any wedding videographers switching to 4k yet? any comments?

sdeweddings

yesterday, I had a bride from Toronto asking us to deliver video for her in 4k, her wedding is 2018 so we still have a lot of time to transition.

did anyone else have any experience with this?

i know is not an easy process, first camera then post.

is a lot of trouble, but i suppose this is a sign of what it is to come.

Weisel

Well, I recently bought a 5D Mk IV, with 4k video. I'm a wedding photographer who is now adding vid to my offerings. Haven't done much for pay work yet, but this thing is amazing.

ziggy53

Remember to price accordingly. 4k is still a premium format if done properly. Prices should be commensurate with the additional quality.

4k means different things to different people. Do they require DCI (4096 x 2160) or UHD (3840 x 2160)?

Are they expecting multiple viewing angles? Will they allow intercuts with FullHD/2k?

Full wedding coverage? (Long format)

What are they expecting for deliverables? Disc? HD? Streaming? Highlights on a flash drive?

Cygnus Studios

@ziggy53 said:
Remember to price accordingly. 4k is still a premium format if done properly. Prices should be commensurate with the additional quality.

I thought that 4K was pretty much the norm these days? It's been 3 or 4 years since I've seen anybody use 1080 on a commercial project.

ziggy53

.> @Cygnus Studios said:

@ziggy53 said:
Remember to price accordingly. 4k is still a premium format if done properly. Prices should be commensurate with the additional quality.

I thought that 4K was pretty much the norm these days? It's been 3 or 4 years since I've seen anybody use 1080 on a commercial project.

For weddings? I still see a hefty price difference between FullHD and UHD packages being advertised. (Some wedding production houses are still advertising HD packages.)

I would also discount those production houses shooting with consumer equipment with UHD output but extremely lossy codec acquisition, sub-par lenses, bleached highlights and crushed shadows. The potential of UHD is lost without high production values throughout.

Cygnus Studios

My confusion came with "4k is still a premium format" and that didn't make a ton of sense to me as it has been around for a while now. Why should anyone pay extra just for everyday equipment? It's not like anyone has to rent "special" equipment.

So after I read this yesterday I did some research (I love to learn) and sure enough the majority do charge an extra fee for 4k, but don't say why.

Then I began to find a few that did, and they stated something along the lines of:

"Because of the amount of digital information in the 4K format, editing is more complex and time consuming. That means the cost of putting the video together will be higher."

Now if this is true (I can't say for sure since I know next to nothing about photo editing and absolutely nothing about video editing) and you are spending more time on the project, absolutely you should charge more. Time is money.

kdog

Just the volume of data will kill you. Canon DSLRs like the 5DMKIV use the motion-JPG recording method for 4K video which generates 4GB of data per minute. That's 240GB of video per hour (or 1/4 Terrabyte). Now multiply that by how many hours of video you're capturing during the day, times how many camera angles you want. Think about that. Are you up for managing multiple Terrabytes for one wedding, with a modest up-charge for 4K? I don't think so.

And sure, there are DSLRs that have much more efficient 4K compression formats. However, they're so processor intensive that you typically can record only minutes of video at a time without stopping to let the camera cool off. Those won't do the job.

JonaBeth Russell

Chances are, your best bet will be to use an external recorder & HDD setup to capture so much data. As already pointed out, there will be multiple TB stored.

We shoot a few weddings per year, and have yet to ever have anyone directly request 4k video. In fact, most viewing devices cannot even display 4k yet, so it's mostly a moot point.

kdog

@JonaBeth Russell said:
Chances are, your best bet will be to use an external recorder & HDD setup to capture so much data. As already pointed out, there will be multiple TB stored.

That actually doesn't work either for Canon DSLRs. Even the 1DX Mark II doesn't write 4K to the HDMI port. You have to move to a full video camera like a Canon "C" series to get external 4K. I know other brands claim they do that. However I know some or maybe even most of them can't actually record continuous video for any long period without over-heating. I'd be interested in hearing about any that really can.

We shoot a few weddings per year, and have yet to ever have anyone directly request 4k video. In fact, most viewing devices cannot even display 4k yet, so it's mostly a moot point.

That's my thought as well.

JonaBeth Russell

@kdog said:

That actually doesn't work either for Canon DSLRs. Even the 1DX Mark II doesn't write 4K to the HDMI port. You have to move to a full video camera like a Canon "C" series to get external 4K. I know other brands claim they do that. However I know some or maybe even most of them can't actually record continuous video for any long period without over-heating. I'd be interested in hearing about any that really can.

Ahhh, you're right. I was in 'Magic Lantern' land when I wrote my comment. As I understand, a 5DmkIII can now shoot 3.5k video using ML, and will output via HDMI, but I could be mistaken. Either way, I wouldn't do it for the trouble of data file sizes and whatnot. And like you said, overheating does become an issue after too many minutes of continuous capture. Right tools for the job and such I suppose (i.e. Cine-line as you mentioned).

ziggy53

My honest recommendation is to rent any 4k equipment necessary to fulfill the customer needs until you have enough requests to justify purchase. Things are moving unpredictably and markets are largely unproven.

That recommendation may include both acquisition and post-processing equipment.

kdog

@JonaBeth Russell said:

As I understand, a 5DmkIII can now shoot 3.5k video using ML, and will output via HDMI, but I could be mistaken. Either way, I wouldn't do it for the trouble of data file sizes and whatnot. And like you said, overheating does become an issue after too many minutes of continuous capture. Right tools for the job and such I suppose (i.e. Cine-line as you mentioned).

Thanks for reminding me, I really need to look into ML.

JonaBeth Russell

It turned my 7D into a beast of a camera. Unlocked more features than I have on my 7DmkII. It's now effectively a game camera, HDR maker, sport cam...does so much more, such as fire the shutter when the subject enters the focal area, or clap to fire (audio trigger), rack focus via the joystick, RAW video recording (bye bye crappy Canon compression), and the list is much much bigger than I can recall.

ziggy53

I've been a fan of Magic Lantern (ML) since 2012 and version 2.3 "stable beta". https://dgrin.com/discussion/224265/the-magic-lantern-thread

If you're pleased with the 7D and ML then you would love the 5D Mark III and ML. Having the ML boot from the SD card gives the camera a considerable extra ease of use, and the base capabilities of the 5D3 are better in every way, but the 7D and 5D3 are similar enough in operation to make that combination pretty fluid to move back and forth.

Currently, the Lexar Professional 1066x cards are best for the CF slot, and pretty much anything for the SD slot because it's not used to record.

sdeweddings

we ended up charging $500 for a 4k upgrade. only about 4 couple picked it this year. so is still a very low percentage. but a percentage that is slowly increasing.

ziggy53

SDEWeddings, thanks for the update. Best of luck with your business endeavors.

colourbox

@Cygnus Studios said:
Then I began to find a few that did, and they stated something along the lines of:
"Because of the amount of digital information in the 4K format, editing is more complex and time consuming. That means the cost of putting the video together will be higher."
Now if this is true (I can't say for sure since I know next to nothing about photo editing and absolutely nothing about video editing) and you are spending more time on the project, absolutely you should charge more. Time is money.

I am not a wedding videographer, but for some, the jump in data throughput going from 2K to 4K video would be like what every photographer experiences going from an 18 megapixel camera to a 36 megapixel camera (maybe worse): Suddenly all of the demands on your computer have multiplied, so every job takes up a lot more storage, editing takes more RAM, and edits make you wait much longer to render. This has an impact on a business's bottom line, if it means storage must be purchased more often and a computer must be upgraded sooner.

It is less of a problem if you just bought a system not too long ago, with the latest CPU and graphics card, and lots of RAM. Those should be 4K ready right now. But me for instance, I have two systems that have no problem editing 2K (1080p) HD, but both are old enough that neither can play back 4K in real time, and trying to edit it is like watching a slide show...a slow one! To edit 4K with any responsiveness on my systems, I must use a proxy workflow, and even then I can't play back the finished 4K video in real time on either system.

If I was a wedding videographer about to start offering 4K, I would have to add a premium to finance a capital outlay for some major hardware upgrades.

I can understand why couples would ask for 4K. 4K is a major marketing point for today's tech from big TVs all the way down to smartphones, so all the companies repeat 4K over and over in ads. And when you go into a store today, all the TVs are now 4K, it is an actual challenge to find the few remaining 2K TVs anyone is offering. 4K is the new default and has been since before Christmas. Regardless of whether a couple technically cares about or needs 4K, they may have it in their heads that "we've had a 4K TV for months, and a 4K Roku, and we have 4K video cameras on our iPhones, we're spending top dollar on everything else about our wedding so would it not suck to only have 2K video of it? We need to ask for 4K."