My experience of 4K raw editing is that it’s a big escalation on multiple fronts that can deliver jaw dropping, stunning results.
You don’t always need it. With easy exposures it’s not worth it, no one will notice. It comes into its own for anything challenging.
To work efficiently with it I’ve added an external GPU, upgraded RAM to 64GB and use a T7 touch 2TB SSD as a working drive. With this setup render times are acceptable.
The best workflow for me is the either record lower res proxies at the same time as raw or create proxies as a first step. In my case 1 hour of 4K raw is about 1 TB of data which I’ve recorded direct to an SSD. Work with the proxy files in the edit and the link to the raw files for final rendering.
Due to the file sizes you also may run into trouble with storage and backups.
Be prepared for a lot of additional hidden costs. Getting a camera that is capable of capturing 4K and more in raw format is just the start.
