tupp

There’s some irony here... 
People talk about the UMP 12K because it is new and exciting tech. If Steve only cared about image quality, he would just shoot 35 or 65 and be done with it. For better or for worse, he’s clearly a tech dork and is obsessed with perfectly the digital capture techniques. 
Image quality is all subjective, anyway. 

Are you shooting real games or staged?
Can you wear high vis so at least nobody purposefully shoots at you?
You could try one of those bags for snorkeling. Then you don't have to worry about paint getting in the camera.
If you're worried about impact damage, you could put some socks or something inside the bag.

Gotcha, so you think that would be enough to prevent paint from getting in and keep the camera from getting damage from force impact?

Well I meant either. I prefer using a gimbal but with the water housing that obviously would be too big or most likely cause problems, hence using a glidecam; I meant either one.

Yeah but would that mess up the balance of the gimbal? 

I guess we could make it staged, but I still would want them shooting. I want to make it feel like its real and not staged. I saw some shots from the previous videographer who worked for them and it was very obvious that it was staged. Maybe not to the untrained eye, but to me it was very easy to spot. I'm thinking of using this, but trying to see if there is a more affordable option. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1608185-REG/ikelite_71475_200dl_underwater_housing_for.html

I'm sensing things here too, but it's not irony.
Ah, now we've changed the game.  You're saying that the resulting downscaled image will have the same reduced colour depth as the original image.  This is not what you have been saying up until this point.
You said that "4K has 4 times the color depth (and 4 times the bit rate) of full HD" which implies that I can film a 4K 8-bit image and get greater colour depth than FHD 8-bit, but now you're saying that the resulting downscale to FHD will have the same limitations to colour depth, which completely disagrees with your original statement.
Correct.
Which is why "4K has 4 times the color depth (and 4 times the bit rate) of full HD" is a fundamentally incorrect statement.
I shoot with 8-bit, I get colour banding.
I shoot with 10-bit, I don't get colour banding.
Seems like it has everything to do with the colour depth of the resulting image.
Please provide links to any articles or definitions (or anything at all) that talks about how colour depth is different to bit depth, because I have looked and I can't find a single reference where someone has made the distinction except you, who it seems suspiciously like you're changing the definition just to avoid being called out for posting BS online.
Then explain it simply.
I have asked you lots of times to do so.
The really sad thing is that there is some basis to this (and thus why Andrew and others have reported on it) and there are some situations where downscaling does in fact have a similar effect to having shot in an increased bit-depth, but you are not explaining how to tell when these situations are and when they are not likely.
Making assertions that resolution can increase bit-depth but then saying that banding will still occur is simply disagreeing with yourself.
For those having to read this, firstly, I'm sorry that discussions like this happen and that it is so difficult to call someone out on them posting BS misleading generic statements.  The reason I do this is because as I've learned more about film-making and the tech behind it, the more I've realised that so many of the things people say on forums like these is just factually incorrect.  This would be fine, and I'm not someone who is fact-checking 4chan or anything, but people make decisions and spend their limited funds on the basis of BS like this, so I feel that we should do our best to call it out when we see it, so that people are better off, rather than worse off after reading these things.

You're really not getting this....
Let's revisit your original statement:
So, if 4K has 4 times the colour depth, then downscaled to FHD it should be equivalent to FHD 10-bit.
When I shoot a 4K 8-bit image and get banding in it, and downscale it to FHD, why does the banding remain?  If I took the same shot in FHD 10-bit, there is no banding, so why doesn't the banding get eliminated like you've claimed in your original statement?

If you (and/or your client) like the aspect ratio and like the fact that you are using a wider portion of the image circle of your lenses, then, to me, those are the most important considerations.
 
So, you are probably best shooting at 4096x2160 (DCI 4K) and down-converting cleanly to 2048x1080 (DCI 2K) or less cleanly to 1920x1013.  Any extra rendering time for the odd height pixel in the "less clean" resolution would likely be minimal, but it would probably be a good idea to test it, just to make sure.

Nope.  Color depth is the number of different colors that can be produced in a given area.  A given area has to be considered, because imaging necessarily involves area... which area necessarily involves resolution.
 
Obviously, if a 1-bit imaging system produces more differing colors as the resolution is increased, then resolution is an important factor to color depth -- it is not just bit depth that determines color depth.
 
The above example of a common screen printing is just such an imaging system that produces a greater number of differing colors as the resolution increases, while the bit depth remains at 1-bit.
 
 
The Wikipedia definition of color depth is severely flawed in at least two ways:
it doesn't account for resolution; and it doesn't account for color depth in analog imaging systems -- which possess absolutely no bit depth nor pixels.  
Now, let us consider the wording of the Wikipedia definition of color depth that you quoted.   This definition actually gives two image areas for consideration
"a single pixel" -- meaning an RGB pixel group; and "the number of bits used for each color component of a single pixel" -- meaning a single pixel site of one of the color channels.  
For simplicity's sake, let's just work with Wikipedia's area #2 -- a single channel pixel site of a given bit depth of "N."  We will call the area of that pixel site "A."
 
If we double the resolution, the number of pixel sites in "A" increases to two.  Suddenly, we can produce more tones inside "A."  In fact, area "A" can now produce "N²" number of tones -- much more than "N" tones.
 
Likewise, if we quadruple the resolution, "A" suddenly contains four times the pixel sites that it did originally, with the number of possible tones within "A" now increasing to "N⁴."
 
Now, one might say, "that's not how it actually works in digital images -- two or four adjacent pixels are not designed to render a single tone."  Well, the fact is that there are some sensors and monitors that use more pixels within a pixel group than those found within the typical Bayer pixel group or found withing a striped RGB pixel group.  Furthermore (and probably most importantly), image detail can feather off within one or two or three pixel groups, and such tiny transitions might be where higher tone/color depth is most utilized.
 
By the way, I didn't come up with the idea that resolution is "half" of color depth.  It is a fact that I learned when I studied color depth in analog photography in school -- back when there was no such thing as bit depth in imaging.
 
In addition, experts have more recently shown that higher resolutions give more color information (color depth), allowing for conversions from 4k, 4:2:0, 8-bit to Full HD, 4:4:4, 10-bit -- using the full, true 10-bit gamut of tones.  Here is Andrew Ried's article on the conversion and here is the corresponding EOSHD thread.

Well, this scenario is somewhat problematic because one is using the same camera with the same sensor.  So, automatically there is a binning and/or line-skipping variable.
 
However, barring such issues and given that all other variables are identical in both instances, it is very possible that the 8K camera will exhibit a banding/posterization artifact just like the SD camera.
 
Nevertheless, the 8K camera will have a ton more color depth than the SD camera, and, likewise, the 8K camera will have a lot more color depth than a 10-bit, 800x600 camera that doesn't exhibit the banding artifact.
 
 
Of course, it is not practical to have 1-bit camera sensors (but it certainly is possible).
 
Nonetheless, resolution and bit depth are equally weighted factors in regards to color depth in digital imaging, and, again, a 4k sensor has 4 times the color depth of an otherwise equivalent Full HD sensor.

4K has 4 times the color depth (and 4 times the bit rate) of full HD, all other variables being equal and barring compression or any artificial effects.

You're making progress, but haven't gotten there yet.
Please explain how, in an 8K image with banding, an area with dozens/hundreds of pixels that are all the same colour, somehow in the downsampling process you will get something other than simply a lower resolution version of that flat band of colour?

No.  Colour depth is bit-depth.
The wikipedia entry begins with:
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth

Actually, no.
You've managed to build half of an understanding of how these things work.
Answer me this - if I take a camera and shoot it in 8-bit 800x600 and I shoot the sky and get banding, then I set the same camera to 8K 8-bit and shoot the same sky, why do I still get banding?
Your newspaper example is technically correct, but completely irrelevant to digital sensors as the method of rendering shades of colour is completely different.

Nope.

Actually, the entire point of my post is that there are complexities to the equation that your statement does not acknowledge.  Sure, you added a "all other variables" disclaimer, but the point is that those "other variables" are actually the ones that matter and the resolution makes almost no difference at all, so much so that I'd say it's sufficient to render your statement so overly simplified that it is basically wrong, but regardless, it's misleading and distinctly unhelpful.
Unless you're just trolling?

I've previously celebrated the benefits of FHD shooting, but a very large caveat to that is that the codecs really have to support those modes, and unfortunately on newer cameras this often doesn't seem to be the case.  It doesn't matter how many pixels there are, if you're projecting / viewing the total image on a screen the same size regardless of the resolution, then having a FHD mode with dramatically less bitrate than a 4K mode will just look inferior.
For example, comparing a 100Mbps 4K codec with a 35Mbps FHD technically has more bits per pixel in the FHD mode, but it actually just has a third the bits over the whole screen, plus any artefacting on the 4K one at the pixel level will also be smaller.
If anyone is considering trying to get the best results from cheaper cameras that can shoot 4K then the strategy is probably better to shoot in 4K, even if you're putting that footage onto a 2K / FHD timeline.  Plus, with the computers and storage we have in recent years, most cameras that only shoot FHD probably have such a low bitrate that a more recent 4K image downscaled would be a better bet anyway.  
Of course, unless you're looking at a camera that really stood out and optimised it's FHD modes.

This is what I do and it's been a very productive way for me to do my work.
As for that last bit you mentioned, I'm still amazed at the IQ I got from my modest GX7 all those years ago.  Something special about that one, even though it only did 1080.

I believe diversity sells.  "Kumbaya" is a conflation.  I didn't say that.

Finding a cheap, fun camera certainly can be part of the fun for those who can afford to buy one.  Another part of the fun is using inexpensive gear to shoot something compelling, which can be done with a camera that one already owns.
 
Why exclude those who can't buy a camera, merely because they can't afford to experience one part of the fun?

Finding a cheap, fun camera certainly can be part of the fun for those who can afford to buy one.  Another part of the fun is using inexpensive gear to shoot something compelling, which can be done with a camera that one already owns.
 
Why exclude those who can't buy a camera, merely because they can't afford to experience one part of the fun?

Yeah but the treasure hunt, scavenging for cheap but fun stuff is all part of the fun isn't it?

The general idea for this contest is great, but forcing folks to buy a camera might be a deal-breaker for some.  Perhaps it should be stipulated that the camera merely has to has to be "trending" on Ebay for no more than US$150.

You were claiming that casting a female VP in 1989 would be unheard of, and it would create a big impact to do so, and I just proved that literally decades earlier it was not just happening but not just the VP but even the presidency! 
  

Exactly. There are many.