iiiNelson
the multimillion dollar question! 🙂 hehe.
As you know RAW doesn’t exist when shooting with cmos sensors, because the sensor captures data that first needs to be extra/intrapolated in order to reveal an color image. A sensor captures black and white data (luminance), that data is debayered to a color image either in-camera or in post-production. If you use a high grade codec like PRores 444, the difference between debayering in post or in-camera is visually non existent, but the RAW image will be potentially smaller. The thing that you have more more flexibility in post with RAW is not true when shooting raw compared to prores 444. that’s because all RAW codecs are compressed, and thats where RED shimes in with their enourmous nobel price winning invention ; Compressed RAW!
So why do high end filmmakers who are including their producers and post production manager very technical use RAW now and then (not too much by the way)? Simply because ARRI RAW is close to being uncompressed and from tests it shows a 1-2% improvement on the data in the lowest captured stop, and if you have the budget why wouldnt you go for that improvement??? Karma is everything.. film is religious. and the ARRI captures a lot more dr than most other cameras (to all cameras except stills cameras). so a prores codec will be close including log curve to be maxing out on what it can yield.
Another nice example is shooting dng on a older fw Kinefinity camera, you will see that it looks bad inside resolve, not because of colors, but due to fake edge enhancement that will cause unwanted aliasing, and overly sharp edges. when using the in-camera debahyer algorithm everything is optimezed for that sensor and olpf and tradition of user (cinema or bar mitzvahs) .
Another reason to dish RAW (did i told you raw doesnt exist on bayer sensors because it first needs to be debayered in order to show an image (either in camera or in post). is because you cant oversample with RAW. of course you can oversample raw in post, but then you could have better done it in-camera, because that would have decreased the data rate by big numbers!
NOw the fun part, any good cinematographer and post producer will oversample… !! you simply have to to compile the best data. this is because of NYQUIST theorem, and bayer limits.
A last thing… NO raw isnt more flexible in post, you cant change your ISO, the workflow of any post production program (including resolve,m scratch and baselight) is always first debayer… so you end up with the same image as captured in the prores codec, but in this case without compression but in 32 bit float, but prores 444 is designed to be able to visual loslessly hold all the same info!.
SO yes, lets have raw its good for marketing, but iam not really in the mood to capture 8k (there’s not other way to capture the full sensor than go 8k in RAW unless you do pixel binning which is almost the same as going to the Louvre with a knife to see the Mona Lisa but first molester it. Yes I do believe that having RAW would put all these discussions to bed, we can convince our moustachy producers with Make …great again heads again, and we can fill up our harddrives at a unprecedented pace, and change our ISO in post .
No lets be less ironic,
I do believe both Kinefinity and its user base wants raw, simply because it works out for some people, or their team, and Kinefinity did a lot of hard work to implement ProRes Raw in their cameras, but due to some dark reasons that was spoiled, maybe Kinefinity was naive,… or overenthusiastic. etc. But they are very aware of how much some people are craving for raw, and how it can help their sales, so bet external RAW will come to their cameras again, maybe not this month. Its much easier, to record a unbayered mosaic, than to process that in camera, Thats why the Arri was such a success it did that all in-camera! With virtual no downsides! recording externally requires a fast connection to do 8k data stream of raw, and it requires a partner like atomos, that’s all. I would suprised if It would take longer than a year before External RAW is announced for Kinefinity cameras. but as you know I have zero insides…
