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  • 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 :)

4k vs 3k

francisco santos

francisco santos

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Hi,
Does anyone else notice that on the scarlet 3k actually looks sharper than 4k with same settings? Anyone know how this could be? I will post some stills tommorrow but for some reason my 3k footage when in focus seems super sharp in 4k image is still usable but not as sharp could it be because of the part of the sensor its using etc? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I thought i had a defective unit until I tried it on my friends scarlet as well.

THanks,
Francisco
 
I also noticed when I took a shot with my 70-200II at the beach using 3k/48 and I was a bit shocked at the quality. It looked better than some of my 4k stuff, or maybe I haven't shot anything good yet.

Bird reminiscing


bird 3k by Celledral, on Flickr
 
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Could it be that your lens get soft at the edges and it looks like the overall image is softer when the FOV is wider? Have you tried shooting the exact same shot at both 4K and 3K, cropping the 4K shot to 3K and comparing? Unless RED uses different post-sharpening for different resolutions, it should look identical.

Edit: Just to add, my 4K shots look definitely sharper than my 3K shots when mastered to either 4K or 2K.
 
If you shoot 48fps 3k and 24 4k. Than I can be that you will have less motionblur on the 48fps.
 
I think I was more surprised at how well it holds up than comparing it to 4k. But 4k still has the obvious edge.
 
I havn't shot anything below 4k, but it looks like 3k is really an option to get more fps or HDRx. The biggest question is, how will it hold up together with 4k-material on a 4k-Screen? But then, 3k is still a bit more resolution than what a (way too) often used camera from another company delivers, for movies like Avengers.... ;)

But 3k sharper than 4k? Thats not a camera issue, absolutely not. Maybe you hit the focus better because of the closer image on your LCD (use the magnify tool), or as mentioned before, shutter-speed and lens performance could be a factor. Then there is the post-processing. Make sure you have Full Debayering enabled in your export-profile, for both 4k and 3k, check your viewing software for stuff like scaling algorithms...
 
Maik Müller Menendez said:
I havn't shot anything below 4k, but it looks like 3k is really an option to get more fps or HDRx. The biggest question is, how will it hold up together with 4k-material on a 4k-Screen? But then, 3k is still a bit more resolution than what a (way too) often used camera from another company delivers, for movies like Avengers.... ;)

But 3k sharper than 4k? Thats not a camera issue, absolutely not. Maybe you hit the focus better because of the closer image on your LCD (use the magnify tool), or as mentioned before, shutter-speed and lens performance could be a factor. Then there is the post-processing. Make sure you have Full Debayering enabled in your export-profile, for both 4k and 3k, check your viewing software for stuff like scaling algorithms...
Click to expand...


I strongly believe its the part of the sensor being used. Ive noticed this when doing 3k at 24fps and 4k at 24fps so not sure. The only thing I can think of is that the crop or cropping is causing it. Same lens happens with all lenses i have zeiss, canon etc.
 
Bob Gundu said:
Are you viewing both clips at the same resolution? Downsample the 4K to 3K and compare to the original 3K clip. Also, are you comparing transcoded material?
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Yes ill give that a try. Maybe I just like the look of it better not sure but theres definitly something funky going on.
 
francisco santos said:
Yes ill give that a try. Maybe I just like the look of it better not sure but theres definitly something funky going on.
Click to expand...

I noticed that i sometimes prefer 3k too. To me it's because there is something less clinical, softer and grainier. I read an article about fincher prefering the red one mx when he was shooting with the epic, i think it was probably because it's less clean. And the cropped part of the image he was keeping was around 3000 pixels large. Imho it looks more filmic (if this term means anything).
 
Kind of makes sense, given that, arguably, average 35mm film resolves 3.8K (ish).
 
Vadim Bobkovsky said:
Kind of makes sense, given that, arguably, average 35mm film resolves 3.8K (ish).
Click to expand...

Doesn't make sense because after debayer MX 4K is around 3.2k. So shooting 3K to begin with gives you much less than 3K resolution...
 
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