Mark Romero 2

What input color space and input gamma do you use? Do you just set them to Rec 709 for input gamma / gamut when you shoot in Cine 4? And what color gamut are you shooting in? Cinema? Pro? Something else?

2: Resolve is free, and while it is not easy, there are a ton of tutorials out there. Black Magic Design has a very helpful user forum for resolve, as does lift gamma gain. As for color, it gets pretty subjective. EOSHD pro color is one option, or there are tons of other custom picture profiles all over the web. For scenes that are darker and not too much dynamic range, Cine 2 is a nice picture profile. A lot of people like HLG 3 with BT2020 color space for scenes with more dynamic range, but SLOG 2 has more dynamic range. A couple of people who know what they are talking about on here have suggested using s-gamut3.cine color with SLOG 2 gamma. My experience is that getting white balance correct in camera at the time of shooting is crucial. 1) There are a ton of REALLY good lenses out there at all sorts of price points. While you might want the 70-200 f/2.8 G Master for sports, you might want a 40-year-old manual lens for "cinematic looks," since for some people the words Cinematic mean things like, "lower contrast" or "swirly bokeh" or "soft flare." A lot of people like the Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 lens and at $900 it is relatively affordable for a fast normal zoom, plus it is relatively light. A lot of other people like the 24-105 f/4 but then it is a stop slower. So you get more focal length (24mm vs 28mm, 105mm vs 75mm) but at the cost of a stop of light. There are f/1.8 primes if you need big apertures, and then Sigma makes many f/1.4 lenses as well for Sony, although they are more expensive. They start at about $900 and go up to about $1,450 for the Sigma f/1.4 lenses. And of course, there is the Simga MC-11 adapter which allows you to mount Canon lenses on to Sony cameras. In the past, the sony lens line up was kind of paltry, but there are a lot more lenses available today.

By the way: This is the commercially available version, meaning anyone like Nikon, or Panasonic, and even Canon (JKLOL) could use it in their cameras. Will sony have a more advanced version that they keep for themselves???

I don't own an a7 III but I can tell you with my other Sony cameras that getting white balance correct in camera while shooting is about 95% of the battle. There are all sorts of free picture profiles on the web, and of course, there is EOSHD Pro Color 4. https://www.eoshd.com/eoshd-pro-color-hdr-v4-a7-iii-a7r-iii/

Definitely research and to be honest, I would try renting one first and using it in a demanding situation. You might like it, you might hate it. Otherwise, buy from somewhere that has a very liberal return policy. If you search on youtube for "cinematic a7 III" be forewarned that you will find TONS of examples of people who produce HORRIBLE looking footage. Oh, one thing: The a7 III doesn't do 4K 60fps. It does 1080p 60fps with excellent AF. If you want 4K 60fps, you would have to go with X-T3, or S1 or S1H. But then, they shoot cropped 4K 60fps, so you are back to whether the smaller sensor image will cause more noise or not, and then there is Panasonic AF as well... And just to be clear, despite being a Sony user myself, I almost always recommend a different brand of camera when someone asks me for a recommendation. For most people, an X-T3 would be great. Just your needs are pretty specific.

If I remember correctly, the third-gen camera systems had a major overhaul of the camera's operating system, so I know that certain apps didn't work in gen-3 cameras. (You think they would have overhauled the user interface as well, but apparently not.)

2. low light performance Sony 3. AF performance Sony 1. Good image quality (color, rolloff) SOOC Arguably, Sony is perfectly fine. There are people who will tell you that Sony color science was created by Satan when he was having a bad day. There are many different tutorials on youtube about adjusting the colors so they look good SOOC and of course, we have @Andrew Reid various Pro Color settings and LUTs (although i guess LUTs don't help with SOOC). The key with Sony is nailing white balance and exposure. Some people love Fuji colors. Some people love Canon colors. Some people love Panasonic colors. Me? I can make the colors of ANY camera look like a Sony camera 4. Handheld shooting mostly (IBIS preferable but maybe OIS lenses can be adequate?) NOT Sony, unfortunately. The IBIS is ok (it would be GREAT if there wasn't IBIS from Panasonic and Olympus to compare it to). Bonus Round: 5. Rolling shutter Again, NOT Sony. If you will be panning back and forth you will be getting more rolling shutter with Sony than pretty much any other camera out there (except for possibly EOS R). 6. Ease of use (You said, "realize that I feel most comfortable bare bones due to level of interest and time constraint") Probably NOT Sony, again. A lot of people hate the menu system. I have my Sony camera set up with five different stored memory configurations so I can quickly switch back and forth between two different photo configurations and 3 different video configurations. But it took a while to get it set up that way. Also the screen on Sony cameras is not as good on most other cameras. Not as sharp and it won';t allow you to navigate the menus of the camera by touch on the screen. Also, in terms of the displayed image for review (i.e., chimping) I heard that some of the new cameras give a very low resolution preview in the EVF when reviewing a photo. Although I don't know if they give a lower resolution on the LCD screen since LCD is already low.

Thanks for the explanation. So why change to slog 3 gamma instead of going to Arri Log C or Cineon? Just personal preference??? As a side note, I have been moderately happy going from slog 2 / s.gamut to arri log c and arri gamut, then throwing on the Arri to 709 lut that comes with resolve, but then again, I am sure it can be improved upon.

Thanks for posting the photos and the workflow. Is there any benefit to shooting in SLOG 2 and then using CST to transform to SLOG 3? ( As opposed to just shooting in SLOG 3 to begin with?)

Right now, still using Sony a6500. In a week from now, who knows??? Maybe a7 III, maybe S1, maybe P4K, maybe P6K, maybe X-T3... Just probably NOT a GH5 nor Z6 nor EOS R (fine cameras that they might be).

Just wanted to chime in and say that it looks really good. Sadly, don't own a GH5 nor a P4K.

good points.

I understand. I would just kindly suggest that it might be pretty difficult to find anything that is going to be a SIGNIFICANT upgrade over your current X-T2 system for $5K or less. For STILLS: the Sony a6400 / a6600 body is going to have the best AF tracking this side of the Sony a9... but I don't know if you will be able to get away with the $550 85mm f/1.8 (which will probably result in LOTS of cropping in post), or whether you will need the $2,600 70-200 f/2.8 GM OSS. The 85mm f/1.8 will allow you to lower your ISO by about one stop - maybe more since Fuji cameras tend to expose darker at equivalent ISO values. The f/2.8 of the 70-200 won't allow as much light. The tests I have seen show that the Sony's tend to have cleaner high iso performance than the Fuji cameras, but part of that is due to built-in automatic noise reduction which means that the fujis tend to be SHARPER. But that is a generalization. The 85mm f/1.8 has no built in stabilization. The 70-200 does. The a6400 ($900) does NOT have stabilization, and doesn't have the AF tracking in VIDEO that the a6600 ($1,400) has. The a6600 also has built in stabilization. And again, don't know if the AF performance of the 85mm f/18 will keep up with the advanced tracking of the Sony a6400 / a6600 cameras. FOR VIDEO If you are going to shoot handheld VIDEO on a tele lens, then you need at the very least the stabilization provided by a Panasonic or Olympus camera, and even then you are going to need to make sure that you are very steady and strong enough that you can hand-hold the camera for the duration of the shot. By the way, there is a reason that people don't use the word "panasonic" and "sports" in the same sentence. (SPOILER ALERT: Has to do with their autofocus systems.) As for video, Sony and Canon probably have the best AF performance, but both have bad rolling shutter. The 4K crop of the Canon R might actually be a benefit in terms of reach, but then it will probably be noisier than the 4K footage of the Sony a6600. Anyway, hoping someone else can chime in with better suggestions than mine.

Forgot to mention that one of the keys to having good color is to have good lighting. What sort of lighting conditions do you expect to be in? Will you able / willing to light scenes as well?

I am not purposely trying to be overly negative, but that is the realm of professional sports shooters and a professional sports shooter could easily have $7,000 to $10,000 invested in a single camera body and lens (at least in terms of stills shooters). A Sony a9 II sells for $4,500 new, Canon 1DX sells for $5,300 new, and a Nikon D5 sells for $5,500 new. If a sports shooter could get away with less expensive gear, they wouldn't spend ridiculous amounts of money on bodies and lenses. In short, shooting indoor sports in poorly lit conditions is probably one of the most cost-inducing types of photography there is. You need lenses that are both long in focal length, have fast apertures, and focus fast, and those all cost big dollars. You also want a camera that has excellent AF in low light and a high frames per second rate in stills to capture the action, which, again, are certainly far from being budget-friendly. Purely from a STILLS perspective, you might be able to work with something like a Sony a6400 (or a6600) and POSSIBLY the Sony 85mm f/1.8 lens, but please don't quote me on that. I don't know how fast the Sony 85mm f/1.8 will actually focus, and secondly, don't know if 85mm on a crop body is enough reach for you, and whether you can live with the restrictions of a prime lens (as opposed to the flexibility that one would get from a zoom). As @Andrew Reidmentioned above, sony video has SIGNIFICANT issues with rolling shutter. And if you wanted the excellent AF Tracking features in video, you would (I believe) have to get the more expensive a6600 over the a6400, but again, don't want to swear by that. Hopefully someone else will chime in with better news. I just don't want you to trade in all your gear and find that whatever you get isn't an improvement.

Maybe I mis-typed / wasn't clear. Basically, I set zebras to 106 and expose to the right until the BRIGHTEST thing clips (at 106 IRE). Then bring down 1/3rd stop. As @Deadcodenoted, it is basically exposing to the right... just as far to the right as one can go without clipping the brightest thing in the scene.

Thanks! Speaking of the offset wheel in resolve... I've heard from somewhere (maybe on liftgammagain) that if you are just going to make a luminance adjustment, better to go into the primary bars and use the Y bar to adjust (and not the wheel / dial at the bottom). I have no idea why it would be different than sliding the horizontal dial under the primary wheels / primary bars. Any thoughts on that? THANKS!!!

You should probably send a Thank You card to @Deadcode because he helped me decide to try your IDT. Do we still need to expose slog 2 at approximately 2 stops over? [EDIT: Just saw @Deadcode post above this about keeping important stuff at 40IRE or higher.] I usually just set my zebras to 106 and open up until I just barely see zebras, and then close down the aperture 1/3 of a stop to play it safe since an individual color channel might clip but not trigger the zebras. Wish sony cameras had two zebra levels so I could monitor both highlights and shadows. My HDMI monitor zebra only goes as high as 15IRE for the low value, so I don't think I can set a zebra for below 40IRE QUESTION: Suppose you have a sky that you KNOW is going to blow out. Maybe it is a sunset, or just really strong backlighting. In those situations, would it make sense to use SLOG 3 instead of SLOG 2 to avoid super-saturating the highlights, since (from what I understand) SLOG 3 curve is more similar to Cineon Log / Arri LOG C and they tend to reduce saturation in the highlights. I can live with a big yellow detail-less ball in the sky at sunset. I just don't want a dark brown ring around it. (It's raining here for the next few days so can't even test it out myself.)

Thanks!

Does your custom IDT work for Acesscct as well as Acesscc???

Thanks for the input. Did you find any tutorials that were good on ACES workflow?

A couple of questions... The reasons to avoid shooting in Slog2 or 3 would be compression artifacts, which can be avoided by using an external recorder. So exactly what would be cleared up by recording externally? Macro blocking? Banding? Noisy Shadows? All of the above? None of the above? Slog 2/3 with S-Gamut3.cine will give you a much better result than Pro color and especially 709... So don't use S-gamut when shooting Slog 2???

Although i shoot with Sony, I would recommend looking at something like a Fuji X-T3 IF YOU ARE WILLING TO USE A GIMBAL. If you truly need handheld / shoulder rig, then probably look into the cameras by Panasonic or Olympus as they have the best IBIS. The Panasonic GH5 is highly regarded for usability and capability but it lacks a little bit in low light ability and dynamic range. And the AF of the X-T3 is better, although after recent firmware updates, I don't know how much better. Also I don't know if there are ultrawide fast lenses for the GH5. There probably are but I am not familiar enough with them to state either way. If you need best low light performance or best dynamic range, then the $2,500 Panasonic S1 or the $1,800 Sony a7 III would work, but as noted above, the S1 has questionable autofocs. I don't think they have a fast, ultra-wide lens either. They will release a 16-35 f/4 at around $1,500 but is f/4 fast enough for you??? You haven't mentioned what your plans are for recording audio. Some cameras might have audio capabilities that better meet your needs. (Of course, if you record audio externally, then that is another thing.) Also, do you think you would possibly use a gimbal or an external monitor or recorder? Also, almost ANY camera can provide "good color" but some require more work in post to get it than others.

I am curious as to what the benefits are of working in ACES as opposed to RGB (which the tools in Resolve were designed for). I am not at this time good enough / knowledgable enough about ACES to see a difference when I try to use it.

Firstly, what NLE are you using? What has been your grading workflow with Slog 2 and s.gamut3.cine? Are you using one of Sony's official luts to change SLOG 2 into Rec 709? I don't know about using SLOG 2 with pro color... I know when using it with the Cinegammas it can lead to some super saturation of the highlights, and I have found when using Cinnegammas that cinema color is a bit nicer. But again, don't know if it has that affect when using SLOG 2 as the gamma. Lately, I have been pretty happy with the colors when using Color Space Transform in Resolve to change the gamma from SLOG 2 into Arri Log C and the gamut from s.gamut.3 in to Arri Gamut, then grade in the arri color space, then use the Arri to Rec 709 lut at the end of the node chain. Because SLOG 2 is generally overexposed while Arri Log C is exposed closer to center, my first node often just has various LGG adjustments to bring the exposure down. Then the color space transform. Then a node for color balance and grading, then a fourth node for the Arri to Rec 709 LUT.