This week there was a rec.2020 upgrade issued for two Sony video cameras, the FS5 and Z150. It’s a first.
I've spoken about this change before in a piece called “the way of the future”. You can find it in the video section of this forum. The change to rec.2002 allows the video capture of 11 stops of latitude and a very large colour range. The screen you’re looking at now will have no more than 7 stops of contrast from black to white and uses the Rec.709 standard. However, the latest panel T.V.s have had the ability to present almost 11 stops for a year or two now. This is done by either making the blacks very much darker than previously possible- which is Samsung’s OLED approach; or using very bright LEDs, the path taken by L.G.
Using either method creates a very high contrast life like image with much better colour than we’ve seen before. The difference is obvious, and now all the new sets sold in the U.K. are 4k and high contrast. If you take the time to look at one of these sets in your local shop, you’ll realise that the seven stop Rec.709 screens most of us have now will soon seem like the black and white sets of the sixties did after the introduction of color or high definition digital.
This Vimeo clip of two Australasian Shovelers was shot with a Z150 camera, using the rec.2020 profile. This camera isn’t top-notch and many DSLR 300mm lenses cost twice as much as it did. However, it’s very good value for money and often used by small news services as a “run and gun” camera. The clip has been remastered to look at its best on a Rec.709 screen. The original has full sunlight and strong shadow in the same shot and I’ve not tried to correct for this. I did try to pack the dynamic range in, much the same as still photographers drop their 14 stop images to 7 stops to suit their PC screens.
Two Shovelers