Image captured on sensor instead of film stock — RAW, codec, or compressed. Industry standard since 2000s; color space, bit depth, and codec determine post workflow.
Digital video has fundamentally changed production—not only because cameras have become lighter and cheaper since then, but because the technical decision on set directly influences post-production, color grading, and output format. While film was a physical, chemical substance, digital systems store image information as data. This sounds trivial, but it means you're not negotiating with an emulsion, but with sensor characteristics, codec compression, and color models.
Recording occurs in three fundamentally different strategies. RAW formats (RED, ARRI RAW, Blackmagic DNG) capture raw sensor data—maximum information, maximum flexibility in editing, maximum hard drive load. Intermediate codecs like ProRes or DNxHD offer compression losses that remain invisible to the human eye, but significantly reduce storage and processing load. Delivery codecs (H.264, H.265) are transport formats—small, efficient, but not suitable for editing. Which strategy you choose depends on budget, editing schedule, and final output. A UHD television production rarely needs 12-bit RAW; a 4K cinema film hardly needs anything else.
Color space and bit depth are the two controls that influence color work. 8-bit means 256 levels per channel—too little for aggressive grading, especially in shadow areas, posterization occurs. 10-bit (1024 levels) is now standard for professional formats. 12-bit RAW offers maximum flexibility in the DI suite. The color space—whether Rec.709, DCI-P3, Rec.2020—determines which hues the camera captures at all. An S-Log or V-Log recording looks flat and desaturated on the monitor, but stores color information in areas that 709 cameras would lose.
In practice, this means you can't decide during editing. With digital cameras, you set the essential parameters—bit depth, color space, codec—on set. RAW offers a rescue, but costs time and space. Intermediates are the pragmatic path for fast productions. Delivery codecs are only for archiving and screening, not for creative work. The choice of camera is therefore also a choice about how much control you will have later.