IS 8K OVERKILL, I'AM DELIVERING IN HD?

Regardless of your delivery format, filming in 8k will give you a lot of advantages. There are 4 times 4k images in one 8k frame so you can super sample your image to 2k or 4k and have better results. More importantly, you can re-frame, crop, punch in and stabilize your image in post.

8K RAW IS DATA INTENSIVE AND UNAFFORDABLE?

This is a common myth. When shooting Red Raw, we are allowed to adjust compression according to our resolution. In real life scenario shooting Dragon 6K at compression 6:1 and shooting Helium or Monsto at 8k compression 8:1 will give the same quality. Higher the resolution, more compression we can add without losing the quality. Overall increase in data form 6K 6:1 to 8K 8:1 is only 25%. If you shot in the past on 6K Dragon you won't notice much difference when it comes to data handling and storage.

IS REDCODE COMPLICATED; WILL I HAVE PROBLEMS?

Redcode and IPP2 are completely different from what Red was in the past. Nowadays (Mid 2020) all Red Raw R3D files can be directly dropped into any NLE system: AVID, FCP, Resolve or Premiere. You don't need to trans-code, render ProRes or Dnx files for Raw, nor you don't need specialty Red hardware any more. This allows us to have compatible, robust and easy to work with files like a ProRes and yet keeping real RAW workflow all the way to the end. Red's IPP2 is non destructive, all the changes and settings are kept in metadata while original RAW data stays unchanged until the export of the project.

THIS IS NOT REAL RAW AS ITS NOT UNCOMPRESSED!?

There is on such thing as uncompressed RAW. if we would shoot real 8k uncompressed we would need 1Tb every 3 minutes without any actual benefits. It is important to have a minimum compression ratio when we do green screen VFX work, but in the majority of cases low compression will be overkill. Finding the right compression rate for the project and for the shoot makes 8k workflow affordable and easy to manage. High detail images and blue sky we can shoot on lower 6:1 or 8:1 ratio while  talking head interview we can shoot on 10:1 or even 12:1 ratio, within the same project.

CAN I SHOOT A DOCUMENTARY ON 8K OR ITS JUST FOR VFX?

Absolutely! 8K Helium is most known for Netflix series work but it's more than appropriate for any documentaries. In compression 8:1 to 10:1 at 24fps you can expect between 48min to 60min per one 480GB Mag. As for the data wrangling times it depends on your disc speeds, but usually it takes about 25min to offload a full 480GB MiniMag on to a single SSD or about 2h to offload the same mini-mag on to slower spinning HDD. In our experience Red DSMC2 Monstro/Helium 8k (8:1 or 10:1 at 24fps) are similar to Sony R7 4K Raw recorder, about one hour per a mag (Red 480MinMag and  Sony AXS 512), when it comes to data rates and handling.