The great 8K debate. Why I have changed my mind

[Andrew Reid]

Do we need 8K?

Find out why I have changed my mind here.

https://www.eoshd.com/news/the-great-8k-debate-why-i-have-changed-my-mind

And yes the Sigma Fp-L and Sony a1 have something to do with it 🙂

[BTM_Pix]

Stop making me want to buy stuff.

My family will be planning an intervention at this rate.

[MrSMW]

My current musing regarding my 2024 stills camera is either 60+mp FF or 100mp MF, set to 1:1 crop mode and shoot ‘landscape’ all day long.

Crop in post to whatever I fancy, but having shot the square crop with intent regarding the result.

Doable with 24mp sensors? Kind of, but limits the options quite a bit.

Even the 60mp does a fair bit as the cameras with that sensor such as the A7RV in APSC crop mode is ‘only’ 26mp, but a better 26mp than the 24mp from a 24mp camera.

Not sure what say a GFX100S with 100mp is zoomed in say double, but I guess about 1/3rd?

GFX100S’s are not that expensive on the used market…

[mkabi]

Sometimes you have to move towards progress otherwise progress leaves you.

Not to toot my own horn but I got an 75 inch 8K TV back in 2019.... did I need it? Nope. Funny thing is... I had a 60 inch 1080p TV before it, I used it to watch movies in the basement (my man cave) and it was nearing 10 years since I got it... it could've kept going but I had replaced the living room TV with a 55 inch 4K TV (in that same time). I was late to the 4K TV game, everyone else in my family already had one.... and given that I will be holding onto them for 10+ years.... why not get the latest and brightest. Oh, BTW, it has AI upscaling so the 1080p doesn't look half bad on that screen.

Similarly, I just got a iphone 15 (the base model) - again not trying to show off - cause the last phone before that was an iphone XR... I don't switch every year, I don't see the point of doing that. Some guy was recommending the iphone 14 to me, but since I'll be holding onto this phone for 5 to 10 years too, I would want the latest and greatest just to stay relevant. 

[MrSMW]

6 minutes ago, mkabi said:

Sometimes you have to move towards progress otherwise progress leaves you

Definitely.

I resisted having a blog for a long time because I just did not want to follow the herd, but then when I finally bit the bullet and did one, I realised I had previously been a bit dumb.

Ditto a 'smart' phone. Every time I'd go to a conference or workshop, all the cool kids had iPhones. I had my Stone Age phone that could make and receive calls.

Bit the bullet on that one and err, hello, why I not have one of these sooner?!

Also 55" 4k TV after being pestered by the family to not just have my PC monitor as a TV screen. Yup, really.

Got it home in I think 2018 and set it up and another, "OK, we 'needed' this in our lives".

I am at the point now where I don't need the latest and greatest and still will often by used or the previous gen, cameras, phones, whatever, but also savvy to the fact that living perpetually in the 'good old days' is not always the best course of action in life.

Now, pairing a used GFX100s for considered work with a Nikon Zf for candid work. Mentally at least...

[mkabi]

52 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

I am at the point now where I don't need the latest and greatest and still will often by used or the previous gen, cameras, phones, whatever, but also savvy to the fact that living perpetually in the 'good old days' is not always the best course of action in life.

I'm in a similar boat, I don't technically need the latest and greatest, BUT... if I need to upgrade, for whatever reason, then I will get the latest and greatest.

No point in sitting in the Stone Age and remaining there, complaining about these kids and their new gadgets... sounds like a grumpy old man.

[ND64]

I'm following some YouTube channels covering Audio Video exhibitions, and what I'm noticing is that apparently Video Wall business is booming. Its very expensive and power hungry, like $150,000 price tag and 3kw/h is quite normal. But few years ago it was way higher than that. Common pixel size is 0.7mm, so you can cover a 6m wall with 8k image. With 0.5mm pixels you need 12k for the same wall. 

[ntblowz]

Canon R5 is the true game charger and I m glade I got it, since after firmware update there is no overheating warming for me, and I have actually shoot 8K footage to be used on LED wall for a commercial project with it.

But most of the time is still 4k for me.

[Django]

R5 definitely opened my eyes to 8K. I freaking love it, its beautiful. But I also have a 5K iMac Pro display so I can actually see the +4K detail up close. Obviously it still trickles down when downsampled so that's a bonus plus everything else Andrew talks about. It does kinda feel like when we made the jump from FHD to UHD. After working with 8K files for a while its almost hard to go back to 4K lol.

One thing I don't think is mentioned in the article is ability to extract 33MP stills from 8K footage. Its pretty cool and opens up some extra flexibility when doing hybrid shoots. I only wish it was open-gate to have a more stills framing extraction instead of 16:9. I think I'm more excited about open-gate than 8K so 6K open gate camera like XH2S or new BMD camera may ultimately prove itself more useful.

But that Sigma-FP-L has crazy specs I wasn't really aware of. 9.5K RAW plus all those crop modes?! wow. Gonna have to take closer look at it, I keep forgetting it even exists.

[markr041]

38 minutes ago, Django said:

R5 definitely opened my eyes to 8K. I freaking love it, its beautiful. But I also have a 5K iMac Pro display so I can actually see the +4K detail up close. Obviously it still trickles down when downsampled so that's a bonus plus everything else Andrew talks about. It does kinda feel like when we made the jump from FHD to UHD. After working with 8K files for a while its almost hard to go back to 4K lol.

One thing I don't think is mentioned in the article is ability to extract 33MP stills from 8K footage. Its pretty cool and opens up some extra flexibility when doing hybrid shoots. 

 

My experience shooting 8K RAW with the Nikon Z8 is similar - the 8K videos look stunning even viewed in 8K on 4K monitors.

Of course, extracting stills from video slips runs up against shooting at low frame rates and shutter speeds. I shoot at 8K 60p because I am into "you are there" video, not filmic video. And shooting at 1/125th is sufficient for most stills-from-video to avoid blur.

An 8K video, and extracted 8K stills:

You can only watch this in 8K using the Chrome browser - neither Edge nor safari will display in 8k no matter what (actually I got to select 8K just clicking on the video here and I am using Edge!?).

Some extracted stills:

 

[MrSMW]

2 hours ago, Django said:

One thing I don't think is mentioned in the article is ability to extract 33MP stills from 8K footage. Its pretty cool and opens up some extra flexibility when doing hybrid shoots. I only wish it was open-gate to have a more stills framing extraction instead of 16:9. I think I'm more excited about open-gate than 8K so 6K open gate camera like XH2S or new BMD camera may ultimately prove itself more useful.

In round figures (because it depends on the sensor) 8k 16:9 = 8000 x 4500 vs 6k 3:2 = 6000 x 4000, so for extracting portrait orientation stills, not that big a difference...

As that hybrid shooter, it's my next project as in, in addition to shooting stills and video at the same time, can I also in certain situations, have both the highest quality video but also extract extremely useable stills that are indistinguishable to 'real' shot as photography stills?

I have already established in my own mind I do not wish to go over to totally extracting stills from video and never doing photography, but rather using it as a bridge as it were when I need to do both at the same time and reduce my kit from 3 down to 2 units.

Kind of limited on which cameras I can use to do this as I still want to shoot 50p for slow mo when needed...which just happens to coincide with when I'd want to extract those stills.

I've tried it with 4k and the resolution is more than good enough for video, but not for the level of quality of stills I need to produce, but from what I have seen, 8k looking really good.

There are a few 6k options but the only one that really fits the bill for my needs is the R3.

The outline plan is to shoot 4k 50p + stills 90% of the time plus 6k or 8k raw 50p the other 10% of the time to have both video and pulled stills from the same camera and sequence.

That's a good balance for me for remaining a photographer as much as a videographer but being able to reduce the kit which in itself, has various added bonuses.

 

 

[kye]

6 hours ago, markr041 said:

My experience shooting 8K RAW with the Nikon Z8 is similar - the 8K videos look stunning even viewed in 8K on 4K monitors.

Of course, extracting stills from video slips runs up against shooting at low frame rates and shutter speeds. I shoot at 8K 60p because I am into "you are there" video, not filmic video. And shooting at 1/125th is sufficient for most stills-from-video to avoid blur.

An 8K video, and extracted 8K stills:

You can only watch this in 8K using the Chrome browser - neither Edge nor safari will display in 8k no matter what (actually I got to select 8K just clicking on the video here and I am using Edge!?).

Some extracted stills:

 

Looking at those stills close up they seem to have a nice noise structure which is actually quite filmic / organic.  You can definitely tell it's RAW and not sharpened in-camera.  

I had the same experience with my Canon 700D when I installed Magic Lantern.  Using the compressed modes was awful because the noise from the sensor (which was a lot) was awful when compressed, but in RAW it had a rather pleasing aesthetic.

[zlfan]

I understand Andrew's point. One Sigma FP L can do vista vision, s35, s16, and still. Even S16 can have 12 bit 4 k raw capability.

However, there are other ways to get 4k S16, like Nikon 1 V3/V2/V1, EOS M Magic Lantern 1080p raw, etc. These are much cheaper solutions. 

[zlfan]

On 9/26/2023 at 1:23 PM, Eric Calabros said:

I'm following some YouTube channels covering Audio Video exhibitions, and what I'm noticing is that apparently Video Wall business is booming. Its very expensive and power hungry, like $150,000 price tag and 3kw/h is quite normal. But few years ago it was way higher than that. Common pixel size is 0.7mm, so you can cover a 6m wall with 8k image. With 0.5mm pixels you need 12k for the same wall. 

This is the right niche for high res photos and videos, like printing. 

Even so, for high res stills, pros use t2i and 18-55 kit lens to combine 50 photos into one, using special software. 

For video, because the scenes are moving, there may be issues. If the scenes are lacking movements, probably you can combine many low res video stream into one high res final stream. 

[zlfan]

8k is not a true advancement. it is more a compromise. the pros are higher res and maybe better color. the cons are worse low light and higher noise, and maybe worse iq. So, 8k as a side track feature is fine, but for the main reason to upgrade the camera gear, I don't know. 

[Digitgio]

Andrew, I had come to the same conclusion and tempted to go for the Sigma Fp-L, what about rolling shutter, dynamic range at full frame full resolution DNG files ? 

[zlfan]

Undone reviewed FP L and concluded that the rolling shutter is one of the worst he saw in testing cameras. 

[zlfan]

I think Andrew's other point on FP L is right to the point. It is a m43 follow up as a high res solution.  The 9.5k camera in such a small body, and now has uhd 4k and 2k cdng in camera (4k cdng needs external ssd).

[zlfan]

8k on larger sensors maintaining big pixel sizes is a true winner, like arri lf 6.5k. 

[mkabi]

18 hours ago, zlfan said:

Even so, for high res stills, pros use t2i and 18-55 kit lens to combine 50 photos into one, using special software. 

Which pros are doing this^^^