2k or 4k... 2k... or 4k?!?!?!?!?!?!

[Zakaree Sandberg]

its getting close.. very close to the time when Jims dreams become our reality..I am excited but as like many of you, I am still very much tumultuous and my thoughts are cluttered.. PS i used a thesaurus to conjour up the word tumultuous which means - confused...im not that smart..
But back on track... 2k or 4k!?!?! Ive been talkin to brooke about it.. and we all know hes hardcore 4k.. and i support that 100% its obviously the best of the best option.. but as far as other expenses go.. It is the more swank and pricey option (thesaurus for swank)..
My editor has been telling me.. you can shoot 4k but in the end it will need to be dropped down to 1080 for editing.. Im not an editor so all technicalities of 4k is still rocket science for me..
ALSO.. i must say i was impressed with the last few digital films i have seen.. such as superman which was 1080! so where would i go wrong by choosing 2k over 4k? 2k i can use super 16 primes.. which are a fraction of the cost of 35mm and not to mention the added storage space needed with 4k.

Lets say I get hired for a shoot.. I think the wise thing would to shoot a standard of 2k for my set price.. 4k would be a little more expensive because of 35mm lens rentals and extra storage..
I dont know.. what do you guys think?

[Graeme Nattress]

Even if you want to go 1080p or 2k, you'd still want 35mm glass and to use the whole sensor and shoot 4k. That way you get the best image to go forwards with.

REDCINE will downconvert for you, and then you can keep your 4k digital negative for the future.

Graeme

[Zakaree Sandberg]

so 4k all the way? dont even think about shooting 2k? my main concern is the fact that 4k is still a ways off.. so shooting 2k for a theater release would still suffice would it not?

[Chris Kenny]

Compared with 2K shot as 2K RAW, 2K scaled down from a 4K RAW original is going to have more detail (particularly with a bayer pattern sensor), fewer aliasing artifacts, less noise, etc. Plus you'll be able to take advantage of 35mm-format depth of field, you'll be able to get away with re-framing, and you'll have a 4K "digital negative" to go back to in a few years when 4K is a little less exotic.

4K REDCODE RAW runs around 100 GB/hour, which is not too hard to handle in an age of $140 500 GB hard drives. And keep in mind that larger images compress better. 2K RAW is a quarter of the pixels of 4K RAW, but it will probably be more than a quarter of the size, so the storage savings might not be as large as you'd expect.

[Brook Willard]

If you're shooting 2K through S16mm lenses [because 4K is a long way off], you will not have 35mm DOF characteristics. Even if you still finish in a 2K realm [by scaling in REDCINE], if you want your footage to have 35mm depth of field characteristics, you should shoot 4K.

[Stephen Williams]

Compared with 2K shot as 2K RAW, 2K scaled down from a 4K RAW original is going to have more detail (particularly with a bayer pattern sensor), fewer aliasing artifacts, less noise, etc. Plus you'll be able to take advantage of 35mm-format depth of field, you'll be able to get away with re-framing, and you'll have a 4K "digital negative" to go back to in a few years when 4K is a little less exotic.



Hi Chris,

I think the DOF people will get on a RED will be rather less than they get on 35mm film. I have spent the last 3 weeks shooting on a Viper using prime lenses in the T1.5-2.8 range. The DOF was tiny and at times almost impossible to keep in focus. With 35mm film there is a larger 'fudge' factor IMHO.

Stephen

[Evin Grant]

2K is viable for Doc. and Reality TV stuff, maybe for onboard overcranks, but for narrative, go 4K.

[Rogelio Salinas]

I would prefer to shoot in 4K all the way, but 60P is very important for the shoot we are planning and a RAID may run too expensive. Is it possible to shoot 2K or 1080P with a 35mm lense to get the 35mm DOF or will 2K and 1080P only be compatible with S16mm lenses?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

You can shoot 1080p sampled from the 4K sensor area at up to 60p on camera.

[Zakaree Sandberg]

" 2K scaled down from a 4K RAW original is going to have more detail"

"4K REDCODE RAW runs around 100 GB/hour"

i doubt ill shoot RAW at all.. and i think raw is more than 100 gb hour.. i think that would be redcode 4k.. am i wrong?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Assuming there has been no change in the last few months, 4K REDCODE RAW @ 24p is 27MB/s -- essentially 95GB/hour. We can shoot up to 30fps 4K on camera to RED DRIVE. The "RAW"/Uncompressed port is required to go beyond 30fps for 4K or to shoot 4.5K.

Why would you not shoot REDCODE RAW??? You can store a bit over 3 hours on a single RED drive? If you shoot RGB - as in 1080p RGB downsampled from the 4K sensor area, you actually will need MORE drive space for 1080p60 than you would 4K30.

IMO, I would shoot RAW whenever possible... Even if you're mostly shooting 2K with s16mm glass. And while the jury is still out on how well still lenses like the Nikons will work with RED. I have high hopes and your reservation number is a ways down the list like mine. So you have time to hear all the reviews. IMO, I would buy a nice set of Nikon glass before I go and rent 35mm glass for every project. Just extra money you may not need to spend and you can probably buy a pretty complete Nikon set for less than renting a couple Cooke primes for a few days.

[tj williams]

Graeme: What you say makes sense in that 1080 images from 4K will be superior to 2K origination, which will again be superior to direct RGB1080 recording. It will be interesting to see what degree of difference there is in color noise resolution etc.

Wonderful if RED team would publish a frame of each type. Perhaps the difference is hard to see or perhaps it is gross?

When working in ENG/Doco./Cheap Spots/Corp. without a good camera asst it will be better to shoot in windowed if the quality difference is only a subtle difference, to assure more stuff in focus.

As Stephen, the Viper shooter above noted.... Digital images show out of focus somewhat more easily than film. Pulling your own focus on 35mm glass and longer lenses may be a bit tricky.

Use of rocker zoom lenses with doublers is very handy in environments where you cannot control the action. 20/1 with a doubler in 35mm will be a serious shoulder dis-locator and the rails will have to stick out three feet in back to balance on the shoulder...

[Brook Willard]

REDCODE RAW has a lower data rate than REDCODE RGB, as of the last I heard. Trust me, you want to shoot RAW.

[tj williams]

Each shoot has it's own problems and challenges Brook. For me the difficulty of spending time to transfer client footage through a computer transcoding process while on location, beyond simply transferring it to a hard disk to carry will often be much more difficult and time consuming. Assuming of course that transferring a quicktime codec to the client disk is faster than raw downconverting.

[Brook Willard]

Given, TJ. I was responding to this post specifically:


i doubt ill shoot RAW at all.. and i think raw is more than 100 gb hour.. i think that would be redcode 4k.. am i wrong?

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Hi Chris,

I think the DOF people will get on a RED will be rather less than they get on 35mm film. I have spent the last 3 weeks shooting on a Viper using prime lenses in the T1.5-2.8 range. The DOF was tiny and at times almost impossible to keep in focus. With 35mm film there is a larger 'fudge' factor IMHO.

Stephen

Do you think this has something to do with a lack of grain? I know I often have to add grain to or a little noise CG shots otherwise digital artifacts like banding become readily apparent (even uncompressed). Perhaps the noise also disrupts the profiles of shapes just enough to give you a 1-2% margin on focus.

[Graeme Nattress]

Adding an amount of noise can make everything look sharper than it really is.

Graeme

[Chris Kenny]

i doubt ill shoot RAW at all.. and i think raw is more than 100 gb hour.. i think that would be redcode 4k.. am i wrong?

REDCODE 4K is RAW (that is, it's not debayered). It's just compressed RAW.

[Gbabymogul]

Hi Chris,

I think the DOF people will get on a RED will be rather less than they get on 35mm film. I have spent the last 3 weeks shooting on a Viper using prime lenses in the T1.5-2.8 range. The DOF was tiny and at times almost impossible to keep in focus. With 35mm film there is a larger 'fudge' factor IMHO.

StephenWhat focal lengths were you using?
I'm not familiar with the coc on digiprimes, but as i'm sure you are aware there a numerable ways to get deeper DOF ...


:guinness"

[MikeCurtis]

For those having trouble with this concept, think of it in the terms that I dealt with as a Photoshop guy retouching footage from photographers back in the film format days - do I want to be retouching from a 35mm shot, a 2 1/4", shot, or a big, full, gorgeous 4x5 inch piece of film? The bigger the piece of film, the smoother and creamier the color, the less grain after scanning to 11/x17 300dpi, etc. - regardless of deliverable size (well, not entirely - 2K RAW scaled to SD may be entirely sufficient unto one's needs in terms of resolution if not in terms of depth of field), think of what kind of originating format you want.

For best end results, 4K will often be what you want. Don't want that shallow of a depth of field, and/or want more recording time, and/or want higher frame rates? THEN consider 2K RAW windowed using a Super16 lens.

As for zakaree's comments - 2K RAW (compressed) is going to be smaller than 1080p RGB (compressed) - so why NOT shoot that format, unless you have some burning need to be IMMEDIATELY working with that QT format?

-mike

[Chris Kenny]

As for zakaree's comments - 2K RAW (compressed) is going to be smaller than 1080p RGB (compressed) - so why NOT shoot that format, unless you have some burning need to be IMMEDIATELY working with that QT format?


Well, you can shoot 1080p RGB from the full 4K sensor area, with in-camera debayering and scaling. This will probably look better than 2K RAW (unless the debayering in Redcine is a lot better than the on-camera stuff), and will give you 35mm-format DoF.

[Zakaree Sandberg]

Given, TJ. I was responding to this post specifically:

no ur right.. redcode raw.. i was confused.. i thought he was talkin straight raw not redcode..