I often hear people talking about future proofing content or providing the best they can for their clients when talking about 4K. Comments such as “You’d be crazy not shoot shoot 4K for a professional production”. While on the whole I am a believer in shooting in 4K, I think you also need to qualify this by saying you need to shoot good 4K.

As always you must remember that bigger isn’t always better. Resolution is only one part of the image quality equation. Just take a look at how Arri’s cameras, the Alexa etc, continue to be incredibly popular for high end production even those these are in effect only HD/2K cameras.

Great images are a combination of many factors and frankly resolution comes some way down the list in my opinion. Just look at how DVD has managed to hang on for so long, feature films on DVD still look OK even though the resolution is very low. Contrast and dynamic range are more important, good color is vital and low noise and artefact levels are also essential.

A nice contrasty image with great color, low noise and minimal artefacts up scaled from HD to 4K may well look a lot better than a 4K originated image that lacks contrast or has other artefacts such as compression noise or poor color.

So it’s not just about the number of pixels that you have but also about the quality of those pixels. If you really want to future proof your content it has to be the best quality you can get today, not just the largest you can get today.

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