The A7s "best footage straight out of the camera thread"...or something.

S

sparky33

Well-known member
I have fun trying to learn how to grade S-log, and fooling around with the Cine settings.
However sometimes it's more important just getting the "shot" than screwing on step-up adapters, ND filters and trying to nail exposure for the highlights/shadows.

With that end, I'm looking for a consensus on what footage looks great straight out of the camera. Decent shadows, good contrast and not overwhelmingly saturated nor too flat looking. Something with some pop - something that if you were a 2nd shooter on a wedding you could hand your SD card over to the primary shooter and feels comfortable there will be little to do it post.
Something that perhaps one could dump on a timeline and sharpen up a tad, adjust the contrast and the highlight/shadow slider and get even better results.

Read: I'm struggling with grading S-LOG. :)

So basically being a 5d3 shooter skin tones are very important to me - here's my work in progress so far:
(Had my kids stand still so I could dial-in what I found acceptable - still might be too contrasty / saturated; this is a work in progress.

PP4
Black level: 0
Gamma: Movie
Black Gamma: default
Knee: Default
Color mode: ITU709 Matrix
Saturation: -5
Color Phase -3
Detail untouched

For me I shot in M mode with Auto ISO and set the EV to about -1 and I thought it looked great.

Would love to hear from others. I don't always have time to grade, especially for personal stuff.

Thanks,
Shawn
 
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Thanks, that is exactly what I was looking for; a threat like that. I keep forgetting that people have had this camera since July - it's brand new to me.
Thanks again, Shawn
 
I have shot in Deep mode. It's not a profile, but looks great with the contrast and sharpness dialed back.
 
Funny thing: if it's going to be straight out of the camera, it can't be anything but slog2. Because everything else records superwhites and your highlights will be awful unless you apply a 16-235 output levels filter. That's simple enough, but it's not "straight out of the camera". And bringing down the black point and increasing contrast a bit is just as easy, so let me add Flaat to the list too. This is ungraded:
 
Samuel, you said that everything else records superwhites? Is that between 100 and 109 IRE?
 
Yes. And it means that, unless you bring them down to life, clipped-but-not-actually-clipped highlights look awful (there should be a metadata handle to avoid this, but Adobe doesn't get it right by default, and I think it's the same in Resolve).
 
Yes, very, very easy to handle. But it needs handling, it's no longer "straight out of the camera". It takes me around 15 seconds to take my Flaat footage, bring down the black point and add a bit of contrast, but some people consider that "post work".
 
So you are saying that whenever you record anything but Slog2, you have to adjust the white/black points to 16-235???????? Are you sure about that? That doesnt make sense at all. (Not saying its not true :D)

If that is in fact the case, do plugins/luts etc such as Fillmconvert already do that for me?
 
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Well, I haven't tried EVERY possible option, but with most of them, yes, you need that. It was the case with my 5N too. And it makes a HUGE difference.
No idea if filmconvert will do that by default. Adobe doesn't (neither PP nor AE, CS5 nor CC; and BTW, on AE the solution only works in 16-bit or 32-bit comps).
 
dont really get it. You talked about adding contrast, but setting the clip to 16-235 does exactly the opposite, lowering the highlights and increasing the blacks, making the image flatter. Why would I make it flatter to then add contrast again? Sure, I always lower the whitepoint when I feel my highlights are clipped, but that isnt the rule. Please enlighten me :D
 
You can skip the 16 part if you want your blacks at 0% IRE, but you definitely need the 235 output level, otherwise you'll be clipping stuff that's not actually clipped in the footage (and it clips in a very nasty way too). Just shoot something with a rolloff to clipped highlights and check yourself. Night and day. (again: not needed with slog2)

And when I say add contrast, I mean adding an s-shape, without affecting the clipping points.
 
ok thank you. will take a look at it. I did notice after my last shoot that all of my shots outside seemed to be overexposed although they looked fine while shooting. I did lower the white point and was amazed how much I was able to recover.
 
^ That is exactly the 235 thing. There's data up there, but it looks clipped until you bring it down. And it's a particularly nasty clip too.
 
I think it's a metadata issue: either Sony is not writing the "this is full-range" metadata correctly, or Adobe and others are not reading it correctly. I would think Sony is to blame, but no idea.
 
So Samuel what you're saying is it's impossible to shoot in bright light with anything but Slog? I've read that Philip Bloom uses Cine4 with S-gamut; are you suggesting he's not going to be able to do anything in post with that?
 
I'm no colorist, but my footage taken with just the standard profile right after I got the camera improved dramatically just by setting the output levels from 0-255 to 16-235. Thanks so much for the tip - I'm used to shooting with the 5d3+raw, and it was far easier to get the look I wanted IMO. But I'm making progress! Lots and lots to learn here.
I do know one thing - I have 0 interest in shooting SLOG all the time. I don't want the added noise, so I'd have to over expose. Then it's hard to see what's in focus, I'd be bringing ND filters outdoors every time and doing heavy grading. The standard profile backed off a bit is fine for my purposes. My viewing audience (mostly my family) notices the rolling shutter far sooner than any coloring deficiencies.
Shawn
 
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