what will it take for you to move to 4k?

I wouldn't say that WSJ is the final authority on all things technical, but they do follow markets. Sounds like they think 3D has become a dead end as it did a couple times already, and 4k will go the same way unless there are cheap HDTVs in 4k.
 
I still think it just comes down to the project. To date the only footage I've ever delivered to any client in 1080p has been for TV commercials. Everything else has standard-definition DVD, or at most 720p for streaming web content.

If I were shooting narrative content? I'd shoot in 4K if we had the budget to cover the extra costs in post - but to be honest, with the level (and more importantly, budget) of productions I'm working on at the moment, that additional post budget would be best spent putting the money on screen - on art direction, better costuming and sets.

Beyond HD resolution just isn't all that important at this stage. Sure being able to rerelease your TV series in 4K for the market 10 years from now would be nice - but is it necessary? Unless the size of the screens we watch at home and at the cinema change dramatically in that time, it's just not going to be that big of a deal.
 
Well I really think having a camera that can shoot 4k raw and then be dumbed down to compressed codec lends itself to a wide array of projects. I shoot stuff that requires a fast turn around but I also do higher end commercials. So I would say a 4k raw camera that can also be shot in other codecs in 1080p that could potentially hold me tight for 4-5 years is a go. Of course that all depends on the price...
 
starcentral said:
How about now?
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It just has to be a winning formula, and right now, none of the 4k cameras interest me at all.
Still yet to judge on the Sony's, but from past Sony experience, the picture hasn't yielded anything spectacular my way.
RED is out of the question, the picture has never done anything special for me and Canon/Panasonic... well, they aren't quite at the party yet, probably trying to be cool and be fashionably late.

4k cameras may have the resolution, but it seems they lack everything else.

So i'll be sticking with the Alexa as my 'big' purchase and that's 2.8k into Full HD right?
 
I remember every time I bought a camera thinking "this is all I will need". I'm on my 8th/9th camera now and seriously wonder if it ever will end. Manufacturers will always manage to lure us and find something that we want to own. Specs, size, price... they have many angles to "get us" with.
 
starcentral said:
I remember every time I bought a camera thinking "this is all I will need". I'm on my 8th/9th camera now and seriously wonder if it ever will end. Manufacturers will always manage to lure us and find something that we want to own. Specs, size, price... they have many angles to "get us" with.
Click to expand...

Of course it will never end, this is the technological age, it'll end when we do.
 
starcentral said:
I remember every time I bought a camera thinking "this is all I will need".
Click to expand...

That reminds me of when I first started my own company. I left a good sized post production house with AVIDs and two 9 gig avid drives (at $2500 a piece). I put two 16.8 gig IDE drives into my EditDV (!) workstation and thought I would be set FOREVER on that 32 gigs. That was only like 15 years ago. (or 6 cameras, 4 workstations and 3 dogs... however you measure time)



To stay on thread, I'll switch to 4K when my clients start asking for it or I have the money for a new camera and want the challenge. That's why I added the F3 to my EX-1. Nobody was complaining about the EX-1 but I knew I could get a better image from the F3 and wanted to challenge myself to make better products and learn something different. Force myself to spend more time and make it better because of it. My clients are seeing the difference but don't necessarily realize why... or care. I've gotten some jobs just because I can say F3 (or more usually, "I'm one tier above the competition's gear") but it's mostly getting a little more money using gear that requires a little more time to do it right.

I have a feeling that my next move "up" will be adding an external recorder for the extra color sampling and bits. But I tend to spend my money on lighting, support, sliders, jibs, dollies, stuff like that.
 
WestView Digital said:
That reminds me of when I first started my own company. I left a good sized post production house with AVIDs and two 9 gig avid drives (at $2500 a piece). I put two 16.8 gig IDE drives into my EditDV (!) workstation and thought I would be set FOREVER on that 32 gigs. That was only like 15 years ago. (or 6 cameras, 4 workstations and 3 dogs... however you measure time)



To stay on thread, I'll switch to 4K when my clients start asking for it or I have the money for a new camera and want the challenge. That's why I added the F3 to my EX-1. Nobody was complaining about the EX-1 but I knew I could get a better image from the F3 and wanted to challenge myself to make better products and learn something different. Force myself to spend more time and make it better because of it. My clients are seeing the difference but don't necessarily realize why... or care. I've gotten some jobs just because I can say F3 (or more usually, "I'm one tier above the competition's gear") but it's mostly getting a little more money using gear that requires a little more time to do it right.

I have a feeling that my next move "up" will be adding an external recorder for the extra color sampling and bits. But I tend to spend my money on lighting, support, sliders, jibs, dollies, stuff like that.
Click to expand...


A very thoughtful and for me a relevant post from Andrew here. I too remember buying those 9 gig Avid drives for my Avid MC back then thinking I was set for life with that kind of an investment. Now we can store that and much more on a SDHC card for less than 30 bucks. This is the dance we are all in and the music's in a loop, it isn't ever going to stop.
My investment in the F3 took the same path as Andrew's, up from the really solid little EX1 and I took the plunge because I wanted a more "filmic" camera and to move to using my PL glass from my film kits, and that S35 sensor of course. I haven't regretted buying the F3 for one moment, it has some design faults of course but all in all it's a great camera.
And now, less than 18 months after buying the F3 along comes the new Sony kids on the block.
For me moving to 4K would be an tempting proposition and the new F's have addressed many of the ergonomic problems of the F3, but is it worth it right now? The answer for me and I suspect many of us F3 owners is no.
The majority of my work in video doesn't call, ( yet ), for 4K. The quality of the images I can produce with the F3 is completely satisfying to me as a DP / Luddite who's still so reluctant to leave the world of film acquisition.
I have learned with my computer purchases to try to skip a generation or so of upgrading before trading up and with digital cameras both stills and video I still feel that for me that's the way to go otherwise how can you justify the cost of buying the new and the loss in financial value of what you bought not too long past? What now are our F3's worth after this week's announcements?
And this sort of thing is never going to stop now. No matter how great these new F's are there will be other "F whatevers" or other digital brands two years on from now, and we will all be tempted to move up again. This is how electronic manufacturers stay in business. Unlike film cameras all video gear going back to BetaCams and further has had to be paid for within a couple of years because after then they are invariably superseded by the next generation that we and our clients lust for.......With film it was loading the newest generation of Kodak or Fuji's film stock to improve images on the same cameras. That's way different to where we are today.
The F5 and more so the F55 are obviously great pieces of kit, Sony has listened and produced here, but for me I will sit this upgrade out, continue to get F3 images that I and my clients are still more than pleased with and if / when I have a job that really does call for the 4K workflow I will rent that gear for the job.
 
petermullett said:
A very thoughtful and for me a relevant post from Andrew here. I too remember buying those 9 gig Avid drives for my Avid MC back then thinking I was set for life with that kind of an investment. Now we can store that and much more on a SDHC card for less than 30 bucks. This is the dance we are all in and the music's in a loop, it isn't ever going to stop.
My investment in the F3 took the same path as Andrew's, up from the really solid little EX1 and I took the plunge because I wanted a more "filmic" camera and to move to using my PL glass from my film kits, and that S35 sensor of course. I haven't regretted buying the F3 for one moment, it has some design faults of course but all in all it's a great camera.
And now, less than 18 months after buying the F3 along comes the new Sony kids on the block.
For me moving to 4K would be an tempting proposition and the new F's have addressed many of the ergonomic problems of the F3, but is it worth it right now? The answer for me and I suspect many of us F3 owners is no.
The majority of my work in video doesn't call, ( yet ), for 4K. The quality of the images I can produce with the F3 is completely satisfying to me as a DP / Luddite who's still so reluctant to leave the world of film acquisition.
I have learned with my computer purchases to try to skip a generation or so of upgrading before trading up and with digital cameras both stills and video I still feel that for me that's the way to go otherwise how can you justify the cost of buying the new and the loss in financial value of what you bought not too long past? What now are our F3's worth after this week's announcements?
And this sort of thing is never going to stop now. No matter how great these new F's are there will be other "F whatevers" or other digital brands two years on from now, and we will all be tempted to move up again. This is how electronic manufacturers stay in business. Unlike film cameras all video gear going back to BetaCams and further has had to be paid for within a couple of years because after then they are invariably superseded by the next generation that we and our clients lust for.......With film it was loading the newest generation of Kodak or Fuji's film stock to improve images on the same cameras. That's way different to where we are today.
The F5 and more so the F55 are obviously great pieces of kit, Sony has listened and produced here, but for me I will sit this upgrade out, continue to get F3 images that I and my clients are still more than pleased with and if / when I have a job that really does call for the 4K workflow I will rent that gear for the job.
Click to expand...

Peter and Andrew, I just had flashbacks to how excited I was when I got my first 9GB SCSI hard drive so I could actually do NLE editing on my computer! Might have been a 486 computer for crying out loud but I was editing on my PC!

Back on 4k however; my primary use of all my cameras have always been producing filmic looking images. If I could have honestly afforded film I would have been shooting on it night and day. I came from using P+S Technik mini35 adapters shooting on SD so I am no stranger to shooting "35mm style". The F3 was an absolute blessing. No more stupid 35mm adapters and light loss. Super 35mm in HD 1080p quality. 800ISO. 6400ISO clean. 10-bit 422 (and now with SLOG) for FREE.

The F3 is my go to camera for faster turn-around projects or where I am handing footage over directly to the client and I know there is no budget for post work (no matter how much I try and sell/argue for it.) I even offer to do post CC and grading for free sometimes because I know it will add polish to the finished product. It could be 10 years from now and I'll always know I can grab the F3 forget my rails, matte box, and all that other rig junk at home and still be able to shoot with it. The combination of the built-in ND filters and gain can allow you to expose for most situations. What a camera! And a countless number of films have been shot in HD so with a camera that has high ISO, high dyanmic range in the right hands it can be used for the next 5-10 years and doubtfully anyone will really notice many quality differences putting resolution aside.

So do I want 4k? I do. But I want it RAW and probably don't share a lot of the same reasons others here in the forums would have for even wanting 4k. Most people agree it won't be broadcasted for a very long time and let's be honest early adopters seem to pay more and get "screwed" - wait until you see 4k 35mm launches by JVC, Panasonic who've been keeping quiet up until now. Most people would only get into 4k if their clients start asking for it. And most definitely folks here would prefer 4k in a codec like ProRes, etc... ie. who wants to start storing 1TGB for 60 minutes of RAW 16-bit footage?

But the kind of projects where I need 4k RAW, or need to be able to offer 4k RAW are on feature films or other high-end project type work. I don't want to get into all the reasons, advantages and politics of shooting 4k RAW. If you know why you need RAW then you need it and if you don't know why you need it then you don't. But now with the announcement of the F5 and F55 I'm looking it from many angles and not entirely keen on jumping ship from my F3 until I can see what the pricing is going to be like.

As I've already written in some other posts for me it might just be more cost effective and beneficial to own a separate dedicated 4k RAW camera and HD camera like the F3.


RAW / CODEC based 4k options today:
(without media or power, and some assumed prices)

Canon 1DC $15k
RED Scarlet $11,9 with SSD module, lens mount.
FS700 $9k + ext 4k recorder ~$9k
F5 $18 + ext 4k recorder ~$9k
C500 $25k + ext 4k recorder ~$9k
F55 $25k + ext 4k record ~$9k
 
Is there any good guess on the pricing of the F55 yet? And what about all the other peripherals one would need to really make this camera perform like the RAW recorder, batteries, viewfinder options etc etc?
It seems to me that all of that is going to add up really fast to quite a lump of cash.

Yes sure, you'll have the option of 4K, and I know this has been bought up before but how much of our work demands that? In my work there's very little call for it right now, so I am content to ride this upgrade out until such time that 4K really is a useful tool for me and my clients.

The danger to those of us that have cameras like the F3 is that some "wet behind the ears" producer / client will demand 4K only because they've heard that it's the newest and greatest thing so our F3's will be rejected for a 4K package......All ending up shooting a spot for the web!
This happened to me so many times when HD was the newest kid on the block, every client wanted to shoot with it, then the spots would go straight to web. Could have been shot on BetaSP.

Ah well........
 
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