Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

1080P is Better Than 4K (Or Why I Chose the Canon C100)

Mark Phelan said:
Great point. A huge strength of a camera like RED is the ability to pull frames for prints. I'm not doing that with 1080p. That is a huge reason I prefer 5K. Shot a portrait session last week using the RED. The benefits of not using flash, not waiting for a "click" but having the subjects just naturally sitting through the session made it much easier on everyone. This kind of shooting for large groups is a real blessing.
Click to expand...

This makes 5K RAW an easy sell to most of my corporate clients. And then they get all excited when they see it doesn't really cost any more than shooting crappy HD. As for weddings, I couldn't agree more with Micheal's points. A good friend of mine, along with his wife and now their daughter, shoot weddings. That is all they do. At first they were curious about RED and the RED One. They wanted the resolution, but couldn't deal with the form factor. Once they got their hands on my EPIC-M, they had to order a couple of their own. :) They've ordered a SEIKI 4K as well as the 65" Sony 4K just to showcase their work to new customers/ clients. I think they have the SEIKI now, but I haven't talked to them for a bit, I was supposed to help them calibrate it...

Anyhoo... About Ryan's blog thing. Everyone's entitled to their own opinions. I understand the initial questions over Canon paying out. I doubt he took a payoff in this case, but Canon is known to do such things... So are Sony and others. The C100 may just fit HIS needs better. I disagree with some of his assessments when compared to an EPIC used properly. OTOH, Canon also has the C500, which one-ups the C100 in just about every way. So if he feels he needs more resolution and wants to stay within the same working bubble, the option exists.

And the real problem with 1080p is that in the world we currently live in, most of the time it is indeed good enough.

I don't understand the attitudes of 4K being 5 to 10 years away. Realistically, that is probably the case in terms of 4K being what 1080p is now. In 10 years, we won't be able to buy a TV over 27" that is not 4K and it won't be a new development at that time. We need to be creating the content NOW and planning for it NOW. By this time next year when every major TV maker, including the "budget" ones from Vizio, AKAI, Westinghouse, etc.. all sell 4K displays, some of them even at WalMart and more than 10 million people will have 4K-capable playback devices (PlayStation 4, Roku 4, XBOX 720), then what?

Every serious gaming PC will be 4K next year. Most by the end of this year. The SEIKI monitor is a huge topic of discussion in gaming circles right now. Biggest issue that people have with it is it's limited to 30fps at 4K... Gamers want 60Hz+ 120Hz+ preferably.
 
Mark Phelan said:
Scott, a not-quite-awake early morning quote cut and paste. Wasn't trying to make a stand for weddings per se, but the ability to take stills in a new direction. I agree with Michael, that ability is a boon for these kind of settings.

I do agree the wedding industry is out-of-hand in the one upsmanship, which is why we had bridezillas and shows like the bachelor/ette, et all. No time is being spent on building a relationship with someone compatible, but more about the flash than substance. As for me, I've been married to the same woman for thirty-two years.
Click to expand...

Good morning and Kudos to you and your bride!

Yes, pulling stills is a boon.
 
Scott Crawley said:
Michael and Mark, you two do make excellent points. Separate from those I would like to make a personal distinction. Sorry, it is OT. It is related to the (I'm paraphrasing) Most important moment in most people's lives idea. Women have been fed this line for many generations and the wedding industry has been all too happy to run with it. I think it is shit, and divorce rates relative to marriage rates is evidence.

Perhaps my objection is simply one of language. I don't disagree that a marriage is ONE of the most significant and impactful choices that people make, but a wedding is not the most important moment of anyone's life. I worked in weddings for 15 years. That is my truth, and I substitute it for yours. :-)

Sorry for the soapbox, but 15 years of that shit compelled me. ;-)
Click to expand...


I completely sympathize Scott. I live in Puerto Rico where the divorce rate is over 70% and half of the families (Mom & Dad) never even get married in the first place. The point I was trying to make is that unlike TV Commercials, Independent Films, Documentaries and (non-major-feature-films), a wedding video has the longest shelf life of any type of motion-image capture session. It's also the most likely media file for prints to be taken from (everyone, family, friends) are together, dressed their best, etc.

What I meant when I said "5K was made for weddings if it was meant for anything" is that most of the content we are all shooting with our 4K and 5K cameras today will be consumed in 1080p over the next few years and is not likely to be republished or consumed in 4K once every home has a 4K display 5-10 years down the road. A wedding, graduation and even birthday parties really need to be shot in 5K because of how important it is to future-proof that content for future generations. I realize weddings have so many negative connotations but my intent was to focus on the positive side of families and friends from both spouses all being together, looking their best in one place for probably the only time that will ever happen.

Sincerely,

Michael Zaletel
 
1080p is good enough for everything except feature films released in cinemas. People working with television, webb videos and so on knows this and knows that even 1080p is really hard to pull of with the tempo and workflow resources for continuous TV-work. The world outside cinema just isn't ready, end of discussion. Doesn't matter what we want or like, the world is what it is right now.

But working with Red is a different beast as well. People are saying that 4K, 5K and 6K is to heavy, that you need too much HDD space for all the footage. Well, the r3d's are smaller then RAW workflow at 1080p for a number of other cameras. The compressed RAW format that r3d's deliver is even better to use storage-wise. But for delivery, who really want 4K delivery? Who will accept it? What TV-station would accept 4K files for broadcast? Who would accept 4K files for commercials? For webb?

Of course 4K or UHD is good, it's better then 1080p, of course it's nicer looking. But that isn't the point of day to day work. If you do a feature film, a high end feature film, then UHD is absolutely a goal to achieve, it's a preservation of something that cost a lot of money and you want to keep it for a long time. But day to day broadcast, commercials etc. how could anyone even suggest that it is needed? It is not, it will not be needed for a long time.

People need to understand the difference between what is shown and drooled about at NAB and how the real world is. The public will not buy 4K displays before they go down to a pricepoint of maximum 1000 USD for a decent TV. It doesn't matter how much cinephiles and industry folks like ourselves like it, it will not happen until the general public isn't able to buy any other TV's then 4K UHD displays.

People need to look at 1080p as a reference. The difference between SD and HD is clear to everyone, between HD and UHD not so much. HD hasn't even really become a standard yet, SD broadcast is still the main quality used and we are talking about changing the world into 4K. Come on, wake up call, know your tools.
 
Christoffer Glans said:
People need to understand the difference between what is shown and drooled about at NAB and how the real world is. The public will not buy 4K displays before they go down to a pricepoint of maximum 1000 USD for a decent TV. It doesn't matter how much cinephiles and industry folks like ourselves like it, it will not happen until the general public isn't able to buy any other TV's then 4K UHD displays.
Click to expand...

This will all depend upon whether the rumored Apple TV is a 4K display. If it is, the show is over and 4K adoption will happen overnight. If it is a 1080p display, Apple will have a hard time getting consumers to give up or sell their existing 1080p displays just for UI and UE improvements. Manufacturers counted on 3D to save the electronics industry but that didn't materialize. 4K has a much better chance of saving the day and I forsee everyone getting behind it including Netflix, Google, Amazon, Walmart and of course all of the electronics manufacturers that desperately need a reason for everyone to buy yet another TV, player, computer, gaming machine, etc.

In addition, the movie industry could really use a new format to give consumers a reason to buy yet another copy of their movies. Everything ever shot on 35mm film (and archived) can be output to 4K quickly and inexpensively. That's a LOT of content just waiting to be seen at original full resolution. 3D didn't have the same advantage.
 
Sure it's the artist that matters, but the article is talking specifically about comparing cameras. I've been shooting a lot on these new Canon video cameras on Walmart spots (unfortunately) and I can unequivocally say that from my POV there is not one single thing that the these "toy" cameras have over the Red or Alexa. I won't even go into the image quality of these cameras, which is worlds below the Red or Alexa (even shooting on top of he line PL glass), the ergonomics are so incredibly poor it's truly embarrassing. Did Canon learn nothing about where to put an EVF from their 5D days??? And please, someone, tell me the designer that came up with the ridiculous handle / monitor / audio set-up was fired. Comparing these with Red or Alexa is laughable. These are crash cams if you ask me.
 
Scott Crawley said:
Relative to the potential revenue for big studio libraries... It is inexpensive. I think that was his point.
Click to expand...

Just as many 35mm prints have not and will never be prepared and transfered to HD for blu ray because it is cost prohibitive, the same will go for 4K. It's too expensive, i.e they won't sell enough of the new format to make the transfer / marketing / distribution worth it when people will feel like that are fine with an SD version. "Cheap" is of course a relative term, but not a great term when you start talking about creating and distributing a new version of an old film, a handful of classics, yes, a large amount of their existing content....no.
 
Last edited:
I still think the C100 is better suited for weddings. Mention 4K, or 5K to the average client right now, they'll have no idea what you're talking about, they will not have a TV to watch it, they will not have the player to run it, and they will not have the proper method to archive the footage. They will not even know what to do with it. R3D files? Huh?

Low light capability is a big deal for weddings and the C100 can shoot cleaner at higher ISO's (although this may change with dragon). You don't have the option to set up lights at a wedding.

The amount of footage you will need to handle for a wedding is enormous, 5K data is a lot of data to wrangle especially when your camera is on record nearly the whole time.

Fan noise, I could imagine the the strange looks you might get with a turbine engine going off during wedding vows.

Multiple angles, it's better to have a couple cheap 7D's set up at multiple angles during wedding vows than a single Epic at one angle.

No flash. 5K stills are great, but have we all forgotten how important a flash unit is? There are entirely too many situations where a flash is needed. You will still need a DSLR.

In certain situations a 7D and a Merlin might be better for those single man steadicam shots.

I'm sure you can get a great wedding video on an Epic/Scarlet, but sometimes you do need the right camera for the right job. Maybe the answer is to use both cameras? I don't know, but you really can't discount the other cameras which maybe perfectly suited in many situations.
 
The fact that this article was on the "No Film School" site seems to suggest he's talking about digital cinema, not weddings, right? Weddings are the horrid things that they are, and are a world away from cinema...light years away actually. So would this be fine for weddings? Probably...but no one would compare shooting a wedding to a proper production. Different tools for different jobs. The Red and Alexa are digital cinema cameras, these canons are not, apples and oranges.
 
I wonder if in two years from now if he will think he was wise to film in 1080. Two years ago I thought 720p was good enough, and feel stupid that I have drastically shorten the TV life of some of my series. For camera that similar priced, I think there is no reason good enough not to shoot 4k. 3D was fad, but 1080 vs 4k will be a no brainer when the price point comes down.

I also wonder if Dany Boyle regrets shooting 28 days later on an Xl1 in SD.
 
Eric M Hurt said:
The fact that this article was on the "No Film School" site seems to suggest he's talking about digital cinema, not weddings, right? Weddings are the horrid things that they are, and are a world away from cinema...light years away actually. So would this be fine for weddings? Probably...but no one would compare shooting a wedding to a proper production. Different tools for different jobs. The Red and Alexa are digital cinema cameras, these canons are not, apples and oranges.
Click to expand...

I would agree too, I think weddings, corporate videos are not in the realm of films, and he should clearly point that out in his article. You may "film" them, but it does make it filmmaking.
 
Ryan is an honest knowledgeable guy who does his tests in a very good way. He reports not only the results, but how he got there, which makes them valuable, even when you think that you could get a different result with different approch.

he does not say "this is how this camera looks, and this is how that camera looks", but "this is how it looks when I did this on set and that in post for this specific use/purpose".

I have a lot of respect for him and he has only been a good discussion-partner when I have spoken with him.

He does stuff openly and honestly - which also makes it easy to disagree with him, if one does, and while we occasionally end up concluding differently, I have nothing but respect for him.

If he says 1080 compressed is good for him, why should I doubt that from a guy who was an early R1 adopter?

Does not mean that it is the best for me. But for him. Why not?

And a lot of professional images have a rather short shelf-life (think TVCs...)
I can clearly see that that has a different matrix than a feature...
 
Disagreements should not equal disrespect, unless someone try to force you to do something you disagree to.
Disagreements are only good, that is what makes the world move.

And if you are so sure you are right and he is wrong... well... then all the more power to you, and if you are really fortunate and he is really unfortunate, you will just be able to compete for and grab his gigs...
 
As English is my second language, perhaps I miss a point here, but is he saying that he sold all cameras, including RED One/Epic, three years ago? How long is the Epic on the market?


"After many years of owning a wide range of camera systems, including a RED ONE and an EPIC, I decided to sell it all and rent. So for the past three years I have been exclusively renting cameras on a per project basis,..."

 
Michael Dalton said:
I also wonder if Dany Boyle regrets shooting 28 days later on an Xl1 in SD.
Click to expand...

That was a well considered creative decision. I doubt that he does. I think that I saw a recent interview in which he discussed that choice. As I recall he gave no indication of doubt or regret, though I could be mistaken.
 
It is not three years since he had an Epic... Been chatting with him about REDs after that. But he was an early adaptor, and what does THAT really matter?
 
Gunleik Groven said:
It is not three years since he had an Epic... Been chatting with him about REDs after that. But he was an early adaptor, and what does THAT really matter?
Click to expand...

I read things and question content. He writes something, and I try to figure out if that is plausible for me. Yes, it matters to me, of course it does. Funny question to be honest. But we can certainly skip that point, we all create our own perspective to things. No problem with that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top