"Un"Professional Camera Choices of 2011- Where did you draw the line?

They said the same thing when affordable high definition was first introduced, horrible dynamic range, horrible light sensitivity, horrible color space, horrible frame rate, horrible compression artifacts. Yet these first high definition cameras blew interlace 480i out of the water.
 
androbot2084 said:
They said the same thing when affordable high definition was first introduced, horrible dynamic range, horrible light sensitivity, horrible color space, horrible frame rate, horrible compression artifacts. Yet these first high definition cameras blew interlace 480i out of the water.
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What will one view 4k media on, however?? Are there compatible display devices? I can see it being rapidly put to use in the movie industry, but what else?

How will 4k content even be delivered? Are there new disk standards for it? Would cable and satellite companies even be able to support it?

Seems to me that this will all take many years to change.

.
 
androbot2084 said:
They said the same thing when affordable high definition was first introduced, horrible dynamic range, horrible light sensitivity, horrible color space, horrible frame rate, horrible compression artifacts. Yet these first high definition cameras blew interlace 480i out of the water.
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Just get off my lawn, kid. ;)

I'm not against 4K itself. I just don't even want to hear about 4K until we've done 2K "right." To me, 2K still isn't completely "done." The lack of global shutter is not cool. We had it in CCDs. When we went to CMOS, we had a regression. Dynamic range is another thing that should reach a certain minimum (about 16 stops) before looking at 4K.

Take it another way, every facet of a camera has three levels:
1. Need to have.
2. OK I don't have to worry about that anymore.
3. OK, that's nice.

For example, for Resolution it would be:
1. SD (need to have) You can still make a living with a DVX100.
2. 2K. (OK I don't have to worry about resolution anymore)
3. 4K and above (OK, that's nice)

Latitude:
1. 7 stops (OK, my life sucks but I can make it work)
2. 16 stops (OK I don't have to worry about latitude anymore)
3. 18 and above (OK, that's nice)

Color:
1. 8-bit 4:2:0 (It works)
2. 10-bit 4:2:2 (OK, I don't have to worry about grading anymore)
3. 16-bit 4:4:4 (OK, that's nice)

Media cost:
1. $100/hour (my life sucks!!!)
2. $10/hour (OK, I don't really have to think about media costs anymore)
3. $0.01/hour (I forgot the media!)

Shutter :
1. rolling (I can work around it)
2. global (OK, I don't have to worry about rolling shutter anymore)
3. quantum (http://www.dpreview.com/news/1110/11102810ericfossumspeech.asp)

My thing is, I don't like to see camera makers jump to level 3 on one thing when you're still at level 1 on something else. Get to level 2 at all aspects before going to level 3 --- especially if jumping to level 3 at one thing (resolution) keeps you from implementing level 2 at another thing (global shutter, dynamic range, media cost).

For all you absolutists, the above numbers are just averages. Don't overanalyze. I'm mainly thinking of three types of cameras: (1) the one that I can make work but is a pain in some situations, (2) the camera I can kind of relax around, there are no special workarounds or gotchas to remember, and (3) frosting on the cake.
 
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Producer I've been shooting a lot for told me that he flew to Cleveland (I think it was Cleveland) to produce a project a couple months ago. The freelancer he hired there showed up with a 4:3 SD MiniDV camera. His client was still happy with the results, paid in full, and now wants him to produce a few more projects for them.

4K has it place... but I doubt most of the folks I deal with freelancing or with my side business really care. It all goes on the web for the most part, so they don't care about pixel counts. They just want it to look nice. Heck, at my "real" job at a TV news station, the photogs still shoot the bulk of our news stories on DVCPro25. If the photog knows what he's doing, it still looks good uprezed to 1080i.
 
I had the same problem when I bought my first high definition camera in 2004.
1. How could I view the footage? At first I had to use a 17 inch computer monitor. Not very impressive to my friends but it worked at least resolution wise. I then bought a cheap 26 inch cathode ray tube HDTV.
2. Sharing the videos was a problem. At first I didn't even have a DVD burner and Blu-Ray did not exist. I gave my friends DATA-DVD's which which would only work on their computers if they could get the footage to play but it was in high definition.

If a consumer 4K camera is introduced it will create the same problems. People at first may have to settle for a 2560x1600 30 inch apple cinema display to showcase their footage and will have to burn DATA-Blu-Ray discs to share their footage until an official 4K specification is developed.
 
I don't think that shooting in 4k (or above) is always about displaying in 4k - I know a couple of other shooters here in town that shoot REDMX so that the client - ad agency actually not client - can crop / punch in in post when they edit for 1080 tv transmission. There is one client I shoot for regularly in 1080 who outputs 720 but likes the freedom to do the same.

So I'm not getting hung up on "no way to view 4k and above.
 
You can't let what other people do decide what you are going to do. For example to this very day there are broadcasters who still insist on broadcasting in the analog interlace 480i format even after the so called digital transition. These people will never change and if they had their way black and white silent movies would be good enough.
 
heavyG said:
I guess I'm always somewhat confused as to what level some of the folks here on the board are working.
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and that ain't much. I support myself plus 3 with NYC rent and I'm freelance. My medical bills per annum is close to 20k.
 
combatentropy said:
Just get off my lawn, kid. ;)

I'm not against 4K itself. I just don't even want to hear about 4K until we've done 2K "right." To me, 2K still isn't completely "done." The lack of global shutter is not cool. We had it in CCDs. When we went to CMOS, we had a regression. Dynamic range is another thing that should reach a certain minimum (about 16 stops) before looking at 4K.

Take it another way, every facet of a camera has three levels:
1. Need to have.
2. OK I don't have to worry about that anymore.
3. OK, that's nice.

For example, for Resolution it would be:
1. SD (need to have) You can still make a living with a DVX100.
2. 2K. (OK I don't have to worry about resolution anymore)
3. 4K and above (OK, that's nice)

Latitude:
1. 7 stops (OK, my life sucks but I can make it work)
2. 16 stops (OK I don't have to worry about latitude anymore)
3. 18 and above (OK, that's nice)

Color:
1. 8-bit 4:2:0 (It works)
2. 10-bit 4:2:2 (OK, I don't have to worry about grading anymore)
3. 16-bit 4:4:4 (OK, that's nice)

Media cost:
1. $100/hour (my life sucks!!!)
2. $10/hour (OK, I don't really have to think about media costs anymore)
3. $0.01/hour (I forgot the media!)

Shutter :
1. rolling (I can work around it)
2. global (OK, I don't have to worry about rolling shutter anymore)
3. quantum (http://www.dpreview.com/news/1110/11102810ericfossumspeech.asp)

My thing is, I don't like to see camera makers jump to level 3 on one thing when you're still at level 1 on something else. Get to level 2 at all aspects before going to level 3 --- especially if jumping to level 3 at one thing (resolution) keeps you from implementing level 2 at another thing (global shutter, dynamic range, media cost).

For all you absolutists, the above numbers are just averages. Don't overanalyze. I'm mainly thinking of three types of cameras: (1) the one that I can make work but is a pain in some situations, (2) the camera I can kind of relax around, there are no special workarounds or gotchas to remember, and (3) frosting on the cake.
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Well put my friend! Kudos!
 
I haven't shot a project in SD for over three years now. Everything has been shot in HD - but even so, apart from TV commercials, I'm yet to deliver a single project in HD in any format whatsoever - most of my clients have no need or even the means to display HD images for a lot of projects.

It's simply a reality.

There's a point of diminishing returns with all of these things. DSLRs reached that point about 3 years ago with the 12mpx D3 and D300 (at which point shooting on 35mm film stopped making sense). Motion picture cameras reached that point maybe a year and a bit ago, with the arrival of cameras using S35mm sensors and outputting HD resolution with substantial dynamic range - at manageable price points.

The great news is, these cameras reduce the rat race for 99% of shooters. The quality these cameras are now capable of outputting will be enough for many many years to come - because it's finally reached the level of S35mm film (which has always been the standard we've judged these things by). People can argue the technical matters as much as they like - but I've seen 35Mbps non-SLOGged F3 footage projected in full-HD across a large cinema screen, and the simple fact is - it looked good enough which is all that matters.

Can you get better images? Yes.

But do you need to? Once you've reached that point of quality - No, not really.
 
thanks HHL. the rest of my income comes from other sources but that figure I quoted comes directly from that one cam. Best cash cow of a camera I ever had considering what it cost, so yeh definitely, go t2i !
 
combatentropy said:
At the same time, 2K has a lot to commend it:

- It is good enough. I've done tests. Put a full-resolution wallpaper on your computer desktop. Sit back so that the screen becomes a 30 degree angle of view. Ask yourself, would this be sharp enough, especially for a moving image? Yes? Well, guess what, 2K is even sharper, because chances are your laptop screen is 1366 x 768 or something.

- It is widespread. De facto standards carry a lot of convenience. 1920 x 1080 is in a lot of places. It's in the AVC codec. It's what TV sets max out at. It's what a lot of projectors max out at. It's also 1/4 the data of 4K, which means 1/4 the media cost and rendering time.

2K was decided on after a lot of testing. Do you think the perfectionists at Arri decided on 2K so that they could keep their camera's price down? Even the HD standard was decided based on testing what audiences could actually see.
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I'll be using my A-Minima and 2k transfer for everything now and into the future, well at least until Kodak go bust....I don't have to worry about where the future camera's are going Super 16 still rules for me, Black Swan, Hurt Locker anyone ?
 
One must remember that the gold standard was 65mm film not 35mm film. At one time all Epics were shot using 65mm film. The multiplex killed 70mm projection because it was argued that quantity had a quality all of its own. But a digital equivalent for 65mm film will never be found using 2K technology.
 
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