First Footage from RED’s 8K Vista Vision WEAPON Camera4 min read
Reading Time: 3 minutesJust after we found out that RED’s 6K WEAPON MG cameras started shipping, we’re getting some of the first public 8K footage from their new Full-Frame 35mm/Vista Vision camera – courtesy of Michael Cioni of Light Iron.
Though footage was shown at Cine Gear on an 8K screen in June, it was mostly wide aerial shots. While these aerial shots were impressive, there wasn’t enough variation to really make much of a judgment. Now we have a full video with closeups that gives us a greater sense of what images shot with this camera will look like. Everything was shot in 8K except for a few of the secondary angles in the interview. Panavision’s new 70mm Primo lenses were used on the shoot, as they can cover up to medium format/65mm sensors like the ALEXA 65.
The first thing that everyone says when 8K is mentioned is why? Why is a good question, and there are lots of good answers. The camera is being used on the new Guardians film, and the director James Gunn explained his decision about choosing the 8K WEAPON here.
So as I said at the beginning; “There are already a number of people chatting about how unnecessary 8K is and that the “˜race for resolution’ is a pointless contest.”
What I encourage everyone to consider is that 8K is not the new 4K. Instead, 8K is about to open up an entirely new era of cameras which I now call “The Super Sensors.” Super Sensors are camera systems like Alexa65 or Weapon 8K that are capturing with so much resolution that (like a DSLR) they are able to create a new level of smoothness that makes things look more like a photograph and less like a digital representation of film. Ansel Adams shot large format and no one has ever said, “His images look too sharp!” On the contrary, Adams’ images look smoother, cleaner, and multi-dimensional because they were super samples. These are the creative words I think people will begin to use when describing what they see while shooting Weapon 8K.
As we’ve said a million times here on the site, single sensor cameras have a Bayer pattern (coloured filter) covering the monochrome pixels. Essentially, each individual pixel corresponds either to red, green, or blue, which means that a RAW image looks like nonsense – colours must be interpolated from surrounding pixels. As we get to higher resolution sensors, it’s not just about the resolution you’re shooting at, it’s about the detail you are resolving – which is actual resolution. This is part of the reason why we keep getting higher resolution DSLRs, and why medium format cameras still dominate higher-end photography. More resolution, in the right circumstance, can give you many more options later on.
People always talk about film having no resolution, and while that’s true, there is a limit to the amount of detail that can be resolved. The same is true for digital sensors, and if you’re shooting at 8K, you can’t ever resolve 8,000 lines or so. That’s because Debayering, the process of interpolating surrounding pixels, is a lossy process, and you’ll end up resolving a maximum of maybe 70-80% of the original resolution. That’s in a perfect world. In reality, temporal resolution (the resolution over time), plays a big role, as does the lenses you are using. Shoot a fast-moving object with bad lenses or with heavy filtration, and you’re no longer resolving anywhere near what you started with.
Does that mean we shouldn’t even bother with higher resolution cameras? No, it doesn’t! Just because we may not be maximising resolved detail in every shot, doesn’t mean there aren’t other artifacts at play with regards to resolution. If you want to finish at 4K, it can be hugely beneficial to start well above 4K. If you want to reframe, or VFX work needs more resolution for one reason or another, shooting only at 4K means you’re going to finish below 4K – and that likely means upscaling if you wanted a 4K finish. Upscaling can look good depending on what’s being done, but it’s usually a compromise to create pixels that were never really there in the first place.
via: No Film School
Image Credit: Light Iron
