If you are looking for free 4K stock footage, Dareful is your go-to source of free video clips. See why.
4K footage is still expensive these days. If you check the paid video libraries like Shutterstock or Pond5, 4K footage can cost above $179 per clip. If you commit to a longer period of time with a video subscription, the cost per clip may go down.
Because 4K is considered a premium resolution (probably not for too long given the amount of new cameras and smartphones shooting in 4K), it is harder to get it for free. The reasons are usually simple – 4K files are heavier, which requires more time to upload and more storage space. That’s changing though!
Let’s look at Dareful.com. This website offers over 300 high-quality 4k video clips for free, under certain conditions. Dareful is a good source of free 4K footage that you can download easily, with one click, and completely for free. Sounds too good to be true? Let’s take a look at this free stock footage site and see whether Dareful is living up to its promise.
Contents
What is Dareful?
Dareful is a free video library that offers free 4K footage. The site hosts over 500 video clips as of 2023. The free footage is available in several categories: aerial, beach, bokeh, Christmas, city, clouds, and many more.
The quality of the free stock videos is outstanding. The site has a large collection of aerial 4k videos.
Who is behind Dareful?
Dareful.com used to exist as StockFootageForFree.com several years ago. It went through a redesign and rebranding a while ago. Now it’s Dareful.com.
Joel Holland, the founder of VideoBlocks (StoryBlocks today) set up the original site. Joel has moved on since his VideoBlocks days, but he is still behind this free footage site.
Joel Holland, believes that high-quality stock footage should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their budget. So behind the free 4k footage, we probably see Joel’s video making muscles. We also believe that some free 4k videos were probably shot by Joel’s friends or he outsourced that to freelance videographers. But whatever the source of the footage, Dareful is a great source of free 4k stock videos. Let’s add this site to our arsenal of freebies for video.
Dareful’s free 4K footage
You can download free 4k videos in different categories. We mentioned some above. Here are more to get you even more excited: Drone, Fireworks, Lake, Mountains, Nature, Snow, Sunrise, Timelapses.
The 4K footage is of good quality. Video files are compressed a little (it’s free after all!). The bit rate is usually over 50Mbps, which is more than enough for any online video project.
Dareful’s limitations
Don’t expect Dareful to replace your paid video library. If the Shutterstock video library hosts over 15 million video clips for sale, Dareful will give you 500+ free clips. Dareful is a good source of aerial footage, though. Dareful has tons of free 4k clips with landscapes and nature scenes.
Dareful does not have too many videos with people. Shooting videos with people is actually problematic at times. You need to have model releases, which is not an easy setup for a free site that is operated by 1-2 individuals.
Despite this limitation, Dareful will serve you well for whatever nature footage you need.
Dareful’s video licensing
All the free 4k footage on Dareful is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. It means you can download and use the free footage in all types of personal and commercial projects forever. You are required to provide attribution to Dareful.
In other words, you are asked to link back to Dareful.com when you use their free footage. It’s not that bad! Mentioning the source of the footage is an easy thing. It’s a good bargain for free videos in 4K.
How does Dareful make money?
Even if the intention is healthy: give away 4k footage completely for free, Dareful still needs to get some revenue to keep the site going. We know it first hand! You still need to pay for the domain, site hosting and video hosting. Plus, it’s also the time to shoot, edit, export, and upload those videos in 4k.
We see that Dareful partnered up with Shutterstock and has some useful links to the paid video library. If you might want to thank Dareful for their free footage, when you need a paid image or video – jump from the site directly to their partner’s site. We actually did so once.
Conclusion
Dareful is a small video library of free 4k footage that you want to bookmark. They add new footage to the site from time to time. Their 4k footage is easy to download and it comes in different genres and scenes. The footage is a good match for any online video projects. It can be used in both personal and commercial projects with attribution.
In one word, Dareful is living up well to its promise of free 4k footage. Bookmark this site and download their free footage when you need some opening scenes or b-roll in your videos.
In brief, you can use free footage downloaded from Dareful.com in any type of project, including commercial, personal, or educational, with worldwide distribution, forever. The stock footage comes with a royalty-free license, governed by the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which means that you can edit, manipulate, and customize the footage to fit your project’s needs.
Need more 4K videos for free? Take a look at our handpicked collection of sites offering free 4K footage.