1080 vs. 4K: What is REALLY necessary?

[Ty Harper]

I'm all for these discussions about the virtues of 1080 vs 4K vs 8K, but let's be honest here, the "push" for 4K (and beyond) is largely being driven by the corporations that NEED a new tech breakthrough to survive. The adoption of 4K, 8K (etc) by professional content creators is one thing - but it's the adoption of these new resolutions by their bread and butter consumers that the corporations are banking on, because it will force people to update every gadget and piece of tech they currently use/own and give companies a new lease on life. But there is no overtly unanimous, genuine/organic demand for anything higher than 1080 from the wider consumer base.

It's all coming from the corporate end and of course some pro/pro-sumer content creators that see the practical benefits of 4K and 4K+.

[Arikhan]

@Andrew Reid

Quote

4K is about choice. It makes for great 1080p, very clean, less noise when downsampled in post. If it's too sharp or too realistic, you again have a choice... Use a filter, soften in post, there's all sorts you can do to make it look less digital.

That's it, Andrew: It's all about the choice...When shooting in 4K, you have nowadays all possibilities in post...You don't have to keep it sharp, you can crop, you can edit it even on a 720p line if you want....you can work with masking in post and soften your footage. That's the main point: The user has the choice...And not a post WW2 manufacturer out of touch with reality, aiming to press his buyers in a mushy 720p timeline.

That's all about my criticism on Canon's ultraconservative and ignorant attitude: Canon believes, that it's them who makes the choice, that THEY define users needs...They treat progressive demands for clean 1080p/4K in their consumer cameras as enemy troops. But the Canon bastion is falling within younger generation. Not because they would make bad cameras or wouldn't offer first class ergonomics, usability and a nearly perfect after sales and repair service...But because Canon gives the impression to put users under tutelage. No Canon, it's not you who does the choice - it's me and my decision....

Thanks Andrew for pointing this out. In fact, photographers and filmers are the majors - manufacturers should be the slaves. And not contrariwise...

[mercer]

31 minutes ago, Arikhan said:

@Andrew Reid

That's it, Andrew: It's all about the choice...When shooting in 4K, you have nowadays all possibilities in post...You don't have to keep it sharp, you can crop, you can edit it even on a 720p line if you want....you can work with masking in post and soften your footage. That's the main point: The user has the choice...And not a post WW2 manufacturer out of touch with reality, aiming to press his buyers in a mushy 720p timeline.

That's all about my criticism on Canon's ultraconservative and ignorant attitude: Canon believes, that it's them who makes the choice, that THEY define users needs...They treat progressive demands for clean 1080p/4K in their consumer cameras as enemy troops. But the Canon bastion is falling within younger generation. Not because they would make bad cameras or wouldn't offer first class ergonomics, usability and a nearly perfect after sales and repair service...But because Canon gives the impression to put users under tutelage. No Canon, it's not you who does the choice - it's me and my decision....

Thanks Andrew for pointing this out. In fact, photographers and filmers are the majors - manufacturers should be the slaves. And not contrariwise...

I highly doubt Canon has a huge attitude about how photographers should shoot or what tech they need... they have a board that they answer to and they are beholden to their shareholders. Through market research and profit margins they've come to the conclusion they don't have to include such features to make profits. It's really that simple. If the lack of video features begin to disrupt their profit margin, they will start including them. The End.

[Andrew Reid]

But Sony, Panasonic, Nikon, Olympus, Fujifilm have all come to the conclusion that 4K is good for profit and that their customers are asking for it.

What's different with Canon?! Same customers!

[Arikhan]

@Andrew Reid

Quote

What's different with Canon?! Same customers!

Hmm...From own experience, I doubt it. Most of the "pros" (doing a "normal" photography business) who use Canon are usually "sheep" who can not ascertain what's right. Similar to their "Canon God", they don't care about contemporary customer demands and requirements. They take photographs the same way as 40 years ago and complain about customers not willing to pay them adequate rates - many of them in my region closing their business/studios. Helpless crybabes, without any creative/innovative answer to nowadays "smartphone revolution"...Their logic is nostalgy and self-pity - but the "good old days" are gone...

Their photography is not bad - but not good enough (by contemporary requirements) to make a living out of it, measured with creative and adaptive guys of the industry...They keep using Canon because of their reluctance to move their lazy/ignorant ass out of the comfort zone and change their own attitude...Instead of doing this and facing today's reality and their own failure, they complain all day about the downturn of the photographing industry...

 

[Arikhan]

@mercer

Quote

I highly doubt Canon has a huge attitude about how photographers should shoot or what tech they need... they have a board that they answer to and they are beholden to their shareholders. Through market research and profit margins they've come to the conclusion they don't have to include such features to make profits. It's really that simple. If the lack of video features begin to disrupt their profit margin, they will start including them. The End.

I know, you are right. The problem is, this is a déjà vu. Nokia was the same arrogant company, being cocksure of itself - and 10 years later they are dead. And their death is hard-earned. Primarly beaten by a company, formerly known as computer and laptop manufacturer...Would you have thought this 10 years ago? For sure, not...

The Canon ultras are not far away from this. The way from Hero to Zero could be a very fast one nowadays - not for Canon as a global company with many divisions, but for their camera business....

[Trek of Joy]

4 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

But Sony, Panasonic, Nikon, Olympus, Fujifilm have all come to the conclusion that 4K is good for profit and that their customers are asking for it.

What's different with Canon?! Same customers!

If you remove Nikon, Canon's market share completely outpaces all others combined, and with Nikon its still not far off. What's different is people are buying Canon's in much greater quantities than the rest. 4k obviously has very little to do with that, or Canon wouldn't be so dominant. People on forums like this want 4k - but there are millions of camera buyers that don't care about 4k, DR, rolling shutter and so on - the vast majority of the buying public wants a nice image and doesn't care about all the technical aspects because most never do anything more than shoot in auto mode with a cheap kit zoom, and post stuff online, email or print at places like Walmart. Amazon's sales rankings are a pretty good indicator and the top of the list are a bunch of cameras that can't shoot 4k. Right now 4k is not a driving force in the camera or cell phone market. I doubt it will ever be a 'must have' feature for a casual shooter that never edits anything. Most of the world isn't even at 1080p yet, much less 4k. 

I went to an 8k demo in Tokyo from NHK Broadcasting, while awesome and a preview of the 2020 Olympic broadcasts - other camera geeks were the only people in awe. Nobody else really cared.

[Mattias Burling]

4 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

But Sony, Panasonic, Nikon, Olympus, Fujifilm have all come to the conclusion that 4K is good for profit and that their customers are asking for it.

What's different with Canon?! Same customers!

Fujis profit comes from Instax.

Im not sure Sony and Panasonics interchangeable lens cameras are profitable. I think not.
At least Sony never dares to show the numbers. They always bake it in to the total company. My guess is no way they make money from the A7 and A6xx line.

We know Nikon is in trouble.

Canon on the other hand is in the green. HD seems profitable for them

[tugela]

On ‎6‎/‎22‎/‎2016 at 10:55 AM, jasonmillard81 said:

The following conversation gave me pause and I am hoping to get a few questions answered by more knowledgeable individuals:

 

 

One of the topics discussed was how these DPs feel that are sort of forced to use digital and many long for the days of film.  In addition they seem to acknowledge the necessity to keep up with the 4K, 6K, and 8K race but that sometimes the preferable image is of a much lower resolution and they spend time trying to achieve that by softening the image up etc. as they (maybe Deakins) feel that the audience finds the optimal image to not be so "realistic".

 

I'm curious on what everyone's opinions are.  If one isn't doing paid work and 4K+ aren't demanded then you still get away with investing in a new product that is 1080P if the image is currently seen as not only acceptable but desirable?

A bunch of old guys who like film because that is what they grew up with. Just like most old people who are not comfortable with the modern world "it was better in the old days". That is what I see. And I am saying that as someone who is approaching 60 himself. Until that generation dies off we are going to be stuck with this outdated paradigm. And even after they are dead, the wannabe acolytes of these guys will still be pushing the last century as the way to go for some time to come. But eventually digital will leave them in the dust. 

People like that group around the table hold us back.

3 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

Fujis profit comes from Instax.

Im not sure Sony and Panasonics interchangeable lens cameras are profitable. I think not.
At least Sony never dares to show the numbers. They always bake it in to the total company. My guess is no way they make money from the A7 and A6xx line.

We know Nikon is in trouble.

Canon on the other hand is in the green. HD seems profitable for them

Don't know about Panasonic, but Sony's camera division makes money, considering that Sonys are among the top three you see people carrying around.

I'm pretty sure that Canon has lots of lemon cameras in terms of revenue. Most of their profit comes from divisions outside of cameras. I imagine that most of Canon's profit in the camera market comes from the pro cameras, with the lower end products not being competitive or losing money. Which would explain why they put relatively little investment in tech on those products, and why the specs on them are always behind the competition. The profit in those markets is being made by other companies.

[tugela]

3 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

 

I went to an 8k demo in Tokyo from NHK Broadcasting, while awesome and a preview of the 2020 Olympic broadcasts - other camera geeks were the only people in awe. Nobody else really cared.

How do you know that no one else really cared? You are assuming that those in awe are camera geeks because they were in awe. Maybe they are not. 

When I first got my 4K TV set and had friends come around, and showed them stuff I had shot on my NX1 which I already had at the time, they were all going "OMG! It is so clear!" without exception.

This idea that ordinary people don't care about 4K is BS. They main reason they "don't care" is because they have not really been exposed to it in a normal home situation. And those are the sorts of people who don't spend any time at all looking at store displays of TVs either (until they need to buy a new one for some reason), so they really don't know for the most part. What bugs me the most about forums like this is certain individuals conflating that ignorance with indifference. They are not the same things. Canon relies on indifference, but the level of ignorance is slowly changing and when that happens the hammer is going to come down hard on them.

[Geoff CB]

On 6/22/2016 at 5:56 PM, Sekhar said:

Show me how HD produced with BMMCC is better than HD from 4K shot by NX1 (which I presume is what you're implying here), and I'll agree. 

 I loved my NX1, but DR and Rolling shutter are far more important in a cinema environment. In Interview and event situations that's a different matter...

[mercer]

13 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

But Sony, Panasonic, Nikon, Olympus, Fujifilm have all come to the conclusion that 4K is good for profit and that their customers are asking for it.

What's different with Canon?! Same customers!

Well Sony, Panasonic and Samsung were early adopters because they needed consumers to create content to watch on the 4K TVs they wanted to sell. Nikon, Olympus and Fuji followed suit because Sony, Panasonic and Samsung convinced content creators and consumers they needed to shoot Billy Jr's baseball game in 4K.

Or should I say are now starting to convince consumers of that. Canon will flip the switch when their market research shows they are losing a lot of sales to the other manufacturers. 

[mercer]

Think about it, Canon doesn't have a grudge against 4K or the filmmakers and consumers that may want it. There just aren't enough to warrant the R&D to implement it yet. 

Even if they did include it in the 6D2, it would have been cropped in MJPEG, so you would have complained about it anyway. 

[HockeyFan12]

14 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

But Sony, Panasonic, Nikon, Olympus, Fujifilm have all come to the conclusion that 4K is good for profit and that their customers are asking for it.

What's different with Canon?! Same customers!

I agree that it's choice, but everyone's choices are informed by different priorities. While it might mostly be consumers blindly choosing the name brand who are buying Canon, it might also be that 4k isn't a priority for most consumers (and pros). 

The Alexa, too, is still essentially a 2k camera. It offers a LOT in exchange for this trade off. 

IMO, certain Canon models do too. Mostly in terms of ergonomics, color, and DPAF.

Ultimately, I think whatever tool makes you enjoy the process most will be the one that results in the best result, and the result will sort of be tailored to the process anyway. So if art is subjective and mirrors you, then whatever equipment you prefer is the equipment you need to use to do you at that given moment. (Try something new and challenge yourself from time to time, though. Shoot 16mm!! You'll only know yourself better after trying.) 

Of course, on set, a 5D Mark II might be a lot of fun. It's tiny and easy, and the viewfinder image looks ok, but in post you have a shitty image to work with grading is gonna suck. Or a DP might love the Red Helium and the editor hates it, or the DP might hate the Alexa or C300 and the editor loves it. So when you're only the DP or only the editor you're gonna have really different priorities than your fellow creatives... and you're gonna see weird preferences and messy workflows and in-fighting and... well... a less fun process. 

(The Alexa is kind of great on set and in post... ditto the C300 Mk I. They both did well commercially... Just sayin'.)

For most of the people here, this is a hobby. We're probably shooting and cutting and grading our own footage. So if we want to keep doing that, we'd better make it fun.

For the pros among us, they want the easiest job possible while still enjoying the work and delivering a good product. Fairly similar priorities. You've gotta love it to do it.

So I'd say let the Canon hate go and focus on the Panasonic/Sony/BM love. For the portrait shooter dead set on a full frame stills camera and the 85mm f1.2... just let them have their 6D Mark II, they won't even switch the knob to video. They'll have a blast. I know it drives clicks trashing there 6D, but you know why Canon and Arri are doing well in the market. And why the 1DC failed despite it being a great camera.

Fwiw, I can imagine scenarios in which I'd absolutely need 4k. I like Canon, but I still wish their cameras shot 4k prores.

 

[Trek of Joy]

6 hours ago, tugela said:

How do you know that no one else really cared? You are assuming that those in awe are camera geeks because they were in awe. Maybe they are not. 

When I first got my 4K TV set and had friends come around, and showed them stuff I had shot on my NX1 which I already had at the time, they were all going "OMG! It is so clear!" without exception.

This idea that ordinary people don't care about 4K is BS. They main reason they "don't care" is because they have not really been exposed to it in a normal home situation. And those are the sorts of people who don't spend any time at all looking at store displays of TVs either (until they need to buy a new one for some reason), so they really don't know for the most part. What bugs me the most about forums like this is certain individuals conflating that ignorance with indifference. They are not the same things. Canon relies on indifference, but the level of ignorance is slowly changing and when that happens the hammer is going to come down hard on them.

Most don't care about 4k because there's almost nothing being produced in 4k, globally there are very few 1080p broadcasts, much less in 4k. Why would anyone buy a 4k set only to have virtually nothing to watch in 4k? As others mentioned 4k is being pushed by Sony and Panasonic because they have 4k TV's to sell, not because of overwhelming consumer demand.

Most don't care about 4k, because a vast majority of TV owners don't own a 4k set (the number of HD LED/LCD/Plasma sets sold in the last 15 years globally is many, many times higher than UHD) and have no plans to upgrade when it does nothing but drain your bank account since there's virtually no 4k content to watch.

Most don't care about 4k because a vast majority of people shoot photos and videos and never do any editing or anything beyond sharing and filling up phones and hard drives. 1080p looks great on their 1080p TV.

And finally most don't care because a majority of web video content is being viewed on portable devices - phones and tablets - 4k really doesn't do much on a 5" screen.

Its not BS - TV sales tell you everything, HD still accounts for two-thirds of all TV's sold despite the fact that 4k prices have plummeted - people are still buying similarly priced 1080p sets in far greater numbers - and TV sales have flatlined after the flat-panel boom in the mid-2000's. Canon's camera sales, that people here continually bitch about, tell you everything. 4k is great for content producers and I personally love it to death, but for the rest of the world - which makes up a vast majority of camera purchases - 1080p is good enough.

And I'm pretty sure Canon's market research goes a little deeper than "they're too dumb to know 1080p sucks, no 4k for the 6d2"

SMH

[Mattias Burling]

"When I first got my 4K TV set and had friends come around, and showed them stuff I had shot on my NX1 which I already had at the time, they were all going "OMG! It is so clear!" without exception."

They weren't very clear imo. To bad they have been removed.

[Inazuma]

18 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

 

A great digital pioneer Anthony Dod Mantle recently shot 5D Mark II with moire and aliasing on a major documentary production... This to me makes no sense unless it's an artistic choice. What was he thinking?

The leaders of this industry, the best DPs, are not always right... Trust your own judgement.

I could swear a few months ago you said something along the lines of "the 5d2 image has something special"

[jonpais]

It's curious that even though in Vietnam, Blu-ray players and 4K content are virtually absent, and even every DVD shop is selling bootlegs ripped from the internet (there are no shops selling genuine DVDs or Blu-rays),  and many, if not most programs here are in SD, yet still most homes have an HDTV, and they're even pushing 4K televisions. Of course, SD television sets are no longer available, not that many homes don't have an old set. Not once have I seen a film crew shoot anything but HD here, and I've seen a lot. I've been shooting and distributing all my videos in 4K for several years now, but I still don't own a 4K monitor or television set.

With that out of the way, I haven't read all six pages of this thread, but I'd like to respond to some of the comments I've seen. 1) I could care less how many homes have 4K television sets, just as I could care less that fewer than 40% of the world's population has Internet, or that 99% of the world's population has never listened to a string trio by Schubert - I still want my Internet and I want my Schubert 2) If Sony and Panasonic are manufacturing 4K cameras to increase sales of their television sets, good on them - profitability means more money can be poured into R&D, 3) The main reason I upgraded from the GH3 to the GH4, aside from focus peaking, was that the 1080p had so much aliasing and moire, it was driving me crazy, 4) As far as I'm concerned, if it costs next to nothing to include 4K in a camera, there's no reason it shouldn't be included - nobody is forcing stills users to shoot UHD, any more than they're forced to use the touch screen if they prefer fiddling with joysticks and twisting knobs and dials, 5) 4K gives more flexibility in post for cropping and image stabilization, 6) In four more years, which may be the life cycle of a Canon, not sure, since I've got next to no interest in them whatsoever, 8K will be the standard, making their 1080p practically ancient, 6) I love Kendy Ty's videos shot on a Canon T2i, and Ruben Latre's (if you're not familiar with his work, you definitely should be!) showreels uploaded to YouTube in low-fi - but I wouldn't love them any less if they were at least in HD, 7) From what I've read, more and more photographers are being asked to shoot both video and stills, so a capable hybrid camera would be a plus - after all, why should a wedding photographer be able to deliver 42 megapixel stills (or whatever, I don't keep up with that, since I've never had a camera that shoots more than 16 megapixels!) but be restricted to soft 1080p for video work? 

[Andrew Reid]

3 hours ago, Inazuma said:

I could swear a few months ago you said something along the lines of "the 5d2 image has something special"

In Magic Lantern raw, not stock form.

BIG difference.

4 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

Most don't care about 4k because there's almost nothing being produced in 4k, globally there are very few 1080p broadcasts, much less in 4k. Why would anyone buy a 4k set only to have virtually nothing to watch in 4k? As others mentioned 4k is being pushed by Sony and Panasonic because they have 4k TV's to sell, not because of overwhelming consumer demand.

It's not all about content actually. People want to buy a future proof TV or best spec for the price. All my friends who have bought a new TV in the last couple of years have gone for a 4K model without exception, especially as the prices now are similar to a decent 1080p set and start at around £350 in the UK. Why wouldn't you?

Various set to boxes, PCs, laptops, game consoles have a 4K picture and they want to make use of that, so it's not all about watching TV even.

The awareness of 4K on consumer market is very high and even the PS4 Pro, etc. capitalise on the hype with their upscaling modes.

4 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

Most don't care about 4k, because a vast majority of TV owners don't own a 4k set (the number of HD LED/LCD/Plasma sets sold in the last 15 years globally is many, many times higher than UHD

That gives them all the more reason to upgrade to 4K if they don't have it already.

Not many people keep the same TV for 15 years in today's fast moving age of cheap consumer goods.

4 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

Most don't care about 4k because a vast majority of people shoot photos and videos and never do any editing or anything beyond sharing and filling up phones and hard drives. 1080p looks great on their 1080p TV.

And finally most don't care because a majority of web video content is being viewed on portable devices - phones and tablets - 4k really doesn't do much on a 5" screen.

Sony have a smartphone with a 4K display now and it's a selling point in the eyes of the consumer.

Whether you agree it makes sense or not.

4 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

Its not BS - TV sales tell you everything, HD still accounts for two-thirds of all TV's sold despite the fact that 4k prices have plummeted - people are still buying similarly priced 1080p sets in far greater numbers - and TV sales have flatlined after the flat-panel boom in the mid-2000's. Canon's camera sales, that people here continually bitch about, tell you everything. 4k is great for content producers and I personally love it to death, but for the rest of the world - which makes up a vast majority of camera purchases - 1080p is good enough.

And I'm pretty sure Canon's market research goes a little deeper than "they're too dumb to know 1080p sucks, no 4k for the 6d2"

SMH

Sounds like the research you've seen is out of date by at least 2 years.

[TwoScoops]

2 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

In Magic Lantern raw, not stock form.

BIG difference.

 

Was just looking at some 5DII ML on vimeo earlier. Amazing for an almost 10 year old camera.