Best to film in 4K or Hd?

[Peter Lowe]

4K video recorded on Sony A7RIi looks great when I play it back on my camera but what advantage does one get from recording video in 4K instead of HD if the 4K video is going to end up being output in HD for example for YouTube upload? Does 4K video downsized to HD in post production look better than HD video recorded with the 4K ready sensor of the A7RIi or similar cameras? Does video recorded in 4K give more latitude for color adjustment than video recorded in HD? What if any other advantages come from recording in 4K apart from being 4K ready for the future?

[Donald McPherson]

Some say always video in the best quality you can. If you can handle 4k shoot 4k. You then have the option to refrain if necessary. Many also claim once downscaled it is also sharper than capturing in HD.

[Roger Gunkel]

Hi Peter,

I record all my weddings in 4K now and the down scaled footage looks better in HD than the generic HD. I believe it is to do with the 4K Colour sampling. The main advantage for me is that I can shoot a comparatively wide angle shot and use that footage to crop closeups and pans and zooms in post whilst still maintaining HD resolution in the final production. I now usually use only one backup camera for a different angle whereas previously I would have B&C cams.

It's also useful for stage productions because I can maintain a whole stage shot and crop to follow the action in post. It's so easy to to miss something on stage when you are following the action with the main camera, whereas cropping in post means nothing is missed.

4K has been a very useful tool for me.

Roger

[Noa Put]

Beside the advantages Roger has mentioned another advantage could be trying to upsell 4K films, currently I only supply HD films on a usb stick and a blu-ray for the weddings I shoot. I was thinking of shooting in 4K only with all my camera's this year and to give the client one extra copy of their trailer but in 4K. If they have a 4K tv and notice the difference in detail that might be a reason for them to ask for the rest of the films in 4K which is easy extra money made if you have that as a paid option.

[Bruce Dempsey]

If there is a difference between shooting 4k then downgrading to Blu-ray and DVD rather than shooting xavc hd and producing blu-ray and dvd, it's not a big difference. In fact I really can't tell one way or the other.
However rendering/encoding time is something to consider.
I have an old school i7 980 6 cores/12 threads and the rendering/encoding time is 4 times longer when dealing with 4k so that adds up or rather I schoud say subtracts from my free time

[Peter Lowe]

Thanks for this great advice. I have just started filming in 4K that looks great but takes a lot of extra time to process, so I am very happy to hear from your experiences that it is worthwhile both in terms of how the downsized 4K image compares with original HD and also the option to crop that I had not thought about before but is sure to be extremely useful. So now all I have to do is upgrade my "old" 2013 MacBook that cannot manage smooth playback of 4K clips and figure out the best workflow to process and edit 4K footage.

[Donald McPherson]

Try out Davinci Resolve 14 they claim to have made massive improvements for lesser computers.