With Red 8K Raw, movie recording surpasses most still cameras

[eronald]

http://www.newsshooter.com/2016/10/01/mark-toia-shows-just-what-a-red-helium-8k-camera-can-do/

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

http://www.newsshooter.com/2016/10/01/mark-toia-shows-just-what-a-red-helium-8k-camera-can-do/

Hi Edmund,

'Most' still cameras don't have 35 MP sensors, and are a bit cheaper to acquire ...

"He also claims that lenses, and not the camera, are having a bigger effect on the final image than other factors."

Cheers,
Bart

[Rob C]

I feel for him; so many boxes to tick! Reminds me of the famous Dire Straits song about microwave ovens...

Seriously, though, it would be very nice to have a machine that can do it all in one body, and small at that. Thank goodness I don't have such problems to face every day - or at all. Mine are all far more basic. ;-(

Rob

[rdonson]

More large pixels are better..... I think I've heard that before.

Nice production though and perhaps RED will use it as a commercial.

[eronald]

More large pixels are better..... I think I've heard that before.

Nice production though and perhaps RED will use it as a commercial.

Red is obviously using it as an infomercial.

Thing is, it does make still photography as easy as cutting one frame out of hundred thousands.

Edmund

[rdonson]

I'm sure it does.

I wonder what that rig he's shooting with costs...

[BJL]

Thing is, it does make still photography as easy as cutting one frame out of hundred thousands.

When and how well does such frame-gabbing work in practice, given that the exposure times in motion photography are typically around 1/120s for 60fps, and longer for lower frame rates? Naively this would only seem useful for subjects that are moving slowly or not at all. Is panning with the main subject enough to control the blurring?

By the way, that raises a related question: how often can you get true "8K" sharpness in the video presentation when those exposure times are combined with typical levels of subject motion (or camera panning)?  Will the trend towards 8K push us to higher frame rates, so as to control motion blurring?  Is the rolling shutter a savior here?

[BernardLanguillier]

Red is obviously using it as an infomercial.

Thing is, it does make still photography as easy as cutting one frame out of hundred thousands.

That is if you have an optimum movie shutter speed comparable with what an optimum still shutter speed would have been for the scene, right?

I gather that in most cases those differ, right?

So yes, you can buy an 80,000 US$ video rig to generate average still frames of lower quality than what a Pentax K1 would have achieved with a dedicated photographic intent.

Color me impressed by the relevance!

The very idea, mostly promoted by Canon who designed some of their recent cameras such as the 1Dx MkII around the concept, is mostly relevant for press usage when photographers only need to target what is pretty much the lowest level of photographic quality there is among pro applications. The potential of images quality of 8K video capture (pretty much IMAX level) is IMHO completely incompatible with the level of compromises the double video/still intend imposes.

I do understand that 8K will go down in price in the next 5 years, but I strongly question the practicality when you see the quality of well produced 2K on a high end flat screen TV. I'd rather remove the compression artifacts of 2K than going to 4K or 8K. In my view we are still far from doing 2K well enough to bother with higher resolutions.

Cheers,
Bernard

[eronald]

That is if you have an optimum movie shutter speed comparable with what an optimum still shutter speed would have been for the scene, right?

I gather that in most cases those differ, right?

So yes, you can buy an 80,000 US$ video rig to generate average still frames of lower quality than what a Pentax K1 would have achieved with a dedicated photographic intent.

Color me impressed by the relevance!

The very idea, mostly promoted by Canon who designed some of their recent cameras such as the 1Dx MkII around the concept, is mostly relevant for press usage when photographers only need to target what is pretty much the lowest level of photographic quality there is among pro applications. The potential of images quality of 8K video capture (pretty much IMAX level) is IMHO completely incompatible with the level of compromises the double video/still intend imposes.

I do understand that 8K will go down in price in the next 5 years, but I strongly question the practicality when you see the quality of well produced 2K on a high end flat screen TV. I'd rather remove the compression artifacts of 2K than going to 4K or 8K. In my view we are still far from doing 2K well enough to bother with higher resolutions.ndscape

Cheers,
Bernard

Actually the 1DxII has no EVF so you wouldn't want to use it for point and shoot news video.
Now if you set the shutter speed high enough, you can do super-resolution landscape by adding frames, notice how video is always perceptually sharp - and also you can choose exactly the right moment for fashion. This is going to be what your random camera can do in 5 or 6 years so get ready for the future.
 
Edmund

[Bernard ODonovan]

... This is going to be what your random camera can do in 5 or 6 years so get ready for the future.
 
Edmund

The toaster phone market is a tough one:

http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=103462.0

[Petrus]

A $650 Nikon DL 24-85 with 20.8 MPix does 60 frames per sec… Good enough for me.

[BJL]

Now if you set the shutter speed high enough, you can do super-resolution landscape by adding frames . . .

Correct me if I'm wrong, but i believe that if you raise the shutter speed to what works for such high resolution still photography of a moving subject – so that the shutter angle is far less than 180º – the video looks bad except as a special effect ("staccato"?).  So I see the potential of high speed high resolution burst still photography and 8K video from the same camera, but not at the same time.

Some comparisons to still cameras: several I know of offer 60fps, but with AF only before the first frame: the 1" format Nikon DL 24-85 and several Nikon One bodies, and the forth-comng Olympus OMD EM1 Mk 2 (all 20MP, just under "6K").  Maybe it is fairer to require AF for each frame: then all those Nikon 1" format models offer 20fps while the Olympus 4/3" model promises 18fps.  This is all with the possible defects of electronic shutter (rolling shutter), but the same is true for Red video frame grabs.

Aside: it is interesting but not so surprising that the highest still photography frame rates are now coming from mirrorless cameras in the smaller formats.

. . . notice how video is always perceptually sharp . . .

Frame grabs from video usually look less sharp than the video feed, probably because you get to scrutinize the frame rather than having successive frames blurred together by your visual system. Remember how bad early VGA resolution digital still camera images looked compared to VGA video?

[Ray]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but i believe that if you raise the shutter speed to what works for such high resolution still photography of a moving subject – so that the shutter angle is far less than 180º – the video looks bad except as a special effect ("staccato"?).  So I see the potential of high speed high resolution burst still photography and 8K video from the same camera, but not at the same time.

Interesting point, BJL. Whilst I've briefly played around with the video capabilities of my DSLRs, and recorded a few traditional songs and dances in remote regions in Nepal on occasions, I haven't really developed much interest in video, perhaps in part because of the perception that the video one sees on TV, often taken with very expensive equipment and involving a number of assistants to arrange the lighting, and so on, is probably so much more professional than I feel I could ever achieve with my basic DSLR.

However, with the advent of 4k video, and now 8k video, and also sometimes the facility to extract an original RAW image from the video, my interest is renewed.
From experience I find there have been so many occasions when one photographs a scene with a still camera, but misses the critical and most interesting moment which sometimes occurs immediately after lowering the camera.

Shooting bursts of 8k video with the facility to extract any single 32mp frame in RAW mode, sounds fantastic.
However, I can appreciate the problem that the video play-back of a bird in flight, shot with a shutter speed of 1,000th of a second, might appear a bit choppy, or less fluid, because the interval between each shot is so much greater at a particular frame rate..

From what I gather, for video motion to appear completely natural, the shutter speed should be no greater than double the frame rate of display. If this is the case, I can see a couple of technological solutions. (1) Create a display that can repeat each individual frame several times so that the total duration of all the intervals in between the display of each frame, is reduced. (2) Create a display with the technological facility to increase the display time of each individual frame to a certain ideal period, regardless of the shutter speed used.

For example, if the display frame rate is 24p, then each frame could be displayed continuously for, say, 1/30th sec, regardless of the shutter speed used.
Have I misunderstood the problem?

[shadowblade]

At 25fps and 8k, you can shoot video with the same camera as stills, but not simultaneously. At this point, there's no functional difference between an action camera and a video camera. Set it to 1/25 for video, or 1/500-1/1000 for stills.

At 250fps and faster, you start to be able to shoot video and stills simultaneously. The faster the action, the faster the frame rate required.

[Petrus]

Have I misunderstood the problem?

Yes.

The problem with video shot at fast shutter speeds is that the frames have no motion blur and do not blend together on playback. There is no need to repeat frames, in normal television they are already shown 1/30 (NTSC) or 1/25 of a second each*, no matter what the shooting exposure time was.

*) If we forget the interleaving standard television still utilizes for historical reasons. Practically all material is now shot in progressive mode anyway, so it is a moot point.

[Ray]

The problem with video shot at fast shutter speeds is that the frames have no motion blur and do not blend together on playback. There is no need to repeat frames, in normal television they are already shown 1/30 (NTSC) or 1/25 of a second each*, no matter what the shooting exposure time was.

*) If we forget the interleaving standard television still utilizes for historical reasons. Practically all material is now shot in progressive mode anyway, so it is a moot point.

If this is true, I'm having difficulty in understanding what the benefits of 4k and 8k video are for moving subjects, and certainly for fast moving subjects like football. Perhaps the benefits are just a sharper background. Is this the case?

[Petrus]

Some comparisons to still cameras: several I know of offer 60fps, but with AF only before the first frame: the 1" format Nikon DL 24-85 and several Nikon One bodies, and the forth-comng Olympus OMD EM1 Mk 2 (all 20MP, just under "6K").  Maybe it is fairer to require AF for each frame: then all those Nikon 1" format models offer 20fps while the Olympus 4/3" model promises 18fps.  This is all with the possible defects of electronic shutter (rolling shutter), but the same is true for Red video frame grabs.

Aside: it is interesting but not so surprising that the highest still photography frame rates are now coming from mirrorless cameras in the smaller formats.
Frame grabs from video usually look less sharp than the video feed, probably because you get to scrutinize the frame rather than having successive frames blurred together by your visual system. Remember how bad early VGA resolution digital still camera images looked compared to VGA video?

Does the new Red 8k camera have continuous autofocus? I guess certainly not, so comparing autofocus frame rates is not correct.

Video sharpness: most people still watch VGA (NTSC or PAL DV standard is about the same) resolution TV quite happily, even with large flat panel TVs. I do. With a moving picture we really do not care about absolute sharpness, there is more to draw your attention to. Even most movie theatres show only 2K digital, and 35mm film projection actually has less resolution than 2K. Still moves look great on the silver screen!

[Petrus]

If this is true, I'm having difficulty in understanding what the benefits of 4k and 8k video are for moving subjects, and certainly for fast moving subjects like football. Perhaps the benefits are just a sharper background. Is this the case?

More sharpness is more sharpness, even if nobody is really needing it under normal circumstances, especially with home TVs. It is called marketing. What we need more is higher frame rates, and now many movies are already shot with 4K and 48 fps frame rate. Then some movie buffs complain that it is too fluid and "unnatural", meaning it does not look like a stuttering movie should...

Higher shooting resolutions do offer one nice feature: possibility of reframing slightly in post, and post-process camera shake removal.

[BernardLanguillier]

If this is true, I'm having difficulty in understanding what the benefits of 4k and 8k video are for moving subjects, and certainly for fast moving subjects like football. Perhaps the benefits are just a sharper background. Is this the case?

Perhaps because you use the same TV also for subjects that don't move?

Cheers,
Bernard

[BernardLanguillier]

Hi everyone,

if you shoot with a motion camera like that you can do video and stills at the same time. You use "high frame rate", ~120 fps, with short exposure time. In post you can introduce the amount motion blur you want to the video, even locally, by combining the motion information from different frames. These things are still a bit experimental, but it is just computer science.

Thit is the new way: keep all decisions open to the very end. But art is a continuous stream of decisions. So these techniques will produce images bigger than live, but not art. But that is just like my opinion man (http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/opinionated.gif).

Well, I agree about your view that this isn't really photography the way I look at it. One could argue that high speed shooting with a D5 in continuous mode also isn't and that may be true.

Now, on the software post processing, I guess it may be doable, but is the desire to capture average stills strong enough to compromise the main purpose, which is typically to capture video? Different applications will have different answers I guess. In reality, the only applications I would imagine would opt for this are low margin stuff such as event, press and sports.

Cheers,
Bernard