Consensus on Sony A7SII Picture Profiles

J

jordancslee

Member
Hey all, so I just got a Sony A7SII and I'm losing my mind doing research on which picture profile I should use. I'm looking for something that has good dynamic range (flat) and is good for grading. There are so many options when it comes to gamma settings and color spaces; Slog 3 vs Slog 2, and all those other settings that I'm getting confused. Can anyone give me their opinion on a solid route to start with? I know the basics of working with LUTs and color grading, but I'm no expert - at the same time, I don't want a setup that just gives me a baked-in look in-camera. Thanks!
 
Use Slog2 gamma and Sgamut3.cine, that's the best overall IMHO. If in dark situations with controlled lighting consider the cine curves.

cheers
Paul
 
I know they aren't exactly the same, but I never regretted shooting slog2 on any set, controlled or natural lighting. It sounds like you're OK with luts and tweaking color a bit in post, so that's definitely the route I'd recommend. People seem to like sgamut3 on your camera, but I can't say for sure I'd recommend it, I seem to be one of the few that liked my results with regular sgamut.
 
I'd also go for slog2+sgamut3.cine. On the a7S (not II) my settings were these, and on my RX100 IV that's what I use too.
 
As others have suggested, in case of doubt I would go SLOG2 and SGAMUT3.Cine for the colors. I shot my recent film on the Sony A7s II https://vimeo.com/148837040 like that, and I am pretty happy how it turned out. I did use SLOG3 with the SGAMUT3.Cine color settings at night. I like how SLOG3 boosts the shadows, much more information there. I do not like so much how it handles the highlights. Therefore, if you need shadow info use SLOG3, if you care about highlights use SLOG2. Thats my understanding of using it.
 
Thanks for your feedback all! So should I basically modify PP7 and just change the color space to to Sgamut3 Or should I be adjusting all those other settings like saturation and such as well?
 
What are your favorite settings for saturation and sharpening (when using SLOG2 and SGAMUT3.Cine)?
 
Detail could depend on your lenses, with my nikons I left it at 0 as I often also shoot through a hwbm filter, so I wasnt really worried about moire. Other settings I left the same and designed a lut to go with it.
 
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would anybody mind please giving some ideas as to
1. which cine profile (non s-log) profile they like for the A7SII for well lit situations including color (cinema, pro, or whatever)
and which for low light, and why?

2. which s-log (2 or 3) and which color space they prefer for low light as well?

basically s-log at all for low light?

thanks for your thoughts!
 
rorysb said:
would anybody mind please giving some ideas as to
1. which cine profile (non s-log) profile they like for the A7SII for well lit situations including color (cinema, pro, or whatever)
and which for low light, and why?

2. which s-log (2 or 3) and which color space they prefer for low light as well?

basically s-log at all for low light?

thanks for your thoughts!
Click to expand...

on the a7s1 I shot slog2/sgamut for every situation except those where clients wanted the footage right off the card. once i made a lut to go with slog2/sgamut i didn't see any reason not to shoot with the most latitude available. same goes for night time. tried whatever mode phillip bloom recommended on one night shoot and regretted it, so just kept to slog2 after that even for dark scenes.
 
Any worries with using the 8 bit codec for SLOG? I am worried it won't hold up as well. I really want to figure out something similar to the C100/C300 Wide DR that can be lightly graded. I use the FS7 as my main camera and have the A7RII / A7sI as second cameras.
 
I mostly shot on the shogun, and 8 bit 422 seemed like just enough room to have slog2 not band or break too easily. Internally at 420 I couldn't tell you.
 
Chris Langer said:
Any worries with using the 8 bit codec for SLOG? I am worried it won't hold up as well. I really want to figure out something similar to the C100/C300 Wide DR that can be lightly graded. I use the FS7 as my main camera and have the A7RII / A7sI as second cameras.
Click to expand...

For this most part it works well, if you are in a low contrast situation with subtle colouring then yes, i think you may see some banding in smooth areas - for example out of focus areas tend to have smooth gradients. But if people are looking at the out of focus areas rather than the subject then you've probably got bigger issues to deal with :)

There are times i'd consider a cine gamma because of this, but for 99% of the time i'm in Slog2/SGamut3.cine

However, when grading please don't grade from the raw footage - you *need* a technical LUT to convert that SGamut3.cine into your grading colorspace and possibly massage that SLog2 into something better as well. Sure you can gamma away at the Slog2 to make it look acceptable, but you're never going to be able to fudge away at the colours to shift SGamut3 into Rec709 for example.

cheers
Paul
 
paulcurtis said:
For this most part it works well, if you are in a low contrast situation with subtle colouring then yes, i think you may see some banding in smooth areas - for example out of focus areas tend to have smooth gradients. But if people are looking at the out of focus areas rather than the subject then you've probably got bigger issues to deal with :)

There are times i'd consider a cine gamma because of this, but for 99% of the time i'm in Slog2/SGamut3.cine

However, when grading please don't grade from the raw footage - you *need* a technical LUT to convert that SGamut3.cine into your grading colorspace and possibly massage that SLog2 into something better as well. Sure you can gamma away at the Slog2 to make it look acceptable, but you're never going to be able to fudge away at the colours to shift SGamut3 into Rec709 for example.

cheers
Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up! I will have to check it out. I am very comfortable with LUTs but always stayed away from Slog on the A7 series because I thought the footage wouldn't hold up to grading.

caseywilsondp said:
I mostly shot on the shogun, and 8 bit 422 seemed like just enough room to have slog2 not band or break too easily. Internally at 420 I couldn't tell you.
Click to expand...

I always thought it was 10 bit 422 out of the HDMI! Oops! Thanks for catching that for me.
 
I'd seriously look at getting LUTCalc, by cameramanben (Ben Turley). There're settings for A7sII Slog/SGamut3.cine and you can very very easily create a LUT that will move that into, say Alexa Rec709 space, which is a great starting point for footage. Obviously major grading and you'd want a different route, but that version of 709 is a great ball park to be in.

cheers
Paul
 
paulcurtis said:
I'd seriously look at getting LUTCalc, by cameramanben (Ben Turley). There're settings for A7sII Slog/SGamut3.cine and you can very very easily create a LUT that will move that into, say Alexa Rec709 space, which is a great starting point for footage. Obviously major grading and you'd want a different route, but that version of 709 is a great ball park to be in.

cheers
Paul
Click to expand...

I am using the A7RII and it doesn't include the Slog3/SGamut3.cine combo. I'll find a way to make Slog2 work for my needs or just make a custom profile.
 
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