BBC freelance cameraman tests Super 35mm 1080p on the Canon 1D C

[Paul Meyer]

Thank GOODNESS Andrew, I thought you were building up to buying a 1D! My faith in good ol' pixel-peeping is restored

[ScreensPro]

Are you kidding, right?

 

Man, I have a Red MX and you can't compare Red to this camera... Really! First you want to compare redcode to this 8bit footage? Even with vimeo's compressed footage...

 

Ease of use, ok this camera wins, but the rest? far, very far...

 

Try reading what I posted..... Firstly we are talking solely about resolution here.... Secondly, i'm talking about the R1-M , eg, not the MX, which is a 4.5k file... as i'm sure you are aware.

[ScreensPro]

The comparison is completely true. I find the 4k coming out of the 1DC to be just as underwhelming as the 1080p out of the 550d, if not more so. It's over 10 grand and still only a compressed 8 bit stream for gods sake! 

 

No one was talking about 8bit, compressed or anything else.... The conversation was about resolution.

 

The 4K on the 1-DC is far better than the 1080p on the 550D in terms of stated resolution versus actual resolution. The 550D is spitting out about 60% of the quoted resolution, whereas the 1D-C looks to be spitting out about 80% of the quoted resolution.

[nahua]

Yes it's not July 2014 for mainstream Japanese 4k broadcast.  You asked what's in ''real life.''  So you got a ''real life'' answer.  You have to acknowledge that those with a 4K practical camera currently in their hands and a 4K platform to publish and sell  (in the broadcast world or  ''real life'') is already in effect.  I think another problem is that there are two roads, a pro market for 4K cinema projection optimization, and the other for general home entertainment.  different protocols, different markets! 

 

You do know that Japan still isn't all HD yet?  They still have SD broadcast, and HD is really 720P and not 1080P.  Only a few premium channels or NHK governement channels are 1080P.  So yeah maybe NHK will go 4K, but the reality is that even Japan isn't going to be all 4K.

[Leang]

You do know that Japan still isn't all HD yet?  They still have SD broadcast, and HD is really 720P and not 1080P.  Only a few premium channels or NHK governement channels are 1080P.  So yeah maybe NHK will go 4K, but the reality is that even Japan isn't going to be all 4K.

 

I don't know how satellite licencing and sharing works during events like the upcoming World Cup, but Japan's on it for next year.  so we'll hit this thread again next year and lets see which countries other than Japan is also receiving a 4K exclusive feed?  who knows maybe some other parts of Asia are going to want to compete and also try the same.  I don't know.  maybe ''mainstream'' was exaggerated but what I meant to say is that any home owner with a 4K set should be able to benefit from the 4K stream.  what I'm curious is about is the protocol.  I imagine Panasonic's next 4K cam to be marketed for broadcast and not so much film.  I would first like to see Panny introduce an S35 cam.  I imagine... 4K cams on site at the World Cup, transmitting to Japanese satellites, and hitting 4K sets.  Might be a private network, govt channel, who knows.  

 

regarding which countries are on the ultimate standard atm I don't know, but every 1st world country has its rural inhabitants.  let's bet all of them have flat panels or HDTV?

[Alex Mand]

Try reading what I posted..... Firstly we are talking solely about resolution here.... Secondly, i'm talking about the R1-M , eg, not the MX, which is a 4.5k file... as i'm sure you are aware.

 Bamm.. wrong. This camera is soft at 4K and to my eyes doesn't mach the resolution of RED M. We could argue about that, but I'm not the only one saying that...

 

I was talking about the image as a whole, sorry you are right... But my statment keeps as it is.

 

And I really hate that skin tones. Plastic...

 

well, you get what you pay... $12.000. NOT.

[Xiong]

Red vs Canon.. Uh oh, things are about to get rocky isnt it..

 

My 2 cents:

1. Needs better then 8-bit for this price range.

2. Andrew make a good point:

 

If a better codec wasn't possible with the 1D X image processors then why don't they add a 10bit 4-4-4 HD-SDI port and use an external recording solution?

 

:/

[Alex Mand]

Red vs Canon.. Uh oh, things are about to get rocky isnt it..

 

My 2 cents:

1. Needs better then 8-bit for this price range.

2. Andrew make a good point:

 

 

:/

 

No it won't...

 

this is an amazing camera... just overpriced.

[Germy1979]

It's a jailbroken Canon dslr. I look at the specs, and this one has the least amount of intentional blockades in the whole line up. Legal threats if anybody tampered with the 1DX. Etc. I like that it's a low light bad ass. I like Canon's version of an 8 bit colorspace, and the form factor is great & I'd definitely not turn one down if it was realistically priced for those specs. At the end of the day though, more shit will be talked about this camera than a janitor at a truckstop because we can all plainly see that it's just the least hindered one of the bunch... For the price of a car. Hell.. They discontinued the 5D2.. (Which was probably the greatest accident ever) - it was $1500. Now they've jumped it up to the same price as the newer faster 6D?!... Capitalizing on it like Mr. Crabs.

[Will Turner]

No one was talking about 8bit, compressed or anything else.... The conversation was about resolution.

 

The 4K on the 1-DC is far better than the 1080p on the 550D in terms of stated resolution versus actual resolution. The 550D is spitting out about 60% of the quoted resolution, whereas the 1D-C looks to be spitting out about 80% of the quoted resolution.

 

Well it looks soft as shit to me. It looks to resolve virtually the same in 1080p S35 mode as it does in 4K.

[ScreensPro]

So you think this image only has about 1000 vertical lines? Look at the "Flanuer" building which is fully in focus.... That is easily resolving over 3K of real resolution and it's unlikely Phil added any sharpness in post.

 

http://philipbloom.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/MASTER-4k_NEUTRAL1.jpeg

 

If that looks like 1080p to you, I'd worry about your eye sight

[Andrew Reid]

The 1D C's 4K resolution has 2160 lines vertically, the BMCC has 1350.

 

Subjectively without having done a chart test I'd put the 1D C at around 1500 lines and the BMCC at 1200.

 

That's not a huge difference.

 

Upscale 1200 to 1500 and they will look similar.

 

4K on the 1D C is not true 4K.

 

They look like soft-ish 8MP JPEG images, which is what they are. They sharpen up nicely, but they don't grade as well as raw. All pretty obvious really.

[ScreensPro]

Yep, the BMCC resolves more, mainly down to it's lack of an optical low pass filter... The trade off is moire/aliasing.

 

My intial point is though... and you seem to agree, it is roughly resolving around 70%-75% of the sensor... which is fairly standard for a CMOS sensor. Remove the optical low pass filter and you'd probably get that extra 5%-10% like the BMCC (though raw will help get the most resolution).

 

The 550D is clearly not resolving anywhere close to 70%-75% though. Which was my initial and only point :-)

[NOC40]

[attachment=399:Original vs 1080.jpg]

I reckon I can see the difference. Here's a  blown up version of a 100% crop of the original image and a 200% crop of a reduced "1080" of the same image.

[ScreensPro]

It's obviously resolving way more than the 1080p crop mode.

 

I'm sticking with my initial opinion.... 3.2K about the same as the RED-1M

 

I worked with a hell of alot of R1-M footage.... resolution wise, it looks very much the same. Maybe after post work, you could squeeze a little more out of the raw but "out of the box", looks about the same.

[Andrew Reid]

I'm not convinced it is 3.2k in reality or Red standard 4K. What about that screen grab of Brighton pier? How do you explain the closeness of the resolution. The super 35mm is a slight crop which explains part of it, but they look awfully close considering one is 1080p and one is 4K.

[ScreensPro]

Which image?.... or are you comparing 4K downscaled to 1080p, then zoomed in 2X, like it shows on the video?

 

Of course, downscaling 4K to 1080p will only look a little better than really good 1080p.

[Andrew Reid]

That wasn't the case if Philip's labelling was anything to go by.

 

He put "100% crop" on the 4K screen grab.

 

No mention of downscaling to 1080p.

 

Maybe it is not clear and maybe that is what he did.

[ScreensPro]

Yea, hard to tell what he meant.

 

All the 4K video and still samples look great though. Clearly far superior to even the best 1080p

[Andrew Reid]

You'd be surprised how far you can push 1080p though.

 

Go to the cinema for starters... Last thing on my mind there is 'wish it were sharper'

 

I also saw 1080p Blu Ray upscaled to 4K and it looked like... 4k.