Camera upgrade. 1080p or 4K

[Bruce Dempsey]

Yes it does take the sexy out of 4 k but my "mom and pop" type of client is just starting to emerge from the dvd disc world hopefuully somebody will provide a downloadable 4 k native file (please and thank you)
Although 4k and 1080p will stream (in some fashion) from the clouds I find a more watchable rate is 720 and here at the house we've fibre and decent computers but bandwith throttling make those heavy payload files difficult to enjoy So my main interest is how to sharpen up the video which will be ultimately viewed and I think that acquiring 4k is the way to go.
I don't have a 4k camera yet but my finger has been on the trigger for a fz1000 for a week now.

[Tim Polster]

This is a complex topic. As with camera pricing, what we can charge and improved image quality, the real world debate for me is - how does 4k from a "cheap" camera compare to 1080p or 720p from an "expensive" camera?

I like to look for refined images from cameras. The lower end is pumping up the specs these days but how nice do the images compare when not may will delivery 4k?

[Bruce Dempsey]

Precisely
I've made my living these past 10 yrs using high end consumer gear rather than low end pro cameras and the obvious advantage is inexpensively getting the latest tech every other year or so which usually means a new wow factor in terms of image quality.
I'm betting (based on the discussions here and other forums) that what we suspect and others have emphatically stated that acquiring 4k video from a consumer camera and rendering down (in a proper fashion with the proper tools ) will in good light produce somewhat better moving pictures than simply shooting 1080p on a entry level pro camera

[Noa Put]

Allow me to share my experiences based on a lucky coincidence, a friend of mine just bought the gh4 with the 14-140 lens and he shoots weddings but nearly not as much as I do. He asked me if I wanted to take the camera with me to shoot yesterdays wedding as he wanted to have some real life images from a actual wedding to see how they looked and how it would affect his workflow before he had to do his next wedding. I was surprised but actually happy with his proposal as I could get first hand experience with this camera and 4K workflow in general.

I have said in another post 4k is not for me right now, this because my clients for this and next year are not requesting it so I could continue using my camera's until end of next year before I"d replace them. During that time new models will come out, prices will go down and I can make a better decission which camera's to get based on reviews and user experiences.

Now that I had my hands on the camera I was very eager to find out what 4K it all is about, 2 days ago I had exactly one evening to set the same presets as on my gh3 which was simple as they basically are the same camera and I added some functionality, like the zebra's to make life a bit easier.

Long story short, I wish I refused to take the camera with me on a wedding :)
In general the gh4 is like my gh3 but with improvements, I really like the image from my gh3, it's colorful, "sharp" especially with my panasonic lenses and I find the image generally very pleasing. The gh4 is, well, sharper :)

The amount of extra detail you get in a 1080pproject is quite something , I have noticed in post that when I sharpen up the footage from my gh3/rx10 I am able to mix the footage from my gh4 and from a normal viewing distance you almost won't notice, only if you stand up close to the tv or if you would view the images side by side but in real life you don't shoot and edit in that way unless you realy want to make a point, if you won't tell the viewer, they won't notice. My gh3 was already pretty sharp and so is the rx10, especially if you compare with canon dslr's.

Those that say that the gh4 is not sharp in 4k, I today saw following video which is a interesting watch for anyone wanting to get a 4k camera and there is a part where the gh4 was compared to a red camera that shot in 5k and both images where about equal in detail.. (vimeo.com/98789826)
The real advantage is the cropping ability, I was shooting wide in the church from the back and the fact that I can reframe by moving closer without any visual loss of image quality is huge for me, it's only now that I see how much advantage and possibilities that gives me as a solo shooter after playing around with it in post.

I shot in 100mbs 4K mode at 25fps and to my surprise on my i7 3770 with 8gb of memory and no videocard (just the onboard gpu) I can play and edit these files in edius 7 natively without any issue just as smooth as with my 50p 28mbs avchd files, scrubbing the timeline is also without any delay.

I did run out of cardspace much quicker and filled two 32gb cards without much issue, normally I shoot at 28mbs 50p on my gh3 but I shot at ipb 50mbs this just to have an idea about any advantages/disadvantages. Usually my projects run around 60gb, that was double right now but still no dealbreaker.

The footage from all my camera's matched up very well, my gh3/g6, rx10, cx730 all went together well to the gh4 with for a major part matching color in the standard preset with only the contrast dialed back a bit and all the rest left at standard.

The image from the gh4 is much like the gh3, only better looking in every way, it's not like day and night but it does look bloody awesome on my big screen, those are advantages that are pretty obvious and the croppingability is just the icing on the cake.

It's not all gold that shines but the extra detail you get in 1080p with an image that literally pops from your screen and especially the cropping ability are 2 advantages you cannot ignore, even if you are a 4K hater.
I have to bring the camera back today but for a weird reason I don't want to :D

[Pete Bauer]

Moderator note:
The thread seems to be getting back on track but we've edited and pruned some ad hominem and otherwise impolite posts to keep this thread aligned with our family-friendly, fact-based standards. Cheers.

[Tim Polster]

Thanks for your real world input Noa! The 4k video clips I have seen online are quite stunning. Now you have another toy to purchase.

Noa, on a side note, since you still have the GH4, maybe you could shoot a quite street scene in 4k24p, 1080p24 and 720p24 to complete Bruce's test? It would be interesting to see how native vs downsampled looks.

Thanks.

[Bruce Watson]

Originally Posted by Stephen Robinson

I've been told that a couple of the benefits to 4k would be the fact that I would be able to film at a wider angle then crop and zoom it to 1080 in post. This would improve the low light capabilities of the camera because I wouldn't lose as much light since I would be filming at a much wider angle than I would be with a 1080p camera.

Not going to happen. The light you have is the light you have, you don't get more light by using a wider angle lens. You might be able to shoot at a larger aperture if shooting wide using a zoom lens that ramps, but that won't "improve the low light capabilities of the camera", it will just open up the lens to a larger aperture. Not the same thing.

As to the 1080 vs. 4K argument, I can make a case for 4k capture, but not 4K delivery. There's no need to actually view anything in 4K. Last movie I saw that I know for sure its display format was Skyfall, it was shown in 2K (from a 2.xK capture from Arri Alexas). It was razor sharp and I was as close as I ever sit in a theater. My experience just corroborates research done by Sony and others that shows very limited benefits of theaters exhibiting at 4K. If you can't see it in a theater, I highly doubt any benefits to Vimeo or YouTube where they compress the heck out of things already. And there's no disc format ready for 4K on the market yet (that I know of). So... 4K capture, yes. 4K delivery, no.

[Gary Huff]

You should absolutely go 4K, for acquisition of course. Delivery, I wouldn't master in 4K. But there are some excellent 4K cameras (like the GH4 Noa used which I also upgraded to and am extremely happy with), and it's, frankly, another tool in your belt to use when you need it.

[Craig Parkes]

The reason to go 4K is VP9 and HEVC (h.265) encoding.

Basically these two codecs take a 4K video and stream it at the same bitrate that h.264 currently streams 1920x1080 with substantially better results.

The more resolution the codec has to work with, the more efficient it is. VP9 encoded 4K footage even playing back on a HD screen looms significantly better than 1080p on an HD screen playing back in h.264 for the same bitrate.

This creates the somewhat counterintuitive reality where delivery to the Web is the best reason to shoot 4K - because it's adopting 4K first (Youtube supports 4K and a limited number of channels are already encoding using VP9), Netflix supports 4K and Amazon Instant support 4K)

Now not all 4K cameras are created equal, an Alexa is a lot better than many 4K cameras (with a price that corresponds) - consumer/prosumer 4K cameras may not be as good as comparable HD models in terms of feature set.

But if web distribution is how you intend to make money - 4K will be part of your business much sooner than if it's cable/broadcast or physical media - that's a fact.

[Dave Blackhurst]

Noa,-

Well, now you have the bug... you should have known better <wink>. You were warned... <wink, wink>

4K "delivery" is a problem waiting for the "best" solution. 4K acquisition and workflow is quite viable right NOW. And the benefits are there, as has been stated many times. Sure there are many reasons not to make the jump, but there are probably at least as many to MAKE it!

The point of how a 4K consumer camera compares to a high end professional 2K camera is likely a valid one - but if a $2K camera even vaguely approaches the quality levels of a $25K+ camera... that is something, right?


@Bruce - I've cropped in Vegas all the way to "SD" levels and the image would probably pass for DVD delivery... there's just a lot more detail in a 4K image to dig into.