Cine 4 - The terror

[Gregormannschaft]

I'm using the Sony A7SII. I really like the Sony A7SII. I've used Geoff's G Film settings a lot with Slog 2 and have loved the results. Recently I've wanted to get a slightly cleaner image and thought I might be able to get that with moving away from a LOG profile towards a Cine profile. I've seen a lot of people use Cine 4 so I thought I'd give it a shot. Here''s a scene I've WB'd with an 18% grey card, under a skylight with daylight pouring in. 

Applying an unusually large amount lot of contrast, the skin is yellow. The shot is messy, I know, I'm used to SLOG so I overexposed, but still. I have this weird thing where everything I shoot with Cine 4 ends up having a strange colour cast, I seem to only get really strong, good results with SLOG 2. I fixed this image with RGB colour corrector, applied a LUT, got an OK result, but I can't help escape the feeling you should be able to get acceptable colours without a LUT and a ton of fiddling.

Am I doing something glaringly wrong here? Anyone a fan of Cine 4 and had better luck? 

My exact settings were simply Cine 4 with Pro colour.
 

[Geoff CB]

If your already used to Gfilm. Put in the same settings and set the gamma and color mode to "Still". Been using that setting alot when I don't want to grade much. I've had more luck with the default Cine2 than Cine 4 myself.

 

 

EDIT: Also drop saturation to +1, or the colors start clipping.

[Deadcode]

38 minutes ago, Gregormannschaft said:

I'm using the Sony A7SII. I really like the Sony A7SII. I've used Geoff's G Film settings a lot with Slog 2 and have loved the results. Recently I've wanted to get a slightly cleaner image and thought I might be able to get that with moving away from a LOG profile towards a Cine profile. I've seen a lot of people use Cine 4 so I thought I'd give it a shot. Here''s a scene I've WB'd with an 18% grey card, under a skylight with daylight pouring in. 

Applying an unusually large amount lot of contrast, the skin is yellow. The shot is messy, I know, I'm used to SLOG so I overexposed, but still. I have this weird thing where everything I shoot with Cine 4 ends up having a strange colour cast, I seem to only get really strong, good results with SLOG 2. I fixed this image with RGB colour corrector, applied a LUT, got an OK result, but I can't help escape the feeling you should be able to get acceptable colours without a LUT and a ton of fiddling.

Am I doing something glaringly wrong here? Anyone a fan of Cine 4 and had better luck? 

My exact settings were simply Cine 4 with Pro colour.
 

Your skintones should not exposed higher then 60 IRE if you are using Cine4, otherwise it will be highly compressed, just like on your sample image.

If you are using default metering you have to underexpose about 0,66-1 stop to get proper exposure

[Gregormannschaft]

9 minutes ago, Deadcode said:

Your skintones should not exposed higher then 60 IRE if you are using Cine4, otherwise it will be highly compressed, just like on your sample image.

If you are using default metering you have to underexpose about 0,66-1 stop to get proper exposure

This is very helpful, thank you. I had a vague memory that it's best to underexpose the Cinegammas but didn't follow through on that gut feeling. Was a test shoot so wasn't a big problem.

 

28 minutes ago, Geoff CB said:

If your already used to Gfilm. Put in the same settings and set the gamma and color mode to "Still". Been using that setting alot when I don't want to grade much. I've had more luck with the default Cine2 than Cine 4 myself.

 

As always, thanks Geoff. I'll give that a go. I have set out to completely crush the image I attached above, but it's unacceptable colour. I'll give Still a try.

[Don Kotlos]

Cine4 uses illegal values (0-255) and most programs do not recognize that correctly. Are you using the correct ranges? 

What color profile are you using? I have had a great experience with Cine/Pro modes with slight adjustments to the color depth. 

Also in the past, I had noticed differences in skin tones when contrast was adjusted between programs:

By the way, like @Geoff CB I have also switched to Cine2 as well for most things

[CineAlta]

cine4 hypergamma should be underexposed to protect highlights and shadows pulled up in post.  The lower base iso for cine4 means grain is very fine so you can really pull up those shadows.  remember to adjust for the 0-255 range on certain editing suites.  fast colour corrector on your clips with outputs set to 16-235 will fix the issue in premiere.  

[EthanAlexander]

@Don Kotlos & @Geoff CB Why Cine 2 and not Cine 1? Isn't C1 nearly identical to C2 but it goes all the way to 109 IRE instead of 100?

[Don Kotlos]

@EthanAlexander It is a hassle. For everyday projects, I don't want to have to change the range of all clips. Keep in mind that in most programs (if not all) the clips are not shown correctly so it is hard to preview the correct contrast/exposure of the clip before importing it into an editor.  

[JordanWright]

When I used the A7S ii I preferred Cine 2 (-15 Black Level)

[kidzrevil]

Hey ! 

Have you tried cine 4 with stills color mode ? Works a little better than pro color mode but both are really good !

I would advise you to avoid adjusting the color depth & phase options unless you specifically need it in a mixed lighting situation. I find that tweaking those will fix one thing and break another in sony’s color science and should not be tweaked for general use.

also the cine gamma’s use heavy highlight compression with cine 4 having the most compression in the highlights. I suggest a -0.5 underexposure or you can check by eye. Pay attention to at what point does skin start losing its texture, THAT is the highlight compression range of the curve

 

[Gregormannschaft]

2 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

Hey ! 

Have you tried cine 4 with stills color mode ? Works a little better than pro color mode but both are really good !

I would advise you to avoid adjusting the color depth & phase options unless you specifically need it in a mixed lighting situation. I find that tweaking those will fix one thing and break another in sony’s color science and should not be tweaked for general use.

also the cine gamma’s use heavy highlight compression with cine 4 having the most compression in the highlights. I suggest a -0.5 underexposure or you can check by eye. Pay attention to at what point does skin start losing its texture, THAT is the highlight compression range of the curve

 

Thanks, this is very helpful. I haven't used a Cine profile in ages and I was under the impression that moving away from LOG would simplify things. I'll try underexposing Cine 4 with Stills colour mode and see what Cine 2 is like as well tomorrow.