Sony skin tones

^ Thanks

For those of you saying Canon skin tones are just better: I guess you can only mean 5D3+RAW, 1DX, 1DX II, anc C-line, right? I'm currently editing a wedding shot with a 5D3+H.264 and I really, really, really hate that image, particularly on skin: color is very nice, but it's so soft there's no texture anywhere, even in closeups. It's as if everyone is wearing a mask.

Also: I didn't start this thread to convince anyone, except on a "you're using it wrong" way. A big part of it was that I wondered if there's something I don't see but I should see. So far a few of you say there is, but have trouble describing what it is.
 
Skin tones are affected by so many things. The light source (quality / colour temp etc), how the camera is compressing the DR i.e. how many stops over / under middle grey. Certain cameras will perform better in Slog (x) ettr for example than others. When I view any image, without knowing all of the factors I can simply not say this camera has terrible skin tones. The fact of the matter is on any camera sometimes they look good, sometimes they don't. Some sensors are better than others on how they capture skin tones and we are entitled to our own opinions on that.
 
I have a very hard time seeing what all the Cannon vs Sony skin tone thing is too. I Shoot Sony A7s in all profiles and the skin tone looks spot on to me. Thanks for binging this up. I keep looking for the bad skin tone thing and have very hard time finding it on any of my Sonys
 
Samuel H said:
it's so soft there's no texture anywhere, even in closeups. It's as if everyone is wearing a mask.
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I shoot mainly with Canon, but no problem with Sony skin tones. Just a guess, but you shot flat? What a lot of people forget or don't realise, although shooting flat you gain a bit of DR, you don't get nuthin fer nuthin, and your tradeoff is contrast. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing for faces in weddings, mothers lose wrinkles. Brides (and mothers) sometimes have so much makeup they look like they're wearing masks anyway.
 
I didn't shoot it, I'm just editing. I think it's some kind of neutral profile, but not cinestyle nor Flaat. Probably Neutral with reduced saturation. I believe they used L zooms but I'm not sure which ones.
Colors are pretty nice, and I like very much the way highlights blow up, but they do blow up very soon (much sooner than on my RX100 IV), and the image is so soft there's no texture anywhere, including skin.
 
I know, I know. It was just a note in case it helps people evaluate the skin tones in my video (i.e. if there's anything you don't like there, it's not because it was a low-CRI LED or fluorescent; it's not tungsten, but it's almost as good as LEDs get).
 
Samuel your stuff always looks so lovely and natural. I've never had issues with Sony, from the f65 down to my old a7s. Most people complaining about skin tones I think are just hobbyist pixel peepers and fanboys of other manufacturers. It usually comes down to how the dp shoots a scene and how the colorist ends up grading it.
 
caseywilsondp said:
Samuel your stuff always looks so lovely and natural. I've never had issues with Sony, from the f65 down to my old a7s. Most people complaining about skin tones I think are just hobbyist pixel peepers and fanboys of other manufacturers. It usually comes down to how the dp shoots a scene and how the colorist ends up grading it.
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That's not true. I've never pixel peeped in my life. I'm a filmmaker and genuinely think some cameras have better color rendition than others, but that's just my opinion and I don't get why some people need reasons to dismiss other opinions when it differs from theirs. My opinion may not align with others but I value it because it is the culmination of my life experiences. For this reason, I understand and respect other people who have come to their own perspective on things from their different life experiences.
 
I think there are two kinds of "sony color sucks" users: very knowledgeable people that are seeing something I don't see, and people who don't know how to set up the camera and just write it off instead of learning how to make it work. Those are either letting the camera at the default settings, or using sgamut and realizing it sucks. To a great extent, this is Sony's fault: the menus are awful and the default settings are designed for soccer moms (and sgamut does suck unless you have a degree in color workflow; not sgamut3.cine, but sgamut for sure). In any case, I'm fine with putting the time and effort to find the best way to use my tools, and I don't see the issues other people are seeing (and I doubt my audience will), so it's perfect for me.

@caseywilsondp: thanks a lot for those very kind words
 
Disclaimer: huge generalizations to follow.

For or better and for worst, the film and video industry saw a flood of new practitioners after 2008. This is largely due to the DSLR revolution. In other words, the 5DII video mode. The 5D was the entry point for a huuuuge number of people into the industry...not just filmmakers but clients who could now afford to hire and have content produced at lower costs. This camera opened up the "large sensor aesthetic" to the masses, where before it was the domain of th F35 and film (prohibitively expensive).

Along with the large sensor aesthetic came the 5D prosumer colorimetry. Compressed yellows, oranges and reds that "smoothen out" skin tones artificially by minimizing the hue complexity in ski tones that would render things like blemishes more visible. While this was flattering to less discerning eyes of newcomers and low-level clients, this is just Unacceptable in the film industry. Most top 99.9% of top DPs choose Arri and film, and to lesser extent Red, F65/35, and Varicam because of the complexity of colors. In that world the Canon Look is not desirable and is often referred to as "mush".

But it since the amount of people that flooded into the video industry through the 5D and stayed in the one-man-band, solo operator world of low budget corporate, event and content far eclipses the amount of top DPs working on features and shows and even serious Indy narratives and docs, the lingo and the common held believes have skewed. So now we speak in terms of "full frame", "crop factor", "too heavy" and "Sony Skintones".

Sure, the Sony broadcast and handicams cameras prior to the DSLR revolution were lackluster. And most people complaining about Sony Skintones only have those cameras as references and compare them to the aesthetics of the new majority "canon look". But the Sony F23 and F35 has amazing Skintones, and nowadays all cameras can deliver a flexible enough image in 10bit or higher that colorimetry is less of an issue.

In short, and in my opinion, people complaining about Sony Skintones largely fall into the category of people who were 5D users and never were able to elevate to the point of using Alexas and top cameras to realize how that Canon look is akin to autofocus or auto exposure (restrictive and taking away from the creative possibilities available). Most people still hold the canon look as the gold standard because that is what they learned and have grown accustomed to: warm tones compressed, and bluer greens.

Im not a canon hater. I don't hate on any camera. But I also have had the privilege of having really talented mentors, working with very knowledgable folks and hands on experience with different cameras. Don't get me wrong, I'm no master of cinematography. But even from where I stand, which is very low in the totem pole, I see this Sony Skintones vs. canon look as being only talked about in the videographer, event shooter wedding and low end content realm of folks. Don't get me wrong I still shoot weddings, and in a dry spell I'll take my @ss to shoot some event work no problem. This is not me being condescending about event work or wedding work. But if you think canon look is the gold standard or if you think all Sony Skintones are garbage, I'd simply urge you to reflect upon your own bank of knowledge and suggest that you can still learn more about the technology and skills that are part of this large and complex industry.

You might end up not using a Sony camera and instead going with an Alexa or a Varicam, but at that point, it sure isn't because of the "Sony skintones". F65/35 Skintones are crazy good. And Scorsese and Reed Morano used F55 in Vynil and I totally respect their beautiful work.

Camera bashing is sooo 2008, y'all. ;)
 
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Since I disliked "Vinyl" on every front, I might as well chime in.

There have been a number of Sony cameras that gave a "cold" look, compared to Canon's "warm" look. And a lot of people preferred the "warm" look, especially if baked-in and/or with minimal grading.

From my observations of many clips done by pros, amateurs and semi-amateurs alike, F-5, FS-7 and RX-10 I/II also had these "cold" looks. Newer models such as RX-100 IV/V, A6300, A6500, A7SII, A7RII do not.

F-55 is a camera rarely used in the Alexa dominated TV industry but it can deliver a top notch performance with its latest upgrades/Raw recording. It's more than functional for live sports.

F-65 is in another zone entirely. Its problems, if any, were in its workflow, etc. The "Cafe Society" actually looked a tad too warm for my taste anyway.
 
Samuel H said:
I still read people complaining about Sony's skin tones, and I really, really, really don't get it.

I just shot this piece last week with my RX100 IV in 4k. I used my Flaat settings (slog2 with cinema color, increased saturation and some specific color tweaks). And I graded it with a single, relatively simple, RGB curve. Nothing more. Just a curve. Not even a WB adjustment in post (I shot with custom WB, and the lighting was the same in all shots; you'll see it's not the most exciting video ever, just a showcase of great craftmanship; but it's slow and there's plenty of skin in it, so it's perfect for this).

With just that, I see the skin tones here and they look really good to me. I'm also editing a piece that was shot by somebody else with a 5D3+H.264 and L zooms, and it's just night and day: the canon skin tones are correct, but there's no texture anywhere, even in closeups. It looks plasticky to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omd1tcfW6zI

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no offense but the skin tones on your video is not notable in any special way...not bad but not special in any way...functional at best. when you talk about lack of detail in Canon video files id say that all DSLR video up until the new 5DmkIV & 1DXmkII i would agree but with these new cameras and certainly the older C100 up to the latest C300mkII i don't.

a post down the first page summed it up for me too about the lack of blood below the surface i thought was discript. with a Canon file skin is a "featured" element and really prioritized to even an over exaggerated degree but i like that and when people talk about Canon color i think this is what it is. on my sony cameras its no better than any other part of the image for me which doesn't make it bad but less special for me.

david
 
Sure, I didn't say my skin tones were fantastic, just that I don't see anything wrong with them (and this is the first time I post a finished video without any color work in post so it was a good chance to talk about it).

And then yes, of course: I'm always talking about DSLRs. The 1DX and the C line are too expensive *for me* so I just don't consider them an option, and the 1D4 has a huge crop in 4k and seems to be soft in 1080p so it's not even an option. Get Canon to sell a mini-C300II in DSLR form for a price I can afford, and then we're back in business. Till, then, I really see no point in complaining about the cheap Sonys.
 
No expert here so take this with a grain of salt, but this obsession with so called 'natural' skin tones in video has never made any sense to me. If you are grading your videos and going for a stylised palette, then it seems to me that your skin tones are going to reflect the grade, which doesn't seem like a bad thing to me at all. Nobody complains about the skin tones of Amelie, do they? Yet the film features many moments of orangey, green and brown colour casts over the many of the characters face. May not be natural in the sense of documentary filmmaking but it's natural for that particular film's world. People forget this is a incredibly subjective medium.

And for the record, the skin tones in your videos look wonderful in my opinion, Samuel.
 
A basic functionality of a camera should be to represent colour and tone with a good level of accuracy starting with mid grey being RGB 125-125-125 and hitting other targets too.

Even when material is given an 'art' grade change of tone between different areas of the image passes through.

For example with IR pollution a black coat and a dark purple coat look to be 'the same' color, and that is wrong, whatever the grade or look is applied.

S
 
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