Using Slog2 at night

T

ThomKauf

Member
Using the A7s2, is there a reason to shoot Slog 2 (or Slog3) at night? I'm shooting at 24p using a Leitz 50mm 1.4 lens, so night exteriors look like never before.

My understanding of Slog is that it increases dynamic range, but if i shoot a night exterior, most of the information I want is in the shadow areas, maybe a bit in the mid-tones. I don't care so much about highlights blowing out. What's the wisdom here?

Also, some folks recommend overexposing in Slog by 1 to 2 stops. Would that be good for night exteriors?

thanks,
 
Slog2 doesn't have more noise if you expose it the same... In other words overexpose by 1.5stops to get similar noise to cinema, 2stops or so for similar to cine1.

Sony's rating increases iso for slog2 compared to cinegammas for the same gain settings which promotes highlight protection and night noise, but you can just compensate for that with your exposure. And you'll still get the same better color and flexibility of log and have an easier time protecting highlights if you decide not to overexpose as much.
 
In my email I'm asking what experiences other people on the forum have had with Slog for night exteriors.

jmsbf said:
ThomKauf - yes I've read a few places that S-Log is not recommended for shooting in dark environments.. You will see a lot more unnecessary noise. So do some tests and find out which you like best.
Click to expand...
 
There's an ISO above which slog will start to look too noisy. It's different on each model: it was 12800 on my a7S, and is between 3200 and 6400 on my RX100IV. If I have to raise the ISO beyond that, I switch to one of the cine gammas.

Shooting slog at night helps you keep highlights unclipped. If you don't need that extra range in the highlights that slog provides, you can either overexpose your slog (as nyvz suggests) or swicth to a different gamma.
 
This very helpful, but with my Sony F55 camera the ISO is fixed at 1250 when shooting log. Bumping up the ISO is for on-set viewing, the log files are still shot with ISO 1250. But with the a7s2 this is not the case?

thanks,

Samuel H said:
There's an ISO above which slog will start to look too noisy. It's different on each model: it was 12800 on my a7S, and is between 3200 and 6400 on my RX100IV. If I have to raise the ISO beyond that, I switch to one of the cine gammas.

Shooting slog at night helps you keep highlights unclipped. If you don't need that extra range in the highlights that slog provides, you can either overexpose your slog (as nyvz suggests) or swicth to a different gamma.
Click to expand...
 
No, on the a7S that was not the case, and I would expect than on the a7S II it would be the same: increaing ISO lets you see more into the shadows (stuff becomes less noisy, and you get to see stuff that you wouldn't see if you just shot low ISO and increased brightness in post) but you lose headroom in the highlights (they clip). My approximate rule was the following: for every stop you increase the ISO, you see around half-a-stop better in the shadows and lose one stop in the highlights (so DR is higher at lower ISO).
 
ThomKauf said:
This very helpful, but with my Sony F55 camera the ISO is fixed at 1250 when shooting log. Bumping up the ISO is for on-set viewing, the log files are still shot with ISO 1250. But with the a7s2 this is not the case?

thanks,
Click to expand...

Can't you still shoot SLOG2/3 on the F55 in custom (non-cineEI) mode and increase iso/gain just like other Sony cameras?
 
On the F55, you cannot do a custom white balance or change the ISO in Cine EI mode. Any monitoring changes you make on set will not be recorded in the image, unless the menu setting is for internal record of the LUT, something most of us avoid.

nyvz said:
Can't you still shoot SLOG2/3 on the F55 in custom (non-cineEI) mode and increase iso/gain just like other Sony cameras?
Click to expand...
 
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