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Sony A7SII colors suck!!!


Grégory LEROY
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24 minutes ago, Oliver Daniel said:

I'm pleased with my footage from the A7SII. 

To get nice colour, it's required to modify the Slog2 profile (there's loads of help online), expose the footage at least 1.5 stops to the right and white balance correctly. 

Then you need advanced colour grading skills - firstly to correct the image accurately, bring down the exposure (especially those mids) and use a LUT as a base for further styling if required. Sharpen subtlety and you have a very nice image. 

If you don't do any of the above, then your footage will look like a pile of sick. 

Again, there's so much information on the A7S, LUTS and exposure. You have to put the learning work in to get results. 

The A7S and other Sonys get the best results through intricate hard work. For those who don't want that fuss, Canon or Nikon is your weapon of choice. 

Crap though, like you say, it isn't. 

Agreed, the Sony can produce decent colors,  but you will need more effort to achieve them. That said I much favor Canon color science, as I'm sure most others do.  Not sure how an A7Sii was recommended over a dedicated video camera? While both have strengths they are very different animals.

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2 hours ago, Antonis said:

Use a proper Slog to Rec709 lut Leroy. 
And maybe look up a tutorial or two on how people grade their Slog footage.
That should solve (most) of your problems. :)

I've watched hours of tuto and Im' already working with rec709. Colors sucks, I have way better color with nikon flat profile.

2 hours ago, Damphousse said:

What is your experience level?  There are multiple threads on this forum about working with Sony cameras and various workrounds/workflows.

I am a relative novice.  I have never worked with Sony gear.  But I do own a Canon T3i and a BMPCC.  They are very different and how you expose, color correct, and grade the output takes quite a bit of thought.  The BMPCC results blow the Canon T3i out of the water when handled carefully but the the results out of the T3i color wise are obviously much easier to achieve straight out of the camera.

I just find it strange that you are posting on a forum with so much information about how to handle Sony cameras and files and yet you are asking advice from one guy at a rental shop.  I mean search the forum or start a thread and you will get tons of advice from various sources.  When you rent the camera test out two or three techniques and decide what you like.

Honestly I would never use an 8-bit prosumer codec with a log profile without heavy testing and tons of reading and advice.  It's been mentioned so many times on this forum that 8-bit prosumer log is more trouble that it is worth for many situations.  I stopped using flat profiles on my T3i.  If you really know your camera and are a wizard with Da Vinci Resolve then be my guest.  But an initial outing?  No way.

I have 8 months of experience shooting with my Nikon D5500. 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. 

1 hour ago, Damphousse said:

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

promo-main-1-702x463.jpg

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

Thanks but I don't want to spend money on this shitty camera I will never rent again.

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1 hour ago, Grégory LEROY said:

I've watched hours of tuto and Im' already working with rec709. Colors sucks, I have way better color with nikon flat profile.

I have 8 months of experience shooting with my Nikon D5500. 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. 

Thanks but I don't want to spend money on this shitty camera I will never rent again.

If you don't know how to expose or grade slog properly, use Cine 2 and 4, or don't use any of the PP's and shoot something like Autumn Leaves at -3, 0, -3.  

This is the most user friendly slog setting I've used. http://similaar.com/foto/flaat-a7s/index.html

There's a great thread of settings on dvxuser. 

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1 hour ago, Grégory LEROY said:

Thanks but I don't want to spend money on this shitty camera I will never rent again.

'Despite many, many other shooters across the world being able to get at the very least quite pleasing, if not simply great (or stunning) looking footage out of the A7sII, my inexperience with the system meant that I was unable to shoot and grade to get the look I wanted. Therefore, instead of attempting to further my knowledge to be able to get the best out of a camera system, I'll blame the camera'.

If you were so happy with the D5500, why did you rent the Sony at all? And why rent and shoot on a totally new camera system without doing tests & research?

 

Anyway, post up some screengrabs, or some footage and I'm sure there's many of us who would happily help you out.

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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. As others mentioned FilmConvert, Impulz, and others make some great film emulations that'll give the footage a nice look. I always had to tweak the reds a bit to make them less orange.

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I've found SLOG3 + Impulz LUT is a pretty easy way to get a great image with a few tweaks afterwards. Obviously, there are big minuses with that on the A7SII with the codec. If you live somewhere with bright blue skies, banding's a big issue. I recently switched to SLOG2 + SGamut3.cine and I've got great results. It does veer slightly more towards yellow but that's easy to correct in post. I've found FilmConvert works with that footage really really nicely.

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Producing great color with the a7s II isn't that hard,
You need great grading skills though.

This was shot using slog 2 + slog 3.gamut (saturation to max and sharpness to -7), so most of the 8 bit range is kept, while still having a nice rolloff.

Skintones were very hard to correct (completely green, thanks to the leaves). But results are great, achieved a really colorful look. Didn't use any LUT.

 Was shot in London, Epping Forest.

 

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18 hours ago, Grégory LEROY said:

I've watched hours of tuto and Im' already working with rec709. Colors sucks, I have way better color with nikon flat profile.

I have 8 months of experience shooting with my Nikon D5500. 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.

Well I would assume all major Hollywood blockbusters are shot in log, so it really isn't "bullshit".

I am truly sorry for your experience.  I shoot film stills as a hobby and I know how much it sucks to waste money and miss a shot.  Having a whole roll ruined because of improper exposure or processing is not cool.

Having said that I think what happened here is you got the wrong camera or the wrong camera settings for the job.  An Arri Alexa is without a doubt an excellent camera.  Unfortuantely most people would get better shots shooting with their iphones.  It is just too much camera for the average person.

We have a lot of debates on this forum about cameras because none of them are perfect and the prices are far from perfect.  There is a contingent on here that think putting out affordable consumer cameras that shoot log prores 10 bit 4:2:2 4k video would make Canon's sales numbers return to the glory days of the 00's.  I have gently pointed out to them that most people don't even have the computing power to deal with those files let alone the skills and most importantly the desire.

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28 minutes ago, Damphousse said:

Well I would assume all major Hollywood blockbusters are shot in log, so it really isn't "bullshit".

Log coming out of an Alexa or Red (Or any camera with a proper 10+ bit codec for that matter) is a very, very different beast than Log in a 4:2:0 8bit colorspace and 100mbps bitrate.

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6 minutes ago, Ehetyz said:

Log coming out of an Alexa or Red (Or any camera with a proper 10+ bit codec for that matter) is a very, very different beast than Log in a 4:2:0 8bit colorspace and 100mbps bitrate.

So you agree with me...

21 hours ago, Damphousse said:

Honestly I would never use an 8-bit prosumer codec with a log profile without heavy testing and tons of reading and advice.  It's been mentioned so many times on this forum that 8-bit prosumer log is more trouble that it is worth for many situations.

Point is not all "log" is created equal.  You have to know your camera and your skill level.

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20 hours ago, Grégory LEROY said:

I've watched hours of tuto and Im' already working with rec709. Colors sucks, I have way better color with nikon flat profile.

I have 8 months of experience shooting with my Nikon D5500. 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. 

Thanks but I don't want to spend money on this shitty camera I will never rent again.

As they say, a poor workman blames his tools.

Maybe before you try using sophisticated tools you should figure out how to use them correctly first.

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I love mine and the image and colors it produces... And I have Canon cameras also.... Not sure what you did with yours at your shoot... But probably should have played around with it first...Its a advance piece of equipment (as well it should be for $3000)... Not something you can just grab and go like its from BestBuy or something

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