Sony A7SII colors suck!!!

[Grégory LEROY]

I see an hipster friend tomorrow, he will try to fix my color issue. I will publish a trailer of what I'm shooting. I'm not technician like u guys. I sell military/anti-terrorist training, I need a tool easy to use, producing images easy to grade.

On 21/08/2016 at 8:08 PM, sina_html said:

I previously had the same feeling about Sony Slog 2. But recently I realized that the problem was my workflow not slog2.

Here is my recent experience, testing A7R2 in slog-2 with Adobe premiere witch gave me good looking (not necessarily accurate) colors:

- first I applied a color transform matrix to convert sgammut to rec 709. take a look at this post:

- then I tried to add contrast and saturation with lumetri color. I was Kind of happy with the results but then I tried applying Adobe's Slog 2 SL LUT (in lumetri effect, basic corrections) and found out that it game me better results and I no longer needed to manualy add saturation, just contrast.

So in a nutshell: Apply channel mixer effect > Apply S-log 2 SL lut > Add contrast.

I also tried Resolve, first i applied Resolve's own Sony S-log 2 to Rec 709 1D LUT (from nodes panel) then found that I need to bring down the Gain quite significantly (I dont know why it happens) and then added a little bit of saturation and it gave me comparable result with premiere workflow.

I was aslo recording both internally and externally to a shogun, I found that shogun files needed a data range adjustment before starting the above workflow. you can read about this adjustments in here: https://***URL not allowed***/fix-crushed-blacks-on-sony-a7s-and-a7s-ii-external-recordings/

Thank you for your advice, I'm going to follow what you have written.

[j.f.r.]

On August 21, 2016 at 10:07 AM, Grégory LEROY said:

Hello everyone,

Are Sony engineer smoking crack? I rent the sony A7SII camera, shoot some SLog2 footage and oooh my god it's horrible..Skin tones look like corpse, sky look like on LSD and those file are impossible to transcode.

Can you share your workflow to color correct those horrible colors on DaVinci resolve? Any free LUTs to recommend to me?

Thank you

 

 

[Geoff CB]

53 minutes ago, Grégory LEROY said:

I see an hipster friend tomorrow, he will try to fix my color issue. I will publish a trailer of what I'm shooting. I'm not technician like u guys. I sell military/anti-terrorist training, I need a tool easy to use, producing images easy to grade.

Thank you for your advice, I'm going to follow what you have written.

Why the hell would you use LOG? Log is for those that have time to grade in post.

[jax_rox]

 

14 hours ago, AaronChicago said:

Good colors are subjective. Accurate colors aren't. I'll agree with you that Sony is one of the worst with natural color reproduction. But you can definitely get some good looking styled colors from Sony. 

You can also get quite good non-stylised colour out of a Sony. I've done it plenty.

Colour is subjective. At the launch of the VaricamLT, I watched footage on a 4k projector from the camera, that had all been graded. It was incredibly accurate colour, especially when you look at a vectorscope. But the grade, overall, was pretty boring.

I actually found the grade to look very similar to what I can get out of a Sony...

That doesn't mean people can't choose whatever camera they want and whatever colour they like. There's just a lot of anti-Sony talk because of colour. Sony's colours aren't bad, but they are different to what you get out of a Canon.

 

[Dave Maze]

On 8/21/2016 at 9:07 AM, Grégory LEROY said:

Hello everyone,

Are Sony engineer smoking crack? I rent the sony A7SII camera, shoot some SLog2 footage and oooh my god it's horrible..Skin tones look like corpse, sky look like on LSD and those file are impossible to transcode.

Can you share your workflow to color correct those horrible colors on DaVinci resolve? Any free LUTs to recommend to me?

Thank you

 

Its not bad. Try this profile. Its the best. Its so good we are calling it "SuperLog"

Black Level: 0 (it's disabled in s-log2 anyway)

Gamma: S-log2

Black Gamma: Range- Narrow, Level -7

Knee: auto

Color Mode: sgamut3.cine

Saturation: +32

Color Phase: -2 (this is for a7sII, for original a7s use -5)

Color Depth: +6 (all of them)

Detail: -6

 

Expose 1.5 to 2 stops over.

[Kristoferman]

50 minutes ago, DaveAltizer said:

Its not bad. Try this profile. Its the best. Its so good we are calling it "SuperLog"

Black Level: 0 (it's disabled in s-log2 anyway)

Gamma: S-log2

Black Gamma: Range- Narrow, Level -7

Knee: auto

Color Mode: sgamut3.cine

Saturation: +32

Color Phase: -2 (this is for a7sII, for original a7s use -5)

Color Depth: +6 (all of them)

Detail: -6

 

Expose 1.5 to 2 stops over.

What would the color mode be for the original a7s? Any other changes for the original? Thanks

[BenEricson]

2 hours ago, j.f.r. said:

 

That looks like Canon! Nice.

I think this sums it up. Do a quick search for A7Sii footage on video, sort by recent, checkout the still frames. Do the same search for a 5D or even a T2i, compare the colors. 

 

[maxmizer]

35 minutes ago, BenEricson said:

I think this sums it up. Do a quick search for A7Sii footage on video, sort by recent, checkout the still frames. Do the same search for a 5D or even a T2i, compare the colors.

Compare... wrong, by type of technology.

[deezid]

5 hours ago, DaveAltizer said:

Its not bad. Try this profile. Its the best. Its so good we are calling it "SuperLog"

Black Level: 0 (it's disabled in s-log2 anyway)

Gamma: S-log2

Black Gamma: Range- Narrow, Level -7

Knee: auto

Color Mode: sgamut3.cine

Saturation: +32

Color Phase: -2 (this is for a7sII, for original a7s use -5)

Color Depth: +6 (all of them)

Detail: -6

 

Expose 1.5 to 2 stops over.

Pretty much what I did.

Almost no banding.

After grading really nice and saturated colors with great skintones and rolloff. 

[BenEricson]

Just now, deezid said:

Pretty much what I did.

Almost no banding.

After grading really nice and saturated colors with great skintones and rolloff. 

Post some frames please.

[deezid]

1 hour ago, BenEricson said:

Post some frames please.

Already did, trailer included.

On page 2. ;-)

[Gregormannschaft]

2 hours ago, deezid said:

Already did, trailer included.

On page 2. ;-)

Colours looked lovely. That follow shot at the beginning of the trailer was pulled off really well.

[Hans Punk]

Here's one way to get the camera close to a realistic skin tone.

 

[Inazuma]

@deezid what lenses were used on that? Looks ace.

[Django]

On 21 Aug 2016 at 0:11 AM, Grégory LEROY said:

I don't shoot because I'm a video lover, I shoot because videographer refuse to shoot my military activities. I will never shoot log ever, I have no time for this kind of bullshit. 

 Forum members, I just thought I'd point out that this guy is the founder of a questionable Polish militia "boot camp" facility which trains French civilians to semi/automatic firearms & combat warfare (which is illegal here) around a clouded political agenda that seems to cover up under anti-terrorist legitimacy. He is here asking questions as no French videographers (to whom he referred to me in another thread in french as "hipster faggots") seem to want to be associated with his borderline propaganda activities . I'm all about freedom of speech, but I just thought you guys should know who you're helping out here.. not exactly your ordinary fellow videographer..

As for the A7S2, it's color science & S-log. I often here it berated here and it isn't the easiest cam to work with and S-log does require advanced grading skills .. but in the right hands I've seen some really superb work done on the S2 and it sure packs a lot of punch in such a small package (and price compared to the FS5).. and this is coming from a Canon guy!

[BenEricson]

8 hours ago, deezid said:

Already did, trailer included.

On page 2. ;-)

Ah, okay. That was a nice piece, well shot, the colors looked nice as well. You did say it took a fair amount of grading though, yes? 

I saw some noise in the shadows. I would imagine a 1DC would look just as good if not better though.

I've used two Sony cameras a lot. The FS700/7Q which is so sharp and the files are amazing, colors are terrible. The F3 which I own now is in a totally different league with color, really a shame it can't do 4k. Anyway, a lot of my bias comes from using the FS700/7Q setup. That camera is really a struggle/impossible if you're going for the Canon look. Perhaps I need to give the A7S a try. The size is a huge advantage.

[deezid]

3 hours ago, Inazuma said:

@deezid what lenses were used on that? Looks ace.

Only used the Tamron 24-70 2.8.

Great lens.

 

[jax_rox]

3 hours ago, BenEricson said:

Anyway, a lot of my bias comes from using the FS700/7Q setup. That camera is really a struggle/impossible if you're going for the Canon look. 

But therein lies the problem, surely. If you want a Canon look, why the hell are you shooting on a Sony?

[IronFilm]

On 8/21/2016 at 7:59 AM, Grégory LEROY said:

Originally, I wanted to rent the canon C300. The rental guy recommend me the sony instead. wrong recommendation.

What was it for?

C300 mk1 vs a7S mk2 fit very different niches. 

On 8/21/2016 at 8:16 AM, Damphousse said:

Yeah after an bunch of googling I found this...

http://www.eoshd.com/sony-a7r-ii-setup-guide/

LOL! Bet that was hard and took you ages on a long travel all over the internet before you found that ;-) 

[BenEricson]

Just now, jax_rox said:

But therein lies the problem, surely. If you want a Canon look, why the hell are you shooting on a Sony?

It was the camera my work had invested years ago. The 7Q greatly improved the setup, there's just HUGE issues with the S-LOG2 profile. 

Nobody wants Sony color, they buy the cameras because of the price point/feature set.