Do you use 4K video?

Do you use 4K video?

  • I never use 4K video either as a consumer

    Votes: 29 59.2%
  • I rarely use 4K video as a consumer

    Votes: 6 12.2%
  • I sometimes use 4K video as a consumer

    Votes: 4 8.2%
  • I often use 4K video as a consumer

    Votes: 5 10.2%
  • I never use 4K video as a professional

    Votes: 12 24.5%
  • I rarely use 4K video as a professional

    Votes: 1 2.0%
  • I sometimes use 4K video as a professional

    Votes: 3 6.1%
  • I often use 4K video as a professional

    Votes: 4 8.2%

  • Total voters
    49
  • Poll closed .

Jack Douglas

CR for the Humour
Apr 10, 2013
6,980
2,602
Alberta, Canada
I'm still in the very early stages of getting into video, but the single biggest plus for me at the moment that I see for 4K is to be able to zoom and pan in post and still have HD quality.

The poll is also not differentiating between 4K and HD which would give numbers relating to video per se. CR is not a very videocentric site.

Jack
 
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stevelee

FT-QL
CR Pro
Jul 6, 2017
2,383
1,064
Davidson, NC
I'm still in the very early stages of getting into video, but the single biggest plus for me at the moment that I see for 4K is to be able to zoom and pan in post and still have HD quality.

The poll is also not differentiating between 4K and HD which would give numbers relating to video per se. CR is not a very videocentric site.

Jack

Yes, I always shoot 4K when doing video with my iPhone 6S. I can zoom in during post and make up for the fixed wide-angle view of the phone camera. I can zoom in a lot (300%?) and still get stunning 720p video. 720p is plenty for most internet purposes and looks just fine on TVs under 55" from normal viewing distances. (It is the broadcast standard for OTA for many stations. Others use 1080i, which is equivalent in information. Before compression for cable or satellite, either looks quite good.) And 1080p allows maybe 200% zoom, and usually that is more than enough to crop in post.
 
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The poll is open for a few more days, but the trend has been the same since the first day.

A quick summary, as of right now 45 people voted. 41 voted in the "consumer" portion and 18 voted in the "professional" portion. For my thoughts, I combined the "never and rarely" categories as I would assume 4K is not an important to these people and the "sometimes and often" categories as these people would likely value 4K capabilities in their camera.

On the consumer side:
  • Never ( 27 votes) + rarely (6 votes) = 33 people of 41 (80.5%) where 4K is likely not important to them
  • Sometimes (3) + often (5) = 8 people (19.5%) where 4K is likely important to them
Professional side:
  • Never (12 votes) + rarely (1) = 13 of 18 (72.2%) do not use or minimally use 4K in their professional lives. What is interesting, is if we assumed the people that did not vote fall into this category, it would actually be 40/45, or 88.9%, do not use 4K in their professional lives (which would include non-professional photographers/videographers).
  • Sometimes (2) + Often (3) = 5 people of 18 (27.8%) who voted in this category where 4K is likely important to them in their professional lives. Again, if we assume the people that did not vote in the professional category did so because they do not use 4K in their professional lives, this would be 5/45 or 11.1%.
Next, I will point out that 5 people sometimes/often use 4K professionally, and 8 as a consumer, these likely overlap. Maybe not all people using 4K professionally also use it as a consumer, but I am thinking most do, so maybe 4 of the 8 people who use 4K as consumers were pros also using it (again, skewing the data a bit considering forum members). Which, if you remove them, drives the consumers using 4K numbers down to less than 10%

I did leave 4K a bit vague and this was intentional (sorry for any confusion), but really, I wanted to see if people were using it at all vs just in their photography lives. For example, there are certain photography youtubers that make a huge deal that 4K is needed for their broadcasts. Based on this, maybe it isn't so critical.

So, a few conclusions, at least my thoughts:
  • 4K is a niche market. If you go with these numbers, 10-20%. But, this is likely high compared to general populations or even general photographers as this forum likely skews toward people passionate about photography/video/technical gear, are technically oriented themselves, and that have enough resources to invest in technical gear. I am actually a bit surprised here, I really wonder how small the actual 4K market is.
  • Professionally, 4K is a bit more important. People are using 4K, but it is still around 1/3rd. I am sure a few non-professional photographers voted here (which was fine), then this would be a bit higher (separate "pro only" poll would be needed for this). And, of course, there will be professional markets where 4K is likely critically important.
All that, and it becomes really easy to see why Canon is not emphasizing 4K to the extent some would say is needed. It is simply not a feature being used by a majority of their customers or (likely) professionals. Even years after we started talking about 4K, it still hasn't arrived. This might be why we have not seen a follow up to the 1DC.

I would like to try shooting 4K video, but the bitrate for the 5DIV is too high. I don't take many videos -- just mainly of kids concerts, plays. etc. I do record audio separately and then mix it to go with the video, but my computer is getting long in the tooth and I don't have any 4K video editing tools.

It is ironic that even in this day and age that when I make the edited videos of plays available to others about half of them still want it as DVDs as opposed to blu-ray.
 
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ethanz

1DX II
CR Pro
Apr 12, 2016
1,194
510
ethanzentz.com
I would like to try shooting 4K video, but the bitrate for the 5DIV is too high. I don't take many videos -- just mainly of kids concerts, plays. etc. I do record audio separately and then mix it to go with the video, but my computer is getting long in the tooth and I don't have any 4K video editing tools.

It is ironic that even in this day and age that when I make the edited videos of plays available to others about half of them still want it as DVDs as opposed to blu-ray.

If you don't have any 4K editing tools, why does it even matter if the 5D4 bitrate is too high?

You have a blu-ray burner? I've never burned a blu-ray, unfortunately. I just got my first player only a few months ago... lol

It does seem like quite a waste to make HD videos and then burn them to a DVD, but that is the easiest and most widely used media still. I say this as I just shot a wedding in 4K, edited it to HD, and burned it onto a DVD. I will provide an HD file copy though.
 
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If you don't have any 4K editing tools, why does it even matter if the 5D4 bitrate is too high?

You have a blu-ray burner? I've never burned a blu-ray, unfortunately. I just got my first player only a few months ago... lol

It does seem like quite a waste to make HD videos and then burn them to a DVD, but that is the easiest and most widely used media still. I say this as I just shot a wedding in 4K, edited it to HD, and burned it onto a DVD. I will provide an HD file copy though.

It matters because if it wasn't too high, I would have upgraded the tools to edit in 4K. At 500 Mbps, it'd take 225 GB to record an hour of video. I'd rather not go back to the days of swapping HDDs like floppy disks. It becomes much more expensive to keep multiple copies for to preserve redundancy.

Yes, I've had a blu-ray burner for years. I still buy physical discs rather than stream movies. :)
 
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I do. I switch over to manual focus and it's usually on a 24p timeline. I rarely export in 4k, it's just nice to have the ability to recompose a shot, especially if it's a run and gun interview or something along those lines. I thought I'd be buying the EOS R, but now I'm holding off and might just scrape some pennies together and pull the trigger on the first cheap 1dx mkii I find and run that into the ground.
 
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