Try these settings for yourself and let me know what you think! I wish there was more we could do with color on these cameras but someday (hopefully) we will all have 10-bit color in our Sony cameras!
I have been using this setting combination for my Sony a6300 for the last few months and I had a major improvement on the video quality since then. I used to think that what I am doing is wrong but at the same time decided to go with this setting due to the result I got. Your video is so helpful and I can confidently using this setting from now on.
Oh my god!! Is this THE Indy mogul?? I watched a video you did a million years ago about rotoscoping a lightsaber. I think I was…9 years old. I’m 26 now 😂
Kind of weird to post a comment three years after video release but just rewatched this to freshen up. I can't stress enough how clarifying this is. Initially oblivious to the consequence of 8-bit I tried to film and grade with the "fancy" S-gamut/log setting on my A6400. The result was horrendous. This is the way to go.
Great video dude! I have a similar fix where I still use s.gamut but I just crank up the saturation so that there is more to start with and it achieves a similar result of the colors not falling apart. I’m stoked to try this way though!
Your settings definitely seem to work the best especially when you are working in software like resolve and want to use color space transform. keeping everything at default pp7 but raising the saturation makes it extremely easy to de log your footage. everything stays coherent across the board. dunna already did it.
Oh nice! Just went to your channel and found the video. Very interesting and definitely helps! Would love to hear your thoughts after using this setup.
Ahsan Zafar Channel - the issue with that method (which I’ve tested thoroughly) is that I had to overexposed to the point where the highlight detail was completely lost in order to fix the blocky was. However, the way that I (and Caleb, and the original Leeming luts) have dealt with it allows us to keep more highlight detail without getting the blockyness in the shadows. It’s not perfect but it’s better than clipping the highlights all the time.
Caleb you are a friggin live-saver. I'm an audio guy who started filming during Covid and have since gone through the whole Action Cam --> Budget A600 setup --> Upgraded A6400/ZV-E10 setup --> First FX30 setup process. I've shot SLOG2 from the start and even with custom white balance, using a greycard for exposure, zebras, false color on my Ninja V and all those little things you need to get just right, I still felt there was something off. This might just be my biggest facepalm moment hunting for reasons why but holy moly will I go through all my settings, luts and grading presets on the weekend 😀
Gave this a go I was skeptical I’ll admit but... I will say it’s easy to grade and the color is incredibly accurate. Really don’t have to add any additional saturation either which is ideal. I noticed very minimal shift and skin tones were looking natural and pleasing.
I didn’t know you shoot Sony, man! Just switched to Sony from Canon, so I’m in the “watching lots of tutorials before actually shooting with my new camera”, phase…
For me, using S-Log2 ITU709 Matrix messes with the hues, making skin pink. After playing around with Davinci Resolve, I find that adding a SMPTE-C Sony S-Log2 to Rec.709-A Rec.709 color space transform helps. Messing around with tone-mapping helps too. If that’s not enough, then I slightly push the hues to the negatives before the color space transform node
This video has made me feeling more like a nerd than anything else. I just spent the entire last night trying to find the right A6500 color setttings to take out a magenta cast in a used Kino Flo i bought.... and your intro (un-ironically) spoke to my exhausted soul
I cannot stress enough just how helpful this was! My video was not looking great (a7ii) but now it looks really rich in color! Thanks for the easy to follow guide :D
I use sony a6400 for Twitch streaming, and this actually helped so much! I kept having overly bronzy patchy skin that looked like a bad fake tan, but this solved my issue and my skin now looks more even and soft. Thank you again!
Caleb, I cant tell you how much I appreciate you putting this out. I was about to spend a couple days doing tests with all the different color spaces to figure out a better option than the sgamut because I found it was making my videos look too desaturated . Was really not looking forward to it, so im super thankful you put this out just in time 🙏🏼
Absolute masterpiece. I love this cam. People want to talk me into buying a cannon but I really want to master this cam and I'm invested into it. Thank you for posting such a great video for us!
Maybe you’ll see this, maybe you won’t, but I wanted to thank you for being honest and coming clear about Sony’s colours. I absolutely hate them but I think the cameras and their technology are really good. Furthermore, the video you’ve uploaded here itself has really nice grading. I’ve noticed Sony’s issue is that it makes everything that’s black, more like it’s blue, and everything that’s white, more like it’s orange; worse still, is that almost all green and magenta tones caught by this camera are absurd to edit. This is not true on my Nikon RAWs, so I hope there are also ways of editing the camera that reflect the ethos of this video, but for photo as well (what I do mainly).
Thanks for the video! PotatoJet mentioned that there are problems with AF with S-Log2 on the A6400 so I’ve been using HLG2. I’ll definitely be trying this setting and see if this affects AF in any way.
This! This worked for me on the a7iii like a dream. And surprisingly I got even more pleasing results using the same principles in s-log3. Thanks again for all the good work you do.
He's going to tear it to shreds. First he will use his $1200 chart to show how off the primaries are and then how Caleb didn't use the color chart to properly fix luminance levels.
Thank you so much for this! I had my Color Mode set to S-Gamut (as advised by another Sony owner and cinematographer) and couldn't figure out why the colors were so flat and muted. I figured I could just fix them in post. So glad I watched this before I started shooting with my new Sony!
i just tried it with some basic boosting of the saturation and lowering the mids and shadows and it looks great out of camera. It doesn't need much color correction.
Always informative. I think I’ve seen you talk about these settings before (maybe on a live stream) but very helpful and the examples perfectly illustrate the points.
Have you tried HLG3 with rec709 colour? Works out well for me personally. The hybrid log gamma is great because it's easy to grade given the linear responding curve from the lower to mid tones, but the highlights are treated like log for more dynamic range. It's super easy to grade, and has enough dynamic range to work with. Also, theoretically, setting it to rec709 colour gets it right in camera similar to itu matrix.
I use HLG2, over expose by 1 stop and I'm very happy with the results every time. In Premiere, just bring down the shadows and blacks a little, add a little contrast, adjust exposure slightly depending on the scene and that's it. Great results all the time.
@@dipopeters I agree. Also try HLG3 because your footage clips at 100, instead of HLG2's 95. Any noise advantages of HLG2 can be gained on HLG3 in post by simply crushing your darker areas of your image.
I’ve been struggling with color in my videos it seems like forever now but I will definitely give this a try today! Thank you so much for the information such a great video!
I think Cine 4 is the best balance if you’re not in a hi con setting where you need the SLog2 gamma curve. Still flat but enough colour information to do a nice grade in post. Using the Slog2 gamma is still a problem in some situations in an 8 bit camera.
Finally I got the look that Ive always wanted, thank you sir for sharing such a valuable infos in a short and easy to understand video. You got my respect.
Davinci Resolve Users - Use REC709 in Input color space while doing a color space transform for color correction. REC709 and ITU709 Matrix are the same thing.
Thank you so much! I'm shocked, how much better my footage looks with ITU 709 now! I just wish I had found this advice earlier. I shot a whole music video with s-gamut with a lot of water in the background, which looks like a big artefact-mess.
It's not really true, though. It just means consumer Sonys have a smaller portion of s-gamut they can use. You can use the sgamut.cine ones that were explicitly designed for them instead.
On a7III I use Neutral (-3 +3 -3) and Level 5 Dynamic Range Optimizer (DRO) during day time and Level 3 DRO during night time to maximize dynamic range. I find the footage is very pleasing and requires minimal post production. It is really close to the look of slog2/s.gamut footage + official sony LUT. Best part is you can use ISO100 instead of 800.
I tested this a little bit tonight and it looks pretty good and seems to grade really well. Will have to test a bit more. Thanks for the tip! Much appreciated!
Very nice ! always used S-Log 2 and S-Gamut3 but I cranked up the saturation to avoid artefacting and achived satisfying results with it. I haven't tried your tip and will definitely give a go. Edit : I just tried it and found much more artifacting for roughly the same level of saturation with your your solution than using Slog2 with S-Gamut3 and adding +32 in saturation on the A7 III. It would need more testing though, with more robust tools and constant light/scene to be sure.
Whoaaaa I've never even heard of the ITU709 Matrix stuff before. I just default to the Standard setting on the a6400 cuz I'm impatient lol, but now I want to experiment w these settings! Thanks Caleb
I know this is old news for most by now, but for us ZV-E10 users still very relevant, so thank you for your efforts. However, in doing my own tests, I don't really understand the supposed benefits of S-Log2 in Rec 709. I agree that there are fundamental issues with S.Log2 in S-Gamut3.cine, but that seems to be in part a color mapping issue that isn't actually as severe in S-Gamut. Regardless, What I'm really asking is, how is S-Log2 in Rec 709 any more advantageous than, say, Cine1 or Cine2? Those at least use the entire breadth of the available luminance values. S-Log2, on the other hand, forces the base ISO up to 500 (on the ZV-E10) and ignores about the bottom 10% of luminance entirely (which makes total sense in 10 bit). So yes, it mostly avoids the added noise that way, but don't you lose that amount of rgb info as well? Because when converting to Rec 709 you essentially stretch 90% (or so) of the recorded signal to 100% again. I know I'm probably over-simplifying or not understanding the relationship between image information and sensor data. But practically speaking, am I not better off with a full range of rgb data from 0-255, captured without artificial signal boosting (i.e. higher ISO), in Cine1 (0-109% brightness at 125 ISO, recorded as r,g,b, 0,0,0-255,255,255) or Cine2 (0-100% at 100 ISO, same) than S-Log2 in any color space (0-106% at ISO 500, recorded as approx. 20,20,20-255,255,255)? And really, all I want is a robust profile for documentary shooting, where I can't be worrying about switching those settings when the light changes. That's a bit like changing film stock in mid-shoot.
Thank you! would love for you to do a deep dive in 'getting it right in camera' with the rest of those sony settings (e.g Black Gamma)... as you say.... the video files are just too fragile after written, so writing them right in the camera can produce loads of advantages...
I am getting incredible results with no color grading needed using HLG2 BT2020 with Details set to -7. Sony A7C. No color bending - super clean. Tried SLogs before and hated after color grading, which produced crushed blacks, noise, and color bending clearly visible when exposure was changing.
Just got a A6600 and love the new grip and battery from my A6400. With my ND filters I get weird magenta and green tones so I used your tips for perfect colors with the video passport and now I will use these new tips. With the 8 bit codec...it seems a lot of people don’t prefer the SLog and I have some issues with colors in HLG which was supposed to correct these a lot of issues. I heard HLG was the best too but maybe that is only true for 10 bit. I will try these new tips since I currently just shoot with a slightly desaturated standard profile with sharpening turned down and it seems very easy to work with and I only have to fix the green and magenta some,
Thank you so much for making this video!! Apparently all the settings i messed with, weren't the correct ones. I use a Sony A6600 for streaming, and no matter what i always look red. But these settings fixed it. You rock !
I'll give it a run, but so far I've literally never been let down by Cine2 + Still color + -7 detail... I'll change to Movie color sometimes for weddings, to cut down on color correction... HLG3 for client work that takes place mostly outdoors.
THANK YOU for this! Been trying to find best setting for my A6400 so far I use no PP, Portrait creative style 0, -1,-2 settings Definitely will try this
Hey Caleb, thank you for the recommendation! After watching this I have since tested both colour profiles in the same scene with the same lighting and exposure settings. However the differences I found with S.gamut3.cine vs ITU709matrix weren't nearly as noticeable as shown here. Perhaps it's most apparent when shooting against a neutral grey background shown here, but in my case even with the saturation cranked to the same visually in post, the differences were almost negligible without boosting the exposure in post, at that point I could see a difference in boosted shadows. It's super frustrating as a wedding filmmaker trying to dissect and test all of the colour profiles with the Sony a7iii. Transitioning from photographer to filmmaker it's ridiculous how handicapped I feel creatively when shooting in 8 bit video compared to shooting RAW... I've found after many shoots that I can get amazing colour and grading latitude when shooting Slog2 s.gamut3cine 4K in nice lighting, but I run into huge issues when shooting 60p in mixed indoor lighting (still properly overexposing by one stop to maintain better signal to noise ratio). Hopefully now that I'm shooting in ITU709 I will see a tangible difference in worse lighting conditions, but I cannot wait until I upgrade to the A7siii and can shoot slog3 without worrying about the bitrate having a stroke.
Great video bruh ! I’ve been using cine4 on my a6500 but I sure will give this a try. Please do make a video in the future on how to expose for these settings and what settings to use in low light . But still very informative . Thanks !
Thanks, I've been banging my head against the wall trying to get the log profiles on the A7iii to look half decent out of Resolve for some time; this did it👍
If you use resolve you can get good results using color transformation in resolve. I guess a youtube made a video on that. I don't remember his channel name but sure you can search for it.
Wow! I don't even own a Sony (I have 2 Panasonic GX85s) but I really like the way you take the simple starting point for getting good color. I am creating a set of what I call "Base LUTs" which are intended to take take footage from any sensor (camera)/lens combo and tweak it to make it look as realistic as possible, and this would be a good starting point...
So Mr. We real need that so how can we get the budget camera...course all this look expensive and the camera your using are look good...I real like it!
wow, I always use the S-Gamut color space and it gives a lot of banding most part of the time, thank you so much for this tutorial, I'll try your recommendation when I go out and record something
I'll definitely try this. So far Cine4 with Pro color space (the Cody Blue settings) was my go to for weddings, as I found them to be the best for skin colors, even if the DR is less, then in SLog2. I have been playing with HLG lately, as it has he same DR as SLog2, and is easier to work with but colors are far from the Cine . (But only my a6400 has it, not my primary a6500). My main problem is the base iso of 500 and 800 for the SLog, that makes me hard to use in hard sunlight, even with variable ND, an a wedding day.
This will be controversial ! But I've found the putting DRO on 3/4 , not using a picture profile, getting the white balance correct and exposing for the highlights (not blowing them out) looks equally cinematic and the colours are good! And usually with a small grade to warm up the shadows it looks very good.
Oh my god i needed this so bad. Ive been struggling so hard with those weird color issues after grading, i was about ready to sell my 6500. Can't wait to try these settings out this week.
noticed that crazy magenta shift in MOMENT's A7C review that just went up. seems it may still be an issue in the new models too... but oddly not the a7siii.
Yeah 10-bit is the real fix. Without it, the magenta issues are going to stick around. Unfortunately the A7s III still has that fake S-Gamut issue which blows.
I have tried your setting today and .... god this is the result is amazing!! I also have some question about this setting, shu I overexposure for 2 stop as usual? it seems like I can expose like CINE and HLG Picture profile.
Slog3 doesn't suck, most of people don't know how to treat it in post. I own a sony a7 iii and I prefer slog3 because it have the smoothest rolloff between light and shadow
Jesussss, this helped out so much man. Does this also help by reducing noise in the footage? It seems like I’m not getting as much noise in my footage now, if any. Idk, maybe its just me?…
Wow thank you for this video, this explains why my videos literally suck and why when I grade the output is just pure shit. I'm new to this cinema scene but not dumb with the technology... S-Gamut I always felt I had to overwork. i guess it's time to get a better camera or as you did, stop using it. THE BEST video on youtube right now!
Wow thanks! I’ll try that for sure! Would be awesome if more people share their own experiences customizing PPs, I tested comparing color palettes and found the (fake) s-gamuts was the most accurate of all in the range of magenta-browns-yellows for low light when all other oversaturate with a horrible magenta tint.
in my personal testing i found that the colours in s gamut 3 cine look the best. the itu matrix setting is too magenta and messes up skintones. to get richer colors in camera i bumped up the saturation to +25 and tweaked the settings in colour depth to my liking. the result is an image that has good dynamic range yet isnt too pale so you dont need to make aggressive adjustments in post that would cause artifacts.
I'll give it a go but I have to say, I'm a tad nervous. I spent months wrestling with Slog2 before giving up and going with Cine2 and Cinema. Colour artefacts, banding and noise all went away and low light performance is amazing. Cine2 doesn't give you much wiggle room in post but at least what you have is good. Caleb will you be doing a Video Guide for the A7SIII? I'm not buying one until you do. 😉
