syder said:
Bloom gets a lot of totally unfair criticism these days... He wrote a really good article about why 4K and RAW are totally over the top for most people at the moment
http://philipbloom.net/2013/10/10/4kraw/
Actually of the criticism I've seen him taking is just on such articles as that, downplaying 4k and now suddenly RAW too (after having played giant hoaxed about it coming to Canon soon the other year and talking it up so much when they didn't allow it).
You need to learn new skills. This is almost a pro actually. Working with raw is not as easy as many think. Education is key here.
Let’s start with raw
PROS:
WAY better dynamic range than most cameras.
Huge flexibility in post.
Can help mistakes made on shoots or help us get past issues we couldn’t overcome.
It opens up many creative options in really hard shooting environments, making my life as DP easier often and this is not about laziness.
And I should add a LOT more detail grabbed, which sure as heck makes a big difference when filming natural world/nature stuff.
CONS:
Generally cannot be edited natively, proxies are needed after going into software like DaVinci resolve to interpret the raw data and tweak them before exporting to the proxy format. This is very time consuming.
Much larger files than compressed codecs meaning lots and lots of cards. Though there are raw compressed options out there like R3d and cineform which I am expecting will be licensed and put into the new 4k BlackMagic Production Camera.
The huge cost in acquisition media and the enormous cost of storage on top of this.
If you can get away with doing all major tweaks in the early stage it does speed up later stages a lot though (granted it's probably nicer to have the early stages done quicker).
You need to learn new skills. This is almost a pro actually. Working with raw is not as easy as many think. Education is key here.
Says the video guy. For a stills shooter used to still processing programs and methods one might say it's actually considerably easier.
It’s not magic. You still need to know how to expose properly and I actually think a light meter comes into its own here, knowing how many stops of light difference there are between the shadows and the highlights. STILL hold the highlights more than the shadows for most raw cameras as a rule.
How is this is a CON?? If it applies to every format then it can't be a relative CON by very definition.
People will want to shoot everything with it, then hit a massive bottleneck on their projects in dealing with files. It will be a hard but necessary lesson.
It depends, for some the only lessen is damn why didn't I shoot that part in RAW too.
Now the pros and cons of 4k
PROS:
Incredibly detailed images, 4 times that of HD but they are not obviously so.
I beg to differ as to the obviously so part. You may as well say that a retina iPad doesn't look obviously better than an older one or that IMAX movie shot on IMAX film doesn't look noticeably better than an old 35mm print.
Watching 2k video sure doesn't take you there and look like looking through a window.
Fantastic ability to crop in post. Something I do on all my interviews for docs now that I shoot 4k for them. I am not shooting 4k docs – just 4k talking heads. I can then go in for tights or back out whenever I want in the edit. Way better.
“Future proof” I am bit hesitant about this as I see very little need for future proofing most of my work. Now for high end drama and big docs then yes. Do it.
You have a higher end format to sell to clients. Sometimes an advantage. Not always though…see cons.
Scaling down to 2K in post often yields quite stunning results.
CONS:
Inefficient codec mean massive files. Even efficient ones are pretty big, which means expensive cards and lots of storage.
Inability to edit natively for the vast majority of people. Proxies are used which of course adds time.
.
Most production companies I have dealt with cannot take it.
Only a con for some people in some cases.
Almost nobody can actually watch 4k. I can’t.
Not yet, but plenty many will very soon enough on either monitors or HDTV. A good number of monitors get you have way there now.
It can lead to lazy cinematography. Although I use the crop to help me in interviews, this is not due to being lazy but to give me options. You should never forget the tight shots because you can crop. The whole aesthetic changes. The depth of field remains the same so it doesn’t look like a true close up
something to be wary of for some perhaps, but a pretty minor con to say the least, it doesn't have to be a con for someone at all so long as they don't sink into some lazy habit, you could just as easily come up with various such cons for 2k
You need to be even more skilled, as mistakes are easier to spot.
Not a con since it will never be worse. If you are really sloppy maybe it won't be better, but it will never be worse. And you could just as easily say that you need to be way more skilled to make up for 2K not being able to deliver fine details, no? And in that case it will ALWAYS be the case for some scenarios.
Incredibly unforgiving and harsh. Showing the flaws in everything, especially people. Fantastic for beauty shots etc..for drama it’s actually too detailed and causes the DP many issues.
Hardly a problem if you shoot natural world stuff! In fact it is a 100% always plus. And for beauty shots etc you could always process back and remove detail, but there is no way to ever add more detail when you could have used it.
Needs a really big screen to really see the difference.
an absolute fallacy!! Ever view a retina pad for a while and then look at a 2k 24" screen and see how hideously blocky the 24" screen looks? Yeah, exactly, so even on a 24" screen it would make plenty of difference. You are hardly need 75"+ or all the other nonsense some go on about. And it sure as heck makes a huge difference on a typical 46-55" screen. Unless you are silly and sit like 20' back or something, in which case nothign will ever look good anyway.
Will it actually take off as a consumer format for the home? I am very pessimistic about this.
He sounds like that same guys who said the same thing about HD.
Unless I've missed a very recent development the ML hack can't record onto a Ninja II (it bypasses the Canon ADC so can't be output through HDMI) - it's onto 1000x CF cards only... And PB has always said that for professional work running ML is questionable at best - and the RAW workflow is effectively too hit and miss reliability wise and just too slow to be worthwhile. If you're making a living shooting material and really need RAW then buy a BMCC or something which is designed to do it.
1. it's really become quite reliable
2. not everyone actually shoots things were each shot is totally critical and can't be re-shoot, tons of people very rarely ever shoot like that, but just because some do, well everyone else must too of course
I agree about there being a slightly odd online community making super high quality RAW videos for a few friends on Vimeo, but then I guess it's people being hugely excited about the fact that they feel that can generate images which technically are of a similar quality to those made by high end production companies using gear costing 10x as much as their 5DM3. The fact that the content is rubbish doesn't matter to them, but hey each to their own.
Hah how typical and out with the insults. Of course it is an "odd" community. And of course they will only produce rubbish.
(and side note: Why not apply it to all the great Hollywood DPs, many care a lot of DR and all sorts of things, will you call them all odd rubbish creators too?)
And as PB points out, not only is ML a bit risky for something you're getting paid for (dropped frames, corrupt CF cards etc being far from unheard of and at a professional level totally unacceptable),
what corrupted CF cards?
dropped frames are solved
granted it is still alpha though
but a RAW workflow using Resolve to generate proxies to edit before a final pass through resolve to spit out a super high quality master is something which is totally useful for a feature, or a high budget drama series, or even a potentially a polished short which you're going to sending to festivals worldwide, but is an overcomplication and waste of time in many circumstances, and one which in a commercial context will often mean losing more money (through time spent and the necessary computational power to work on 14bit files and storage for them) than you would make back in extra work/higher prices.
maybe, maybe not for those, but there are plenty of other end games, of course you only see the few types that you do
BBC HD broadcasts in 1080i. They don't accept 720 as HD material for broadcast because it would have to be upscaled. That hardly seems like rocket science.
It sort of does. So what then? All the 720p content they force on their SD channels where it must be HUGELY downscaled?? Yeah, that's REALLY being brilliant.
...and Black Swan not being on BBC HD has nothing to do with the use of 5D/7D B-roll footage. It's because the main cameras for the film were 16mm Arri film cameras and BBC HD wont accept 16mm transfers as high definition material.
yeah because showing it on SD channel instead will do it such a service
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