Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

I was just looking at Sony's PXW - Z100 4K camera which is over $6K here but what is a bit scary for wedding videographers is the record time and cost of cards for the XAVC format!

Shucks if you are lucky you will get a whopping 15 minutes record time at 4K 50P with the camera running with a 150mbps bitrate so even with dual slots you would still have to do card changes on a Catholic ceremony as 2 x 64GB cards would be exhausted after 30 minutes.

Never mind the fact that for a ceremony alone one would need 4 cards alone but what is somewhat staggering seems to be that a Sony 64GB card on Amazon sells for $731.00 !! Assuming one would need 4 cards for the ceremony and 4 for the reception you have a media cost fast approaching the price of the camera!

Doesn't sound a very cost effect solution for weddings at all ... they can, of course shoot in AVCHD and 1920x1080 but doesn't that defeat the purpose of upgrading to 4K???

Chris

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

I'm currently shooting with the GH4, at 100mbps bitrate, giving me approx 1 hour 15 mins on a 64gb card. I've shot some material at 4k, a recent Wedding at a brick mill, which usually goes all moire on me was perfect for it. Plus a couple of 1st Dances, 1 Ceremony and some stuff for a Marryoke. I'm still experimenting, but the ability to change from full image to a cropped image is a nice option in editing. Yes the image suffers and not as good when cropped down, but its still more than passable I feel and worth the benefits. So to answer your question, yep I'm seeing a future for 4k in Weddings for me.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

You better spend that money on a vacation with the family Chris and use your 2 nex-ea50 to make you even more money the next few years :)

I have mentioned it in another thread that for this year and my bookings for next year 4K is not even a necessity, 1080p delivery will be fine for another 2 wedding seasons but I"ll probably buy the gh4 soon to replace my g6, I"m not that satisfied with the output quality in 50p as that camera takes a noticeable resolution hit going from 25p to 50p and I need 50p on my steadicam.

Shooting 4k at this moment is more a question of whether I need it or want it, do I need 4K right now? No, will 4K get me more clients? No, Will 4k require me to upgrade my pc? Probably. So you see, there is nothing to gain financially, it will only cost me money.

Will 4K give me other benefits? From what I see right now the cropping factor seems like a great option to have and a sharper 1080p output though that will again cause issues with my other cameras if it becomes noticeable when mixing them.

The only reason why I am looking at the gh4 is because I want a camera that produces sharper 50p footage then my g6 and that can shoot at a higher iso (3200 iso max on the g6 vs 6400 iso on the gh4) I use the g6 now on the steadicam and shoot the first dance with it, they often kill almost all the light and 3200 iso is often just not enough but I could live with 6400 iso. 6400 iso on the gh4 is also much cleaner then on the gh3 and there I would see a bigger benefit shooting in 4k at very dark environments as once you downscale the noise should also become finer, having the option to reframe the first dance would also be interesting to use a wider and closer frame from one continuous shot.

The gh4 also has many small but important improvements like zebra's, higher rez viewvider and lcd but still is lacking a nd filter build in.

Currently a very interesting camera if you want to shoot at 4k and longer periods is the sony ax100, it only uses a 50mbs codec so that should give you plenty of recordingtime but you only need to consider that if you mix it's footage with your ea50 you will notice a resolution difference.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

If you compare a 4k image cropped to fit in a 1080p project or if you don't crop at all, do you see a difference? Are both easy to combine in one shot without noticing?

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

It reminds me of the quality when you select Ex Tele Conv, which I suppose is understandable. Slight difference in quality - softer, but I'm staring at my 22'' screen but half a metre from my face. Doubt a client would see it. Very useful in my last Wedding to grab very close up of the rings going on, when I was using the 12-35 lens. I'm not going to run a whole Ceremony on cropped, but those little shots, it does give you options I didn't have before.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Probably not! from a financial point of view at present. But maybe in two, three years time the price of media and i guess cams will have hopefully decreased, remember when memory was pretty expensive a few years back compared to now.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Thx, good to know, many have claimed there was no loss in quality but I"m sure if you see it I will as well. I have tested etc mode on my gh3 and eventhough you can use those shots I try to avoid using them alltogether, only just for those must have shots where content is more important.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

I remember getting a 16gb sdhc card not that many years back at the same price where I can buy a 64gb card for today.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

You were a late comer then Noa! I remember paying more for a 256MB card than you can get a 64GB card for now!

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

My first cards I got where for my canon 550d, before that I was shooting on tape with a canon xh-a1 :)

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Are you shooting weddings that are going to be seen in a movie theater on a 30 foot wide screen? If not, 4k is utter overkill. It's a solution in search of a problem.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

The ONE thing that interests me on 4K is the ability to crop when outputting HD or even DVD.

I just shot a dance recital and it would have been heaven to have all those pixels to play with since I'm only delivering on DVD! I could have had a single camera in the balcony and one to the side and got all my shots without having to move a muscle on the day trying to follow the dancers with a manned camera for closer shots.

For sure I can do some re-framing from HD, but 4K would have been even better since even HD doesn't give quite enough to capture and resize people at the back of the stage. Low light is still my main concern.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

With regard to cropping do bear in mind that wide angle lenses tend to be less than flattering to the human face whereas long lenses often make the face more appealing. This is a far bigger concern in stills portraiture for the obvious reason that a portrait is going to get stared at whereas a video is more transient. Most working photographers who specialise in human subjects are very much aware of this.

The human eye sees roughly the equivalent of a 50mm lens on a full frame sensor. Thats what we perceive as normal. If you start going down to 35mm 24mm etc you may get strong characterful images but they are far less likely to be pretty. Once you go to 85mm and beyond the enhancement afforded by "crushing" the perspective starts to kick in making for an altogether more flattering shot. Thats why many photographers like to use the long end of a 70-200mm for the bridal portraiture if space allows.

This has implications if you heavily crop a wide angle shot or clip. So the advantage of being able to crop a 4k clip may not always be as great as it first appears.

Pete

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Indeed, but when your wide camera is still zoomed in to fill the frame for just the stage width then it may not be such a problem....?

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

I was looking at the Sony AX100 last week. Hmm.. big bang for the buck Any opinions ??

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Fair point.You'd need an editing program that made that easy - I know it would be pretty tedious in Edius. You'd have all the advantages of a multicam shoot without having to worry about matching color and exposure.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

I did the same analysis Noa did, and "jumped the shark" on the AX100. If I'd had the investment in the GH series + glass, I'd have swung that way.

Pan and crop in Vegas is easy, and will work nicely from the tests I've run. I'm not entirely sold on 30p, but unless you've got brides running madly, it probably isn't a big issue! The AX100 shoots 30 VERY sharp high res images per second - I have to see if I can induce at least a little motion blur with shutter speed to make motion seem more natural, but that may or may not work or be advantageous. Need more time to experiment!!

Low light on the AX100 is good enough (you're already at 30 shutter speed in low light, right?), and it holds through the zoom range better than the PJ760, which goes dark at the long end b/c of aperture.

I'm a little nervous about handheld with ANY 4K camera, simply because any motion really stands out with a super sharp image (tradeoffs). RS/skew seems to be more prominent in 4K mode, likely due to the readout of the full sensor. Still experimenting a bit, but the AX100 has a high bitrate 1080/60p mode too, if motion/RS/skew is an issue... seems to "solve" those.

I figured the AX100 would replace at least a couple cameras for a typical "event" shoot (wide and "zoom" potential from one 4K + pan/crop), so the math wasn't as daunting. I'm sold on the sharpness, like the "feel" of the camera, and have reduced the number of cameras once again (the RX10 meant culling the herd too).

You probably don't NEED it, but there are definite uses for it, some of them even "practical"!

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Pan & Scan is trivial in FCPX, I've been doing it for the last couple of days on HD footage destined only for DVD and having done some tests, it's not so bad on 4K footage either in terms of speed of playback / rendering etc.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

I've been trying to find some low light footage (original - not YouTube) that I can look at and do some pan & scan on.... any ideas where I can find some?

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

How is the low light from the ax100 compared to the pj760 when both lenses are wide, so before any ramping occurs?

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

This should be on somebody's signature..Straight to the point. Bravo.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

A very sobering thought, that we often miss, is the conversation that I had with a couple on Monday evening. Normally I just talk to the bride and the "hubby to be" just hovers in the background. However this guy liked to talk "tech" and went on about 4K and forthcoming future 8K etc etc and after trying desperately to get him to keep quiet, I asked the bride about her feelings on the topic and she said "I haven't the faintest idea what you guys are talking about" ..I said to her "All you want is a nice wedding video you can watch, right?" ... She replied "Exactly"

We often miss the point that the bride (who is normally the person who decides what vendors get chosen) simply wants a nice recording of her special day without any technical mumbo jumbo to go with it!

She really doesn't care what format you use and simply wants a watchable wedding video. To brides content is king and we often get so tied up in the technical aspects that we forget that!

Chris

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

CONTENT is ALWAYS king... otherwise pixellated wobbly videos wouldn't go "viral"... or show up on the news... etc...

The technical aspect should be somewhat "invisible", and generally IS, up until the point where the quality is so degraded that it becomes a distraction. or everyone looks like Smurfs... or has their heads cut off...

Because we have to look at the "raw, uncut" footage (usually quite a few times!), we see EVERY little thing, including things that just aren't that big a deal to most viewers.

But who can blame us for wanting the BEST raw clips to work with, no matter how bad the lighting/ambient conditions? It's a pain to try to coax something usable out of a murky grainy mess! We want to work with GOOD clips! Being able to crop/pan and retain image quality is a nice advantage...

Everyone may not have a HUGE TV now, but with prices coming down, it's likely they WILL, do you want the stuff you shot to look low budget when they get that new TV? HD is likely going to be "just fine" for at least a couple years going forward, but like it or not, 4K IS coming. Technology marches onward.


At least from my viewpoint, there are some technical advantages to having a 4K camera in my kit, it's not a "necessity", but it IS practical IMO (and that WAS the question, right?), and I can see the difference on even a small screen. Call it "overkill" all you want, I wasn't a big fan of DLSR video... but it has a place as well... it's all just tools to do "the job"!

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Thank you. My wife and I go the movies all the time, and by preference, we sit in the front row. And even on a movie screen occupying our full field of vision, 4K is enough. I'm hard pressed to imagine a situation in a home where the difference between 1080P and 4K will be apparent.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

My concern is always low light performance as well so one needs a way better sensor to resolve an image 4 x an HD one ..I notice that despite 8 mp sensors the low light performance hasn't really changed and the cameras are talking about a 4lux rating at 1/30th second shutter which is a bit worse than a HD camera.

I struggle already with low light ! On our old 4:3 SD cameras we never has many low light issues either as the image was a tiny 720x480 so cameras like the Sony PD150 used to be a low light master compared to what we are working with today and the old SD's used to often boast a lux of 0.1 at 1/60th shutter !!

I guess the time will come, like when SD cameras eventually vanished when we will have to replace our current cameras with 4K models but by then 8K will be here and people will start having their 30' wide TV's built into a wall of the house!!

Chris

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

The panasonic gh4 also has the same lowlight sensitivity then the gh3 with the same size sensor, but it is cleaner at high iso, so 4k doesn't have any negative impact on that performance, from what I have read so far the ax100 is the same or even a bit better in low light then the cx730, which is already very good, but that's why I asked Dave if he could confirm. 'lux' rating doesn't say anything, real life comparisons do and they don't show any negative impact so far, actually an improvement in that area.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Took a bit to dig out the PJ760 (same sensor block as your EU CX730). I'm going from the LCD, but here's what I noted - the 7xx series seems to push the saturation to make the image look brighter, while the AX100 is a bit more "flat" and natural. Both are brighter than "nekkid eye", though they are likely gained out, meaning some noise. The AX100 seems able to actually reach deeper into the shadows than the 760, meaning you'd get "something".rather than murk.

My feeling from first use of the RX100M2 was that low light was not a huge issue, and that Sony got this sensor "right". I feel confident that I can push the RX's and the AX and get what I "need" in low light, even if it means cranking the ISO (RX), or letting the gain rise (AX). Even with "noise", as long as the image holds up reasonably well it should "do". An LED light is an easy add on, and I don't shoot black cats at midnight in a dark room that often anyway... and I try to avoid swinging the camera back and forth wildly when I do...

The RX10 has a little advantage with the constant f/2.8, but the AX100 lens range holds up very well, definitely much more usable on the tele end of the range than the 760.

For me the AX100 replaced a couple PJ710's, and I'm still debating whether the PJ760 stays or goes... the BOSS stabilization and compact size being the things I'm debating... generally speaking the AX100 is overall a "better" camera in almost all respects (and that's if you don't factor in the 4K), and that's pretty good considering the 7xx series are excellent cameras for what they do. It should of course be better given the higher price!

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

As soon as my cx730's are up for replacement the ax100 will most probably be the ones to take over, considering Sony does replace models quite fast I"m sure the ax100 will sell for a few 100's less in 1 or 1,5 year, usually there is a considerable pricedrop just before a new model is released.

Edit: A bit off topic but I just noticed that the nex-ea50 inclusing stocklens has received a 1000 euro price drop going from 3600 euro to 2650 euro in a Dutch store, it's just 100 euro above the price of a sony nx70 now, maybe a sign of a new upcoming 4k model? It looks like I sold my nex-ea50 in time.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Sorry to derail this thread.

I asked this question before. If the Lord of the Rings trilogy exists as a 2K master, as do many modern Hollywood blockbusters, why would any bride anywhere ever need or want a 4K wedding video?

2K has been the standard in cinemas, not living rooms, since the dawn of digital intermediates in the film production pipeline. And before that, 35mm release prints often had an equivalent resolution at or lower than 2K. And I think we all agree cinema projection looks pretty good.

This 4K things seems like marketing hype at its worst. I can't usually tell the difference between a 720p and 1080p rip of a blu-ray on my decent 55" LCD. And I actually care about image quality.

I get there are benefits to acquiring the image at a higher resolution than you intend to deliver to the client. But it would seem to be much more important to focus on shooting the story effectively with the tools at your disposal, even if those tools "only" deliver a 1080p image. Heck, most of the best wedding videos ever made have been shot with DSLRS, and many of those deliver an effective resolution lower than 1080p.

And they'll still look good in 50 years, if we actually have anything that will play the files or discs :)

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Most Hollywood masters do indeed exists as a 2K master, but many were shot at 4K or even 5K in the first place. Now, if they could shoot everything at 2K in order to end up with a 2K master don't you think they would save themselves all the hassle and expense of 4K/5K in the first place?

We need to stop thinking in terms of shooting only what we deliver, or only delivering what we shoot.

There are many reasons to shoot 4K, the question is whether it's going to suit your workflow and business model. For the low price people who want in and out as quickly as possible then shooting as close as possible to the delivery format makes sense. for those who want more flexibility in post then having more resolution may be beneficial.

Cost of cameras is still a major factor, but prices will come down just as it did when people were asking why anyone would shoot HD when all they delivered was DVD.

Processing power of computers is still a factor, but over time things will improve, just like they did during the SD to HD transition.

Storage is going to be a perpetual problem, as it is now with HD, but worse.

In some countries 4K will take off pretty quickly and while we only seem to get requests for DVD, in other countries Blu-ray has taken off much more and those people can't understand why anyone would want the inferior DVD.

To me, 4K has much more legs than 3D ever did.

How long have HD TVs been out? Try buying a standard def TV today. 4K is coming faster than HD did. How long before you can no longer buy an HD TV?

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Have you actually seen a 4K film on a 4K tv ad compared that to a 1080p one? If not then you can't call it a hype.

About cinema being projected at 2K, like Dave said they are usually shot at 4 or 5K so that also should translate to a very detailled 2K image, those who shoot cinema (and I don't mean us wedding guy's :) use equipment, lenses and software many of us can only dream of. The last blu-ray film I saw of a movie had an incredible amount of detail in it viewed from a regular 1080p screen, something I have not been able to reproduce with my own 1080p camera's, not even close but it shows that the resolution you start shooting with and ofcourse hard- and software used do matter to what the final output looks like, even if it is "only" 2K.

Even 4K downsized to 720p on vimeo looks sharper then something from the same camera (like a gh3/4) that can only shoot 1080p so for those who want a better 1080p then 4K does have the advantage.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

All one needs to do is look at some of the samples on the endless AX100 thread <wink>. It's not "hype", it's like looking through a window instead of looking at video.

I saw distinct advantages to shooting one camera and pan/crop, looking forward to shooting that way with less gear to wrangle. YMMV.

The price will come down, there will be more choices of capture devices, I suspect 60p will relatively quickly become standard rather than 30p, hard drives will get bigger/faster, memory prices will drop yet again... and so on.

I agree that 4K is something that will be adopted more quickly, 3D had/has too many technical issues, but the industry needs a direction in which to "improve"... Not sure about the adoption curve, I walked the aisles at the local Costco just days ago, and there was exactly ONE 4K TV... very expensive one at that! We still don't have a "4K delivery format", so THAT might be a problem <wink>.

About sharpness and detail... obviously there are ways to make even a DVD look very very sharp and crisp (yeah, like for the BR promos!), so it's distinctly POSSIBLE to improve what the viewer sees. I'm sure the better the equipment, the capture resolution, and the post processing, the better the end result that can be achieved...

That said, often when "film look" is being discussed, it seems to me that film grain, and a "soft" or "dreamy" look tends to come up... so looping back to the "looking through a window" vibe... that may or may not be the desired "look"?

I suppose it all depends on what you are trying to achieve, and which tools you decide to use, but again, the question was "practical", not "desirable", not "technically superior", not even "a necessity"... PRACTICAL. Not everyone will answer "yes", but dismissing it entirely is shortsighted.

We all use lots of different tools, a 4K "hammer" may be a handy addition to the toolkit, for some people at that junction looking to update equipment. I picked up an AX100 at a good price, and sold off a couple of cameras to offset the cost (AKA, broke even, maybe even made a little). I like the 4K hammer, with a few reservations... and those can be worked around, IMO. A very "practical" addition in my book. YMMV.

And yes, a long delayed computer upgrade added additional "costs", but I've gotten more done on the new system, so it's paying for itself too. And it's 99% quiet to boot, which makes life more pleasant! Sometimes there are unexpected benefits!

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

If you are dealing with brides and grooms who are non technical then I seem to wonder if we do, in fact go above and beyond.

I was playing a demo DVD on the groom's 50" plasma TV which cost him close to $8K (that will give you an idea how long ago that was) I was still shooting in SD 4:3 in those days and my little Panasonic AVC20's , fixed 46mm diameter zoom lens and tiny 1/6" CCD sensors. We put a beach wedding demo up on this (then) enormous screen and the groom said "Wow, it's so clear!" and that was 720x576 4:3 on an old camera too!! Fair enough it was a great day and the light was just right too and I admit it looked good but apart from good focus I doubt whether he was looking at anything past "sharpness" and once satisfied he was happy ... Then again he might have been expecting it to look like his parent's old VHS wedding??

Going back to 4K ... What would be the issue on previewing 4K footage on an i7 computer ...My 1080 previews in Sony Vegas pretty much OK on the i7 but would 4K require a faster machine?? Also has anyone any idea if rendering from 4K would be a lot longer than 1080?? Only asking as for a wedding business upgrades are often a lot more than just getting new cameras ...you end up having to buy a new computer, bigger drives so the costs do affect the business and have to be viable!

Chris

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Hi Chris -

I'm still working on the "workflow", and I retired the I7 920 system right before the AX100 landed, in favor of an i7 4770K on a board with integrated 4K capability. Not super impressed with the "integrated" graphics, but seem to be adequate for previewing and editing thus far. Primary motivation was to be able to display 4K on a cheap-o Seiki 39"
"monitor" (re-purposed TV!). There are quirks, and I'm not 100% convinced that this TV can be entirely color balanced, but it looks pretty good. I suspect a clean "Winders" install on the old 920 and a better, more current graphics card might have been a viable option, but I wanted raw processing horsepower, "current" features like USB 3, and overclocking headroom. Goal was to have a system that will be good for a few years doing all the things I need to do, including editing...

Offhand, I'd say the "jump" is smaller than from SD to HDV, but I'm still "tuning" this new computer to figure out which bits most affect the performance! This was a "cheap" build, but I still am happy with the overall results. I'm going to try doubling the RAM from 16 to 32... and considering an SSD for the "working files" for editing - I suspect my older 7200RPM HDDs are showing their age... Hoping that the integrated graphics will do, really don't want to add a dedicated card with a noisy fan, I've got a nearly silent build at the moment, and I don't miss the noise one bit!



Ultimately, we probably obsess on image quality far beyond even the pickiest client - for them the order of things is probably more along the lines of:

#1 CONTENT
#2 "healthy" white balance
#3 good brightness/contrast
#4 proper focus
#5 good framing
#6 stable, non-wobbly camera work

Frame rates, resolution, gain, ISO's, shutter speeds, apertures... what camera is used, what grip gear is used, etc... probably completely inconsequential to the end customer, even though they play into the above.

We see it as creators/artists, they see it as viewers/consumers, and probably don't care as long as it "looks good", and "moves" them!

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

I think proper focus comes first and then content, there is nothing so distracting as a shot that is out of focus, 4k is even less forgiving then HD and a out of focus shot will stick out like a sore thumb on that 4K tv. Full frame and 4K, now that will be a challenge for anyone shooting with fast primes, glad I do shoot m4/3 camera's so I at least have a dof that is a bit more manageable.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Good content would be useless if it was all fuzzy so you are right Noa.

I think with brides who maybe don't understand a shallow DOF it is a fine line between "that's cool" and "why is that face fuzzy" .. I'm shooting mostly with my Sigma 18-35 F1.8 at receptions so I try to stay as wide as I can so at least my DOF covers something like a table couple in a shot and keeps just the background out of focus.

The EA-50 is pretty darn good with Colour balance is most lighting and the last thing you want is the bridesmaid's delicate pink dresses coming out as orange in the footage.

Of course framing and no wobbles is what keeps us out of the "Uncle Joe" category!

That's a good list Dave! and sometimes we just have no option but to shoot in really low light! At F1.8 I can now work without lighting (hated by guests!) in most situations which is better.

Chris

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Its not as simple as a single 4k track. Most of us use multiple tracks - thats when computers struggle. When I enable multiamera editing - my i7 PC with 16GB ram, can only just play everything smoothly at 'Preview - Auto' on Vegas.

And thats with my PC setup that it looks like its from the turn of the millenium. All the visual frills have been taken off to conserve ram.

It does look horrible as an interface.

I downloaded a 4K clip from Philip Bloom a month ago - tried to play it and got a blue screen of death.

I'm far from convinced that 4K is workable for the vast majority of us. Not without expense way beyond the cost of a GH4.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Pete, keep in mind it is the subject-to-lens distance which has the biggest effect on perspective - not the focal length. If you shoot with a 24mm lens and crop it to achieve the same image framing as an 85mm lens shot from the same distance away, the perspective will be exactly the same (though DOF will be different). A wider lens does not inherently make people look worse - what makes unflattering photos is the decreased subject-to-lens distance which many people will employ in order to compose a portrait with such a lens.

Of course, beyond a certain point wide-angle lenses do have a tendency to distort faces due to lens distortion, but this effect is not at all related to perspective and will distort faces no matter how near or far they are.

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

Well... if you completely mangle any of 2-6, content might become useless, thus why we stress about everything that helps us "nail" those elements! We've all seen clips with "Smurfette", fuzzy 20/200 focus, chopped "tops", blown highlights or mushy mud, and seasickness inducing wobblies... yet some of it manages to STILL "go viral" or end up on broadcast news (won't go into the weird white balance that seems to be a characteristic of financial TV here, one gal is pink, the guy is green, they all look rather sickly...)

So far I'm not finding focus to be an issue with 4K on the Sony 1" sensor - but I'm sure there will be moments... might not be as easy with a FF!


@Clive -

FWIW, I've never had really high resolution playback with Vegas and multicam... I think I refuse to spend up on a video card...?! BUT, I can get a USEABLE resolution, and 4K seems to be in the same league thus far. I am hoping for better, and will continue to experiment with "lo budget" options.

The video played direct out of the HDMI to the cheap-o 4K TV "monitor" looks quite nice, so it's "possible", even if that nut ain't cracked quite yet! Frankly, that was why I wanted to get the AX100 - better to get the learning curve out of the way! The nuances of 4K workflow still lay ahead, but I'll jump off those bridges as I come to them! HDV wasn't a picnic "back in the day"...

Just putting together a "4K capable" computer system has been an adventure, taking far more time to iron out all the kinks, or at least figure out workarounds, than other builds I've done! But it also was done as cheap as possible, and the results have been very satisfying, I now have the equivalent of 5 1920x1080 monitors/desktops, a quiet system, and it's fast, if a little clunky/quirky at times (including a couple reproducible software related BSOD's).

Re: Will 4K cameras be practical for weddings?
 

I think more Hollywood productions use the 2K Arri Alexa than a 4K+ camera.

I agree. As I said, I understand there are benefits for shooting at a higher resolution than you deliver. I shoot at 1080p but deliver most projects at 720p. That being said, I would never dream of abandoning a multi-camera shoot in favor of one 4K camera and then jump cutting all over one larger frame.


There are countries where the majority of clients want a Blu-ray over a DVD? If I'm doing a wedding, I automatically give the couple a Blu-ray and a DVD (unless they tell me they don't want a Blu-ray). But I've never had anyone go out of their way to request a Blu-ray.

This is what I don't get. Who cares if all you can buy are TV's with a 4K sticker? There will still be countless high-end feature "films" and television programs that do not exist in 4K, many of which probably never will. If they originally looked good in the cinema, they will still look great on the television in your home, no matter how big it is or what maximum resolution it supports.