Still Not Shooting Video in 4K?

Recording in 4K is the rage these days. However, most of us and most of our clients will not be using a TV or monitor capable of displaying 4K resolution, so why bother? Peter McKinnon explains how you can use the large video size creatively and gives some tips, like how 4K footage down-sampled to 1080p looks much better that shooting 1080p.

Reasons to Shoot 4K

  1. Down-sampling from 4K to 1080p has richer colors and contrasts. It basically holds more information in the shot making it much more appealing and interesting. 
  2. You can use 4K as a second camera. You can crop in your shot to come in closer to your subject to create the impression of a second camera. 
  3. You can pan from left to right giving the same effect as a dolly or slider rig and increase production value of your video.

Card tricks aside, although I wish I could do that with a deck too, it's a short video containing a lot of valuable information. I didn't ever compare down-sampled 4K video to regular 1080p, but will surely use proxies in future to use 4K smoothly on my machine. My advice is to take the time and explore these methods yourself with a video you are editing.

Wouter du Toit's picture

Wouter is a portrait and street photographer based in Paris, France. He's originally from Cape Town, South Africa. He does image retouching for clients in the beauty and fashion industry and enjoys how technology makes new ways of photography possible.

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6 Comments

Maybe people aren't shooting 4K cause they have Canons and they can't.

Canon guy here. Lol'd. Love my GH5 though.

nor are Nikon shooters....(unusable crop)

That could be changing soon for Nikon.

Honestly as someone who many times still has to deliver in freaking DVDs, the only camera I have that shoots 4K is in my phone. Honestly, can't see the huge benefit of the premium. And having worked with both 4K cameras and 4K footage in editing, I'd say it may be more of a pain to work with. The cropping after the fact trick, sure may be cool but for a shot of 5 seconds, that you may need it, you can even do it with 1080 footage and some upscaling. If you constantly need that, you should rethink your choices. Also 1080 footage from a good camera looks just as good and sharp as its 4K.