized sensor will be the last day that you find a full-size production (meaning, professional crew, professional budget, etc) using a DSLR as the main camera. And yes, I do think I was right about that, and that day has come to pass. There will always be exceptions to every rule, of course.

Just like today - a decade plus later - which camera is better-looking to someone is what matters the most.
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To you. Not to all of us.

And the only reason it was abandoned is because it was replaced over the years by 5-10-15 other new & better models, and DSLRs (now mirrorless') are stronger than ever.
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I would question that. I believe that the DSLR/mirrorless is basically completely abandoned in the professional world (again, defined as, say, a full crew, each being paid $600 or more per day). Whether people are using Reds or Ursas or EVAs or FS5/FS7s or something comparable, the DSLR as the "main" camera, the "A" camera, is pretty much extinct. It seems to me that the DSLR exists now mainly among the DIY crowd, and in that field you could argue that it's stronger than ever. Certainly today's cameras are infinitely better than anything the 5D Mark II could muster.

On a professional set, the only time I would expect to see a DSLR anymore is in use by the publicist or the makeup/wardrobe departments, or as a crash cam or action cam.
 
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Barry_Green said:
I believe that the DSLR/mirrorless is basically completely abandoned in the professional world (again, defined as, say, a full crew, each being paid $600 or more per day).
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This makes me :cry:

Just by the way you're writing about them, may I ask if you've used many DSLRs or mirrorless cameras in your career?

For what it's worth, there are only a few models that overheat in a world of 50+.

And it's really important to define everyone.

Because the 1% who create Hollywood movies do use ARRIs and REDs, but the rest of the world mostly doesn't. The amount of people using DSLRs/mirrorless is astronomical compared to the amount of people using FS7s, EVA1s, etc.

I think we should be a bit more open-minded too.

What if I was a YouTuber who makes 1 million a year. Is my bedroom set professional? Does a crew make it professional? Why do I have to use a professional camera? What is a professional camera?

And why are they deemed difficult to use only because they are difficult for YOU to use who may have experience with more traditional, older cameras (if you don't mind me saying).

The world has changed and is changing, Barry. There's still a place for the cameras you write books about for many more years, but as a professional it would be foolish to think some of the things you think about DSLR/mirrorless systems.
 
Hi Barry, I do recall reading your posts about the matter. Definitely still holds true.
 
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