Bit Depth

What this is about

The difference between eight and ten bit rarely shows on a straight, well-exposed shot. It shows the moment someone grades: pushing contrast into a sky, lifting shadows, or warming skin stretches the available steps apart, and eight bit runs out of them as visible bands. Ten bit gives four times the steps per channel and takes that stretching without complaint. This is why log recording and eight bit are an uncomfortable pair — log deliberately flattens the image and expects the grade to pull it back apart later.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• Eight bit holds 256 steps per channel, ten bit holds 1024 — the reserve you spend while grading
• Banding appears first in skies, walls and soft gradients, not in busy textures
• Log footage in eight bit is a risky combination; the flat curve needs the extra steps

With TillyGen

If the plan already states that a project will be graded, TillyGen keeps that requirement visible where the recording format is being chosen.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.