7 Reasons To Film in 1080p in 2022 (instead of 4K)

In this video I wanted to share 7 Reasons To Film in 1080p in 2022 (instead of 4K). There are lots of practical reasons to shoot in 1080p, and people don't talk or know about it.

GOOD VIDEOS:

MY CAMERA GEAR:

MY EDITING GEAR:

[TSCameraGear]

*I was wrong* about that statement that most movies are shot in 1080p today *HOWEVER*
10 years ago the 2K statement was true. And most people can't see the difference between 4K and 2K.
Just consider the fact that I made the error. Didn't even notice that everything has shifted to 4K.

[THX..]

Hollywood also still shoots in 1080p because when you watch a movie in the theater or on TV there is a minimum comfortable viewing distance where the viewer doesn't want to be any closer to the screen. At that distance regardless of screen size 1080p and 4k look the the reason I bought a 70" 1080p TV for $300 on close out when everything was switching over to 4k. I saved a couple of thousand dollars and still to this day everyone thinks my TV is 4k.

[gcprost]

I have no argument with anything you had to say; however, I shoot a mix of 1080p and 4K. I shoot live theatre, concerts and dance shows. I shoot with 3-4 cameras. Usually the wide shot is done in 4K internally and on an Atomos recorder. This is because at some point in the show, I’m going to need the widest shot but often during the show I may need to crop in the shot. The other cameras shoot 1080p on the Atomos recorder and internally I shoot 4K. This way my safety (the internal recording) has the ability to punch in. Oddly enough, the Atomos 1080p recordings are much bigger than the internal 4K (10 bit) recordings, but they are much easier to edit. Even 4K ProRes recordings from an Atomos Recorder are easy to edit.

[XaneVidz]

Thanks💪 I’m filming a short film and 4k seems to over heat my phone but since I use an iPhone I wanted an edge. Now I feel like 1080 will change EVERYTHING!!! I may blend in a few shots of b roll in 4k just to give it a mix but this inspired me to go with 1080. Plus movies have looked amazing since way before 4k came out.

[ogshotglass]

These are all great points. I do want to point out an 8th reason that is commonly overlooked: low-light performance. Most cameras work their best in as much light as possible. A camera sensor may be able to capture video in 4K, but the data rate means either the built-in sensor data processor or the card-writing processor may force the sensor to shoot in shorter exposures at a particular frame rate to allow the processor to play catch-up and be ready for the next frame. If you're out in broad daylight, you wouldn't notice this because the camera will have already had plenty of time to capture a frame, making this argument completely moot. But in low light, such as shooting a night scene or walking through a dim hallway, this will be easily noticeable. The camera may boost ISO by a factor of around 2 (if not manually set) and adjust exposure accordingly where needed, which will produce a noisier video, or in the case of maxed ISO, will shorten the time of exposure, making any subjects much darker than desired. While switching to RAW video shooting (if applicable) may help alleviate some of the effects in post-production, that alone will have the drawback of insanely large file sizes. When I learned about RAW video editing in HS, I was surprised to know that just one second of RAW video in 1080p24 could run as much as 75-80 megabytes of storage, and 1080p30 can be 100-115, and 1080p60 can be around 200-230. 2160p60 could be, if I am calculating right (4K wasn't around yet), around 800MB-1GB per second of video.

[sapphireb]

As a landscape photographer I switched from a 61 MP camera to a 1 MP. The 12 has much less noise and appears to have better quality and smokes it in low light. No one has the vision to tell the difference between

[MindzEyz]

I agree... one of the points I bring up, is that now we are seeing shows shot in 4k and the sets no longer sell as real. The set design has to be insanely good to pull off anything out of reality. Everything has kind of a fake vibe to it. I'm trying to find out what cameras have legendary 1080 and there is zero info. As far as I can tell, the Canon C300 m-ii has 12bit 4-4-4 1080... that's the best I've found. On the subject of 24p vs 30p: 24 isn't dead, but it should be. It makes me dizzy. Everything else is 30, 60, 90, 120, etc. 24 looks janky and jittery now. Blame sports, TV, and especially video games. When 90% of what you see is in 30 or 60, then you see people quick panning in 24 on YouTube, it just looks bad... it's not the Cinema folks. Just stop it.

[ErikLucatero]

If you're a filmmaker wanting to make short films and industry style narratives the i would recommend you film at the highest bit-rate, sensor quality you can. This will help you preserve you film and allow for a good master you can turn in to festivals or any media distribution center. If you are a Youtuber and or general social media content creator then shoot 1080 if you want and works better for you.

[StrillLife]

Great points. A lot people ask me why I still shoot in 1080p. I do feel like I might be missing out on the stock footage angle. But I believe I shoot my drone footage in 4k.

[SCHIRMERSHOOTS]

I started with video content creation in 2019 and opted for the Fuji XH1 which was a good hybrid body at a fair price. It was great for a while but now I can feel how fast the tech is moving and I am feeling quite left behind in terms of the latest tech with simply not enough money to upgrade. This is quite reassuring to hear all these points as I have been feeling like my work is not good enough at 1080p. The XH1 does 4K at 24p but it is just not stable enough handheld and so I always end up shooting at 120fps in Eterna or sometimes in Log. I also do Blackbox stock footage and do sell a fair amount of footage in 1080p but wonder how long it will be relevant. Thanks for this video.

[randommemories]

Great video and that's what I call a positive influence! Additional reasons to go 1080p: less e-waste and less digital garbage that humanity will leave behind

[BackSquareOne]

There are some good points made in this video. If you are a 1 man show, you really need to ask yourself if you can realistically justify shooting in 4K. The investment in 4K camera gear, processing and storage are only part of the cost. How much of your life do you want to spend behind the computer screen editing videos? How much unedited video do you already have laying around that you are avoiding actually editing? Getting your video as close to “right” straight out of the camera can save you many hours of your most precious cmmodity, your time. If you can afford a talented editor or you are shooting your visual masterpiece movie, then sure, shoot 4K. If, however, you are shooting vlogs, reviews, reactions, or interviews destined for the web, then 1080p makes a lot of sense.

[Sutterjack]

A lot of good points - I still love my C100 M2 dinosaur camera from 2014 because it's got a 4K sensor that downsizes in camera to 1080 - really high quality HD and tiny file sizes. I've had a lot of 4k envy lately, but so many choices I'm not jumping ship yet as most my content ends up on YouTube and looks just fine in 1080. It's crazy to me that SD was a standard format for 60 years and then HD 1080 came along and everyone said "This is the future!" - Then less than 20 years later 4k is the standard. I really hope 4k stays the standard for a decent amount of years - the resolution wars are out of control

[commieRob]

I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but I think the shift to 4K has more to do with protecting an industry from outsiders than it has to do with better quality images.

[Glenrsi]

Great information. I agree about using 1080p as i fly and film with my drones. I only use 1080p for all of my videos and for reasons mentioned.

[jfproductions]

all this is so true! 4k files are pain to work with, you pretty much need to change you're entire workflow for just a little bit more quality which does not make you content any better. Great video!

[zhivu-vopreki]

I shoot 1080p 60fps, I choose 60 fps only because youtube puts less compression on it compare to 30 or 24 fps.

[AprilClayton]

Great advice. 4K takes forever to work with. Tired of generating optimized media in Davinci just to edit a small video.

[danieldougan]

Eh, I think this was reasonable advice in 2014 but not now. Computers can handle 4K a lot better than they used to, and the additional resolution has a lot of benefits. Even if your final product is 1080p, shooting in 4K will make it look better and give you more reframing options.

There are a lot of affordable 4K cameras these days, especially on the used market. Plus, the 4K cameras often have other useful features like in-body image stabilization and better audio functionality because cameras have all just improved as time has passed.

[TSCameraGear]

*reason 8 - most social media plattforms dont do higher than 1080p anyway.*
(can you think of any more reasons, comment below)