Sorry but since this thread is locked https://umd.net/forums/camera-upgrades---go-to-4k-or I need to start a new one to continue the conversation.

I am also thinking of upgrading but don't want to spend a lot of money unless it will majorly improve the quality of my videos. I have a cannon vixia 600 and my videos I render at 1920x1080 60fps. I have never had any complaints on quality but have had some comments from people who say they like that my videos, in there opinion, are clear and high quality.

I'm curious if other producers have noticed an increase in sales after upgrading cameras. I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I would love to the best camera I can afford but that's a lot of money to put into something that I'm not sure if fans will really care about.

I don't see how shooting in 4K would be a big boost to sales. There are so many other factors that are more important, like getting the right angle, good lighting, keeping the subject in sharp focus, smooth camera movement, and clean audio.

Shooting in 4K would allow you to crop your video when you needed to, but it will also take more storage and processing power for editing.

If you're already shooting 1080p and you're happy with the results your camera gives you, I'd stick with it until something forces you to buy a new camera. The price point for decent 4K will keep coming down. Waiting isn't going to cost you anything.

One more thing I'd like to throw in, while I'm here. With higher resolution comes the need for high quality lenses, so don't buy a 4K camera with cheap glass. My GoPro shoots 4K, but the true resolution is closer to 2K because the image softens at 4K.

We bought this camera a year ago Sony fdr-ax33 shoots 4k, or 1080 60fps. Best thing we ever did. We tried to upload a 4k video thought and umd file size limit wouldn't let us upload over a 1gb so we decided to just render down to 1080 until he decided to change that. We just don't wanna slice up our videos and they can be a bit long some times. The cool thing about 4k is if we want to cut a section out or zoom in, you can do that post. We fuck up lots with talking and noob getting in the shot, but with 4k we can just do a crop and zoom cut and it still renders perfect. If you check out any of our shots in the last year they all use the one Sony. If you really want to up quality though, you will wan to buy some cheep lighting umbrellas. Makes even more difference than the cameras in most shoots.

I've found that scenes shot in Full-HD (1080p) do sell more consistently, but at the same time as upgrading the camera we've also worked hard on improving our scenes in other ways, for example the switch to including the original sound in the scenes happened at the same time as the Full-HD upgrade, and having original sound does seem to make a difference.

Still toying with going to 4k, but while a camera can be had for £1600 (pro) or £600 (consumer), if I then have to upgrade the main PC that's going to add at least an extra grand, possibly closer to two, to the overall cost, and then there'll also be an increase at the rate that additional hard drives, and additional external hard drives sufficient to ensure there are always three distinct copies of all scenes, need to be added to the system. So the ongoing costs will be a factor as well as initial purchase.

I'm also wondering if 4k is really necessary for WAM. 4k is the resolution of the main digital projectors at our favourite multiplex cinema. Is that resolution ever really going to be needed on even the largest home TV or monitor screen? Obviously eventually 4k will be the standard for new equipment the way Full-HD is becoming the standard now, but until that happens, is it worth paying extra for the upgrade if the audience aren't going to see any noticeable difference? Still pondering it here.

As others have already said it's the ability to zoom in and crop the 4K footage that has the biggest benefit. We went over to the GH4 a while back and now have another 4K camera on back order. You do need a powerful computer for editing though and you do get through a lot of hard drive space.

Do you think a computer with a 7 core processor would be powerful enough? I have to admit I don't know that much about computers.

Your best bet might be to just try it - download some of the samples from here and see if you can edit them smoothly in your editor of choice.

http://4ksamples.com/category/4k/

No such thing as a 7 core processor;presumably you are referring to an i7 processor, but there are now 7 generations of i7 CPU over the past 9 years. To get an accurate idea you'd need your full PC specs... if you can, hit start and type "PC info" and take a screenshot.

the trouble is, theres 4k and there 4k and there 4k it is not in itself a complete standard as such and affect the final product. I am currently shooting in a non wam capacity in 4k RAW this gives me the cinema quality you may associate with the stunning youtube 4k clips or professional cinema standard. This create 500GB of data for every 30 minutes. Once I have worked on it in post I can then compress it to a normal playback standard and create a high quality clip. Go to the other extreme of a mobile phone with 4k and you will find it applies processes including compression as it records and the final film will be nowhere near the quality of mine but will end up roughly the same size after processing, and there are a lot of different qualities in between.
My advice would be to move up the HD line to a more professional camera that uses more professional standards like pro res you will find the quality increases hugely but it will be reasonable to work with, I would recommend a pro camera something that uses independent lens such as an SLR so you can experiment and one that can be fitted into the universal style of rail chasis so you can add components if you need them like follow focus knobs, matte boxes or battery packs you should with the introduction of 4k be able to find this kit reasonably priced.
Concerning 4K if you were to go to a pro standard you would need a very powerful PC to edit it, I use a MacBookpro and it is still way to slow for real time editing so I am forced to create masses of rushes to test timings and so on, it's a nightmare without $8000 of PC, honestly lol.
I hope this helps and is not too confusing I would be happy to look out cameras for you but in fairness I have seen your work, all of your work and it does not need any upgrade to visual quality, it is great, spend the money on Latex, PVC and boots, lots of sexy high boots

Yamtree! By your standards, my AG-DVX200 is not sufficient for shooting fetish videos! I think you've got your head in the clouds, or you've turned into a camera snob. How much editing and/or color correcting do you think we do on a fetish clip?

I just think that clarifications like 4k and HD are confusing and don't help people looking to improve quality and anyway if you noted my personal advice was change nothing it looks great as it is Doug. It's about seeing someone else's 4k production, going out and buying a camera and thinking "That doesn't look like theirs" "That's not as good as I hoped", making comparisons, it has nothing to do with saying your camera is not good enough and as for colour correction and editing well colour correction is easy, you can do it with one click, I use Davinci resolve considered to be the best in the world and guess what, it's free, absolutely free, it has nothing to do with snobbery at all just trying to help advise on a subject I have learnt can be complicated and miss leading.

@yamtree, but if someone is upgrading, they may want to consider a 4K camera just for the ability to digitally pan around the image, it doesn't need to be a camera that shoots RAW video which requires a lot of additional processing. Furthermore, dedicated video cameras with interchangeable lenses can get really expensive; especially when you consider the cost of an additional cinema lens.

For someone who is putting their camera on a tripod and hitting record, where they have total control over lighting, 12+ stops of dynamic range are not required and changing lenses probably isn't a big deal.

I do agree that shooting 4K on a cheap camera is going to be less satisfying, but there are some nice 4K cameras in the mid-range. Personally, I'll pay more for a camera with XLR microphone jacks, because I always use a professional microphone, and that is a huge convenience.

The camera that made the biggest difference in my outdoor videos was the GoPro. Not because it shoots better quality video (although the quality is quite good), but because of it's portability and how I can use it without worrying about getting it wet/muddy. I wouldn't have even been able to make my "Making of a Mud Movie" movie without the GoPro. It changed my world, even thought, from a professional shooter's point of view, it lacks in many ways.

Light is a fine example of what I was saying. A lot of cheaper 4K cameras struggle with low light and can give very dissapointing results as the lower end CCDs can struggle.
Here is my simple summary of what I meant not all 4K cameras are created equal and some high end HD cams can produce a sharper, crisper better all round image that low cost 4K Cameras, they can be easier to use out in the field not requiring so much setup and they can be purchased for a reasonable cost. Your camera is not a cheap camera, it's a great camera.
4K is not an all encompassing standard, 4K is a canvas, it is not the whole picture it is merely the number of pixels available on that canvas it doesn't even indicate the quality of that canvas. In simple terms cameras are the brushes that paint that picture and there is a huge range of brush quality.
In my opinion an average user with $1000 to spend could get better results with older high end HD kit than buying a $1000 4k cam off the shelf new.
I have to say that 80% of UHD or 4K (They are not the same) footage I see is no more stunning or outstanding than quality shot HD in fact it is often worse.

Concerning sound Doug I use a camera mounted 4 channel mixer with 4 XLR sockets. Although it can record on its own media I just feed the output into the camera. It is nice to be able to control each channel qualities and it wasn't too expensive it costs about $300.

That Tascam is nice. If you saw my "Making a Mud Movie" movie, you know that I too use a Tascam (DR100) for my audio.

For shooting in the swamp, my goal is to minimize the amount of equipment I need to handle. I generally only shoot with one microphone, so even having 2 channels is more than I need. Sadly, I'm not sure if I want to take my DVX200 out into the swamp.