Which is Better: S-LOG w/o Ex Recorder or Ex Recorder w/o S-LOG?

[Michael Carmine]

Slog to SxS

Slog to SxS

From: Cook, Ian <Ian.Cook@am.sony.com>
Subject: Inquiry Re Sony PMW-F3, S-LOG option
Date: December 9, 2011 4:03:11 PM EST
To: Michael Carmine <CinemaDP@aol.com>

We all make mistakes I guess. The E-mail is from 10 days ago. I just bought your light tests on the thumb drive, sold out on the harddrive.

 

[Doug Jensen]

Michael, thanks for ordering the footage. I could never sell enough to make it worth the time it took to do it, but every little bit helps. I'd be interested to hear what you think, either privately or here.
I will give Ian a call tomorrow and let him know he is incorrect about S-LOG on SxS cards. As I said, usually he is a very good source of information so this is an anomaly.

 

[Nate Weaver]

To the folks saying S-Log to SxS is a waste...have you ever done it? Have you graded it?

It's true 8 bit isn't as good as 10 bit, I now have my Samurai and have seen it for my own eyes.

But I've done a bunch of S-Log to SxS and I can say it fixes busted highlights, skin tones look much, much better (especially as they go past 60-70IRE). You really need to try it before you poo-poo it. Tech and theory are a bit different than practice. Everybody I've shown it to is convinced it's a great way to go if an external recorder isn't in the cards.

The image does NOT fall apart when you had the contrast back. It posterizes VERY lightly in the blacks, and you will not see it unless you go looking for it.

Below stills are all S-Log to SxS, graded in Resolve:

 

[Doug Jensen]

To the folks saying S-Log to SxS is a waste...

Just to be clear, I have not been one of the folks to say that.

 

[Nate Weaver]

Just to be clear, I have not been one of the folks to say that.

Hehe. I think Timur is saying it. I'm gonna change his mind

 

[TimurCivan]

oh i know it can be done... but the difference is this: in the above circumstance, talking heads etc...yes its possible, and looks quite good...

But when you do what i do, heavy VFX based commercial work that going to go through a 2k upres for the motion graphics guys, heavy compositing, a very thorough grade, then out put to HDcamSR, xdcam DOES NOT cut it. ProresHQ BARELY cuts it. Right now we are shooting uncompressed, and its been decided that its the bare minimum for one of my clients. The others, if they cant afford a Prores recorder, WILL NOT have the proper grading pipeline to handle LOG. so rather than have them magic bullet log footage, i shoot standard gamma.

I dont do any of my own post at all, so i rarely have the opportunity to make the sxsLog look good.

It depends on what you do. it cannot work for my work flow.

 

[Nate Weaver]

Nevermind. This is getting twisted into an argument, which I know we would never do in person.

I just wanna say and show, S-Log before recorder worked out very, very well for me. My images looked much better, and the Vimeo video in the first two shots can show it.

 

[TimurCivan]

Nate, ithe proof is in the pudding. Your shots look great. It def can be done.

 

[Duke M.]

Nate, I'm curious about your work flow when its graded. Are you scrunching into legal levels and then increasing saturation?

 

[Mitch Gross]

Even though it was Sony's intent that S-Log be used for later post color correction, we all know that often we find other ways to use tools. Just like FILM REC mode on the Panasonic Varicam was really only meant for film out finishes, but many people chose to shoot with in to get an extended gamma range and simply light and expose to that. Sony offers a very similar mode using their Hypergamma settings. The Japanese engineers might say that we're "using it wrong<" but so what if we like the way it looks?

Instead of the overly saturated, heavy-colored highlights look of Sony's Rec709, try this: shoot in S-Log and RECORD one of the Hypergamma viewing LUTs. I like the 800% with grey point at 40. You get an expanded Dynamic Range compared to Rec709, but with some protection from clipping at the top. Even more importantly you peel away Sony's color matrixing, which has the classic "Sony look" of over-saturated highlights that can both appear very Kodachrome-esque and can also lead to odd over-exposure highlight artifacts like white objects turning yellow. On film (and on the film-emulating look of the Alexa), colors desaturate as they reach overexposure into white. I much prefer that look.

Shoot in this mode and record it either externally or internally. You my find that you wish to add a little touch of saturaton to the final image, or perhaps not depending on your taste. But you won't have to go through a rigorous color correction and gamma adjustment, which is when the lower bit depth and heavier compression really bites you. Just light to this look and you can get stunning images out of the F3 which are remarkably better than the standard Rec709, no matter what you do in the Picture Profile menus. You can record this externally or to the SxS cards. It really turns the F3 into an altogether different camera.

Most jobs do not have the time, money or inclination to go through in depth color correction. This is a way to improve the look of the camera without recording true Log, so that what is recorded can be the finished image. Again, you may wish to add a bit of saturation to the colors in this mode, but it wouldn't be much and would likely be an overall adjustment to the entire project based on the look you prefer. That's pretty easy and the image is much better.

 

[Nate Weaver]

Nate, I'm curious about your work flow when its graded. Are you scrunching into legal levels and then increasing saturation?

Resolve automatically either does a hard clip or soft clip to 100IRE, depending on how you have it setup (you can turn that off, too).

The method is basically two things: drop the brightness of your mids (aka increasing gamma), and add saturation. That gets you 90% there. I paid a few bucks for a technically correct S-Log LUT to apply to all footage coming into Resolve, but I find myself not using it and just sticking to the miss and saturation method. At a later date I might commission another LUT that suits me better.

The changing mids and saturation method is easy to apply in all NLEs. I copy and paste this across clips for the rough edit postings, and then do a better job of it in Resolve when the edit is locked and the job delivers.

Even though it was Sony's intent that S-Log be used for later post color correction, we all know that often we find other ways to use tools. Just like FILM REC mode on the Panasonic Varicam was really only meant for film out finishes, but many people chose to shoot with in to get an extended gamma range and simply light and expose to that. Sony offers a very similar mode using their Hypergamma settings. The Japanese engineers might say that we're "using it wrong<" but so what if we like the way it looks?

Argh. Try explaining this to a bunch of camera technologists. Dancing about architecture.

Instead of the overly saturated, heavy-colored highlights look of Sony's Rec709, try this: shoot in S-Log and RECORD one of the Hypergamma viewing LUTs. I like the 800% with grey point at 40. You get an expanded Dynamic Range compared to Rec709, but with some protection from clipping at the top. Even more importantly you peel away Sony's color matrixing, which has the classic "Sony look" of over-saturated highlights that can both appear very Kodachrome-esque and can also lead to odd over-exposure highlight artifacts like white objects turning yellow. On film (and on the film-emulating look of the Alexa), colors desaturate as they reach overexposure into white. I much prefer that look.

The stock look of this camera is what's keeping it from serious upper end work, in my opinion. I have numerous DP friends that saw material in spring before S-Log showed up and said "no thanks, I'll stick to Red or Alexa".

Just light to this look and you can get stunning images out of the F3 which are remarkably better than the standard Rec709, no matter what you do in the Picture Profile menus. You can record this externally or to the SxS cards. It really turns the F3 into an altogether different camera.

A very different camera. A pretty one.

Most jobs do not have the time, money or inclination to go through in depth color correction. This is a way to improve the look of the camera without recording true Log, so that what is recorded can be the finished image. Again, you may wish to add a bit of saturation to the colors in this mode, but it wouldn't be much and would likely be an overall adjustment to the entire project based on the look you prefer. That's pretty easy and the image is much better.

I'm finding these days most editors don't mind doing a little bit of color...it's a fun change of pace. It's so easy to do it in any NLE, and if the NLE does a decent cut and paste for color correction filters, then you're good to go. You don't need Color or Resolve, and it doesn't' have to take a ton of time.

 

[Duke M.]

Instead of the overly saturated, heavy-colored highlights look of Sony's Rec709, try this: shoot in S-Log and RECORD one of the Hypergamma viewing LUTs. I like the 800% with grey point at 40. You get an expanded Dynamic Range compared to Rec709, but with some protection from clipping at the top. Even more importantly you peel away Sony's color matrixing

This is exactly what I proposed on 'the other board' and was told wouldn't work for 'various reasons', but wouldn't say why. The biggest reason I can see is that its a baked in look. But if you're really close to where you want to be then the adjustments will be small. Its a good argument for custom LUTs, which was also dis'd.

Hmmm. Wouldn't your internal cards be recording S-Log and your external recorder recording a semi finished product.

 

[LeavingTheCandy]

Mitch and Nate--awesome comments with good suggestions. This is exactly why, going back to my original statement quoted here, "I'd rather have an SLOG camera without an external recorder than the other way around". I was on a run-and-gun shoot the end of last week with some difficult lighting situations. I was recording to SxS, non-log so switched to SLOG and was able to get a usable shot that otherwise would've looked crappy. My B-Cam dude on a 7D just turned off his camera. Said, it wasn't even usable.
I'm TOTALLY ok with going SLOG to XDCAM for some of my shoots. Yes, ProRes looks better and can be pushed more in grading, but since getting SLOG, I don't wanna turn it off--doing so is like putting your Ferrari in valet-mode! :2vrolijk_08:

 

[Nate Weaver]

I got my Samurai last week, specifically in time for this weeks job. Doing behind the scenes on a Superbowl spot.

100+ crew, and things are moving VERY fast, and I decided last minute to NOT use the Samurai. I realized I would not have time to dump footage during the day (doing it now, actually), and if I need to strip the camera down to get ultra portable, then the Samurai is just going to get in the way. Not worth it, on this particular gig.

It's too bad, I would have liked to try it out. Stakes are too high on this one.

 

[Duke M.]

I got my Samurai last week, specifically in time for this weeks job. Doing behind the scenes on a Superbowl spot.

100+ crew, and things are moving VERY fast, and I decided last minute to NOT use the Samurai. I realized I would not have time to dump footage during the day (doing it now, actually), and if I need to strip the camera down to get ultra portable, then the Samurai is just going to get in the way. Not worth it, on this particular gig.

It's too bad, I would have liked to try it out. Stakes are too high on this one.

You could do your last day or the last half of the last day so that data dumps and portability may not be the factors they'd be the rest of the time. It would give you some comparison footage and experience with it. If there's a problem just pull it off or turn it off and keep shooting.

 

[eddavid]

Nate - that stuff looks great. I also have done some s log straight to SxS cards and for its purposes it worked out completely fine.

 

[LeavingTheCandy]

On a related, but off-topic a bit note, I was impressed and enthused to hear that Canon's XF line of cameras has a mode for recording to both CF cards simultaneously for safety/redundancy purposes. I'm in!

 

[skimmel]

I was curious about the whole S-log vs external recorder thing, so purchased the Vortex media recorder files. I'll posted the first part of my review in this forum shortly. For me (just speaking for myself): I find that S-log is more useful than an external recorder. But, both is ideal!

 

[Wendt]

Even though it was Sony's intent that S-Log be used for later post color correction, we all know that often we find other ways to use tools. Just like FILM REC mode on the Panasonic Varicam was really only meant for film out finishes, but many people chose to shoot with in to get an extended gamma range and simply light and expose to that. Sony offers a very similar mode using their Hypergamma settings. The Japanese engineers might say that we're "using it wrong<" but so what if we like the way it looks?

Instead of the overly saturated, heavy-colored highlights look of Sony's Rec709, try this: shoot in S-Log and RECORD one of the Hypergamma viewing LUTs. I like the 800% with grey point at 40. You get an expanded Dynamic Range compared to Rec709, but with some protection from clipping at the top. Even more importantly you peel away Sony's color matrixing, which has the classic "Sony look" of over-saturated highlights that can both appear very Kodachrome-esque and can also lead to odd over-exposure highlight artifacts like white objects turning yellow. On film (and on the film-emulating look of the Alexa), colors desaturate as they reach overexposure into white. I much prefer that look.

Shoot in this mode and record it either externally or internally. You my find that you wish to add a little touch of saturaton to the final image, or perhaps not depending on your taste. But you won't have to go through a rigorous color correction and gamma adjustment, which is when the lower bit depth and heavier compression really bites you. Just light to this look and you can get stunning images out of the F3 which are remarkably better than the standard Rec709, no matter what you do in the Picture Profile menus. You can record this externally or to the SxS cards. It really turns the F3 into an altogether different camera.

Most jobs do not have the time, money or inclination to go through in depth color correction. This is a way to improve the look of the camera without recording true Log, so that what is recorded can be the finished image. Again, you may wish to add a bit of saturation to the colors in this mode, but it wouldn't be much and would likely be an overall adjustment to the entire project based on the look you prefer. That's pretty easy and the image is much better.

Mitch,

Great post. Can you point me to some videos that you have done using this process?

Thanks

 

[LeavingTheCandy]

I think I'm gonna start shooting "hyper gamma" just for the bragging rights--clients will be awed! ;-)