RAW Momentum?

[Davide DB]

The simultaneous release of the Zr and C50, along with Resolve's ability to import ProRes RAW, was truly like throwing a stone into a pond. Now the shilltubers and others are going crazy over RAW. I wonder if this is just a moment or if it will last.

I have played with the Zr RAW files you linked me to. Gorgeous. So far, there is no news of C50 files.

If any of you have representative ProRes RAW files from the S1II, S1R, and GH7 to share, you would be doing me a big favor.

What I wonder is, do we really need RAW? As far as I know, even in cinema it is used sparingly. Of course, knowing you can shoot in RAW if you need to is nice, but has the cost of storage dropped, or did I miss something? Where the hell do I save an archive of RAW files? I would prefer H.265 or similar files that are lightweight and pleasant to work with. I have seen files from the FX3/FX6 that were spectacular and graded like butter in the Color page.

[ND64]

Other than marketing, raw is easy. I mean in electronics, bandwidth is always cheaper to provide than processing power, and raw needs less processing and more bandwidth. Note how soon Sony increased the bandwidth per sensor lane from 4Gb/s to 12.5Gb/s. 8 of these can handle 100Gb/s, enough for 10k60p 12bit! 

[Davide DB]

1 hour ago, ND64 said:

Other than marketing, raw is easy. I mean in electronics, bandwidth is always cheaper to provide than processing power, and raw needs less processing and more bandwidth. Note how soon Sony increased the bandwidth per sensor lane from 4Gb/s to 12.5Gb/s. 8 of these can handle 100Gb/s, enough for 10k60p 12bit! 

 

It's easy but archive storage it's not cheap. I mean, for my use case during the years I've building an underwater footage archive. nevertheless i understand that who works on events does not archives footage forever.

[eatstoomuchjam]

2 hours ago, Davide DB said:

What I wonder is, do we really need RAW?

"Need" is a strong word.  It's likely that a lot of the benefits of 12-bit raw could be realized by just using a 12-bit variant of any other codec.  I'm told that a lot of productions shot ProRes 4444XQ when they had Arriraw available.  That said, PRR HQ is about the same quality as 4444XQ, but with much smaller file sizes.  I think it's because PRR is non-debayered which means it's only saving 1 value per pixel instead of 3.

A limiting factor, though, is that a lot of processors and GPU's only have onboard support for accelerated decode of 10-bit HEVC - so 12-bit will seem really slow/laggy on a lot of people's systems.

Otherwise, people will talk about the ability to change white balance in raw, etc, but I've personally found those things to be a little bit overblown.  If you're swinging from 2300k to 5600k, maybe, it's better to have all of the color channel info, but if you captured at 5600k and want to move to 5200k, it's probably fine.  And, of course, people will bring up the ability to change ISO in the raw import, but this is asinine.  It is convenient as a quick way to change exposure, but is functionally equivalent to just adjusting an exposure slider for non-raw footage (again, as long as the file is thick enough that the all of the details are there). 

For me, I like having thick files with a lot of dynamic range - so for now, I prefer cameras with raw.  That's absolutely subject to change if people start shipping cameras with 12-16-bit HEVC.

2 hours ago, Davide DB said:

I have seen files from the FX3/FX6 that were spectacular and graded like butter in the Color page.

I think that the popularity of the FX3/FX6 and the sheer number of people making great-looking stuff with them serves as a great allegation against the necessity of raw.

It also really depends on your goal/intention.

I just got back from 2 weeks in Namibia.  I chose to bring my GFX 100 II and didn't bring an external recorder for raw so what footage I shot of animals there will be all 10-bit ProRes 422 (5.8k or 8k).  I also had an EOS R5 with me which was capable of 8k raw, but I ended up just giving it to my gf to use the whole time to shoot photos since the animals tended to be more than a few meters from the car and it let her see them (her with the EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 and me mostly with the GF 500/5.6).  I don't think that, even once, I thought to myself that I should take back the R5 to capture some raw footage of a giraffe drinking from a watering hole.

If anything, I thought "does this really need to be ProRes?"

[ND64]

Same arguments were valid in still photography. Lot of news/event shooters stuck with jpeg while the rest of photographers see the "jpeg only" sign on the camera display as a catastrophe. Its been always about having flexibility for artistic purposes. If your work is concentrated on documentation of real world as it is, Standard color profile Jpeg is the best choice.