Grading tips for a6300

[stevedocmaker]

sLog in 8 bit + trouble, IMHO. Exposure has to be perfect, which is difficult, and color fine tuning within the profile is a major pain since you can't see what's happening on the screen. And since I'm always going to add contrast back into the scene, I prefer to start with a gamma curve that starts with a bit of contrast built in. Cine 4 gives you great range and a much more gradable image. And as long as you watch your highlights and you boost the shadows with the black gamma setting, the effective DR is the same as sLog in most cases.

I modified a profile I was happy with on the A7s and came up with this:

Black Level: 0
Black gamma:Wide, +7
Gamma: Cine 4
Color Mode: Cinema
Saturation: +4
Color Phase: -2
Color Depth: R+5, G+2, B0, C+5, M-3, Y0

I get pleasing skin tones with this setting. It still needs grading, just drop a curve in and add some punch to the shadows and you're pretty close. And you can see close to what you're going to get on your LCD!

Just my $.02

 

[MichaelFischer.at]

Oh, so you have to correct it after you corrected it. Then you can begin correcting it. LOL. For now, I think I'll stick with getting it close in camera, then correcting it a little:

Yeah it is a bit like that. One step after the other to reverse the changes and bring it back to the original colors.
You can do it the fast way as well, but then you might end up with saturated colors that are too bright, while they should be deeper, or darker in their luma value.

Nevertheless, a nice look that you are getting there!

 

[Viscount Omega]

might end up with saturated colors that are too bright, while they should be deeper, or darker in their luma value.

Yes. I'm still working on finding the right balance between depth and saturation. I want both. Still testing it.

Edit:

Ok, did some more tests and I'm going to back off on the color depth controls for now and keep them at zero. The LUTs I'm using are solving the problems. Example: if a red tulip comes out weak in color, the LUT transforms it into a deeper color (not always a true to life color) but more filmic and deeper. If I have the color depth set higher at +6 the red channel blows out. So, as long as I use a LUT it solves the depth problem.

The LUT also evens out the uneven color levels if used higher than about 75%. Less than that and problems appear.

Sheesh...all this work and all I want to do is make a little movie easily not become a colorist.

 

[MichaelFischer.at]

With S-Gamut3.cine and a proper conversion to 709 you should not need to touch the color depth. I'm not even sure if it was intended to be used with this gamut or S-Log at all. I had the best results with a "normal" gammas and gamuts, Movie/Movie or 709/ITU.

Do you know what input your LUT is requiring? With LUTCalc you sould be able to provide the proper input gamma/gamut easily.

Sheesh...all this work and all I want to do is make a little movie easily not become a colorist.

Well you bought a Sony camera. You have to be a little bit of an engineer to use it properly

 

[Samuel H]

Well you bought a Sony camera. You have to be a little bit of an engineer to use it properly

I feel like that relatively often. But to be fair, it is true of other brands as well (the worst one being the 5D3, which is awful unless you install ML and shoot RAW).

 

[Viscount Omega]

I'm leaving color depth at zero and the LUT and correction can solve it.

I can't use the Impulz Luts by the book. They are designed for 10-bit or greater footage, applying 2-3 Luts on top of each other. I use the Osiris M31 which is an all-in-one type and a direct print 5203 Lut that expects 709. Converting properly to 709 will not fix Sony's skin tones though. And the ones designed for s-log 2 are too contrasty when applied directly. I have to throw out the book.

I'm happy with the colors and skin tones in outdoor daylight or by a sunny window. It gets tricky indoors in lamp light. Hence I started looking at different Cine gammas and colors. This is where Sony's "skin tones" really look awful to me--an ugly blend of green/magenta. What's laughable is that in the original a7s I used to be able to get great skin tones with Autumn Leaves or Light but in the new improved a7sII they "fixed" those presets and now they're ugly and unusable! LOL.

I will test some more but I think I'm going back to s-log2 and movie or sgamut3.cine colors indoors. Negative color phase. 50% LUT strength. It's more malleable.

 

[MichaelFischer.at]

I will test some more but I think I'm going back to s-log2 and movie or sgamut3.cine colors indoors. Negative color phase. 50% LUT strength. It's more malleable.

Movie, Pro or Cinema are good choices for the 709 color space. Movie and Pro "squeeze" skin a bit, which means reds and yellows get a bit more orange.
Samuel likes Cinema, which is a good neutral base as well. Blues get a little too magenta according to my tests, but you can correct that. Rest is pretty accurate!

 

[Viscount Omega]

Movie, Pro or Cinema are good choices for the 709 color space.

Well, you kept harping on me about converting to 709 so I tried LUTCalc again, applied the LUT, and it was terrible (again).

So, I thought: "What if I just skip the LUT conversion, shoot in 709 matrix color in camera, and apply a rec 709 LUT from my library of 709-based LUTS?" So I did. Heh. It's like I just unboxed a new camera. Incredible!

Then I tried 709 matrix color + 709 gamma and also 709 (800%). Amazing skin tones and filmic colors!

In these early tests with s-log2 the skin tones look terrific in their color but a little plasticky--like I'm wearing make-up. The 709 Gammas look a lot better but have less dynamic range. But this opens up about 200 LUTs to pick from so I'll be busy for a while.

Edit:

Comments on different Gammas using 709 matrix color in camera.

LUT applied=Rec 709 LLP Tetrachrome 400 FC

************************************************
Cine4--Very good. A total keeper. Boosting black gamma helps.

s-log2--best dynamic range but needs some color correction work; over-exposing gives a plastic look to skin tones. I do 1 stop over instead of 2.

709--the best skin tones but hot highlights; poor dynamic range

709 (800%)--lots of color noise, the worst. decent dynamic range

No clear winner yet but I gotta say, any of these are the best skin tones I've ever seen out of this camera.

 

[MichaelFischer.at]

Glad you found something that works for your workflow
The ITU matrix is nice and colorful, but a bit too saturated for my taste. I managed to make Movie, Pro, ITU or Cinema look identical with the right corrections in Resolve.
Rec 709 gamma is good if there's not much DR in the shot, but for general shooting the cine gammas are better.
709 (800%) should be avoided IMHO, as this is intended as a LUT for S-Log, as fas as I an see. The noise is so bad, because it uses the same ISO boost as S-Log does. It's like exposing S-Log "properly", wich is two stops below normal mid grey.

EDIT: Are you sure your LUTs are expecting plain Rec709 as input? Resolve's film print LUTs are designed for Cineon (Log) gamma with 709 or DCI-P3 gamut.

 

[Viscount Omega]

The ITU matrix is nice and colorful, but a bit too saturated for my taste.

Yes, but adding the Rec 709 Lut transforms everything back to normal. I even add a little saturation--assuming it was at zero in camera to start with.

I did some more tests and, I agree, the 709 (800%) isn't worth the trouble for the extra DR. It's a mess of color noise indoors.

The 709 matrix + 709 gamma has the best skin tones to me but it's unfortunate about the DR. I'm tempted to use it indoors anyway. I think, with the right LUT, it's that good.

I think the Cine 4 and slog2 gammas might work as well for all-around indoor/outdoor shooting but there's a little softness on the face in close-ups. I added a little unsharp mask detail enhancer to the shots and that helps a lot. Or I can leave it off and have an instant digital make-up jobrogar-BigGrin(DBG).

Edit:

I did some more tests and I don't think Cine4 and s-log2 are soft anymore. I just think my initial test shots were slightly out of focus. Jokes on me.

 

[maarek]

I feel like that relatively often. But to be fair, it is true of other brands as well (the worst one being the 5D3, which is awful unless you install ML and shoot RAW).

Dafuq is this 5dmarkIII hatred? I still love the image of that cam way more than the A7/variants or the a6300. Yes, even in h264.

 

[Viscount Omega]

Are you sure your LUTs are expecting plain Rec709 as input?

The LUTs are generic. From the company website: "The generic LOG & Rec709 profiles are a mathmatically derived average of a large number of cameras..."

I have some made for s-log2 and generic log but they are very contrasty. Some I've picked up on the internet as free samples. I don't know what they are. I just try them all.

Update:

I'm backing off my enthusiasm for going with 709 matrix color because although the skin tones are excellent, another problem comes up: if I slightly overexpose in 709 color, the skin takes on a waxy look. The same exposure in s-gamut-3.cine doesn't seem to suffer as much. Also, the colors red and blue blow out faster in 709. Proceed with caution. Doing more tests tonight.

 

[MichaelFischer.at]

Dafuq is this 5dmarkIII hatred? I still love the image of that cam way more than the A7/variants or the a6300. Yes, even in h264.

No hate there maarek, just taste. I didn't like the Canon colors as well. The skin tones were off IMHO, compared to what the RAW stills looked like. Rest of the spectrum was looking "pretty" but not accurate.

Sony is much more neutral and true to life. Also the kelvin values are almost perfectly calibrated. For 6500K from my flash on the 5D3, I had to enter 7500K in order to balance properly.
This requires a bit of knowledge to grade the images cinematically (if you want them to looke like that) manually or provide your favourite LUT with the proper input.

 

[Samuel H]

Dafuq is this 5dmarkIII hatred? I still love the image of that cam way more than the A7/variants or the a6300. Yes, even in h264.

Shooting H.264 I find it too soft, with very limited DR, and with not-so-great colors.
It's quite likely that my limited abilites mean I need a better starting point in terms of things like DR.
And in any case I don't hate the camera, just the H.264 footage, if anything: shooting RAW, even if DR is still short of Blackmagic or slog2 cameras, it has the best colors of all the cameras I've had in my hands. But it does make you feel like you need to be an engineer to use it that way.