Sony a7 III discussion

[webrunner5]

13 hours ago, scotchtape said:

 So many confusing options, wish there was a "look good" setting or at least someone to do all the work for us.

 

I think what is crazy is a lot of Smartphones seem to have a "look good" setting right out of the box. Even with Photos. Isn't no wonder they sell a ton of them.

[Robert Collins]

16 hours ago, scotchtape said:

Nice to know I'm on the right track! So many confusing options, wish there was a "look good" setting or at least someone to do all the work for us.

That being said colors looking way better!

I have been shooting Sony full frame for 4 years and the colors never really bothered me. I have been taking photos and shooting raw and nearly always change the colors anyway so no problem.

But I started shooting video a couple of months and you simply cant do that - you need to get it right in camera and I am finding the colors a bit of a struggle. My personal feeling (which maybe bullshit because I dont have much experience) is that Sony doesnt have a 'color' issue so much as a 'white balance' issue. Which makes it horribly difficult to get decent colors with a single set of settings..

I posted this video yesterday from a reviewer yesterday and for the most part the colors look pretty good to me but there are time when they simply go off in the video....

 

[jonpais]

I had to stop watching the video after seeing the buttery smooth out-of-focus background and insanely good autofocus continuous at around four and-a-half minutes. 

[Kisaha]

Can anyone with more experience comment on the skin colors, being different in almost every shot? Is this a grading thing?

This summer I have some gigs booked and I will be using this camera and the A7sII, until then I would like to know how to shoot for skin colors, and what are the similarities and differences between those 2 Sonys. 

If anyone owns, have used both cameras, please comment.

[Inazuma]

Hmm this camera definitely has a skintone issue, particularly with brown-ish people. Lot of orange going on and splotchy colour.

[Attila Bakos]

15 minutes ago, Inazuma said:

Hmm this camera definitely has a skintone issue, particularly with brown-ish people. Lot of orange going on and splotchy colour.

I believe it's user error, and a common one unfortunately, even among people who actually teach log grading. He shot many clips in S-Log2/S-Gamut, and forgot to convert color space during color correction.

This a screenshot from his video:

Here it is corrected with the color space transform plugin in Resolve, I only added a bit of contrast:

Now if I skip color space transformation and only apply contrast and saturation, see what happens:

And finally this is the uploaders grade:

 

So it's pretty clear what's happening here, it's not the camera's fault.

[Deadcode]

46 minutes ago, Attila Bakos said:

I believe it's user error, and a common one unfortunately, even among people who actually teach log grading. He shot many clips in S-Log2/S-Gamut, and forgot to convert color space during color correction.

So it's pretty clear what's happening here, it's not the camera's fault.

+ this happens with everyone who's grading with sgamut3.cine without REC709 gamut conversion too... With proper WB and gamut conversion the skintone is perfectly lined to the skintone marker (+2° to the red as it should be if we are talking about caucasian male skin). With ACES workflow the results are even better,  the highlight roll-off is much better + nice skintones, and you didnt even started grading...

[Gregormannschaft]

Hands up to doing this as well, although I've always been happy with my end results. How would one convert to the correct colour space in Premiere or FCPX? 

[sam]

One way is to use these free tools.  At the bottom of the 3dlc page, are +/- exposure and +/- wb generated for specific gammas/gamuts. This can be done with lutcalc as well, but these are already made. Place these look up tables proceeding any other lut/transform, so the following recieves the values it's designed for.  Read up thoroughly on luts/transforms etc...if you have not.

Use camera man Ben's lut calc to transform from one gamut and/or gamma to another.   Xdcamuser is also a great place to learn about your sony cameras from someone who is  an actual expert.  Most of the talk here is quite simply the blind leading the blind. 

 

https://cameramanben.github.io/LUTCalc/LUTCalc/index.html

@Gregormannschaft

 

https://3dlutcreator.com/3d-lut-creator---materials-and-luts.html?pro=vvk&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=NEW-TEST&utm_campaign=PS&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIluzG-bnV2gIVW7bACh1M_g7UEAAYASADEgKD6_D_BwE

[Inazuma]

@Attila Bakos Could you please apply the technique to 5:05 of the video? That's where I see a lot of blotchiness

[Attila Bakos]

5 minutes ago, Inazuma said:

@Attila Bakos Could you please apply the technique to 5:05 of the video? That's where I see a lot of blotchiness

The example I showed earlier was possible because the video has a few seconds of unprocessed S-Log2/S-Gamut footage. The closeup at 5:05 is already processed, and it doesn't look like his S-Log2 grade, so it's possible that he used some other picture profile there.

[scotchtape]

I actually think the color in that video review is really bad (A7III review for filmmakers), if that was what I was seeing with my camera I would be very disappointed.  I know the crap YT codec doesn't help, not sure why they didn't upload in 4K.  Highlight control pretty bad too.

 

Skintone here looks fine: 

 

Colors here look classic (decent) sony:

This was posted a while ago to, colors look the same, GH5s vs Sony A7III

Skin looks fine to me:

 

[Django]

all these examples are in daylight conditions.. skintone issues start to arise in mixed/artificial light if you're not super careful with WB/Color settings..

[Simon Young]

I honestly find the Sony color science bashing mildly offensive - and I agree with Philip Bloom’s statement that it’s easy to get the new Sonys to look almost anyway you want (within the limits of the 8-bit codec).

If people don’t know or won’t take five minutes to learn how to grade slog2 but still use it, no wonder a lot of footage looks like shit. The color space transform plugin takes two seconds to apply. And have people not heard of the fucking qualifier in Resolve? If you’re too lazy or pressed for time to grade correctly use EOSHD then and apply some minor tweaks.

There’s little to fault with the colors from the a7rIII in this clip:

The famous “canon colors” from the 5d mark IV looks like thrash straight out of the camera by the way with a nasty highlight roll off and too much red in the skin.

 

[scotchtape]

11 hours ago, Deadcode said:

+ this happens with everyone who's grading with sgamut3.cine without REC709 gamut conversion too... With proper WB and gamut conversion the skintone is perfectly lined to the skintone marker (+2° to the red as it should be if we are talking about caucasian male skin). With ACES workflow the results are even better,  the highlight roll-off is much better + nice skintones, and you didnt even started grading...

Slightly unrelated but just tried shooting Slog2 and Sgamut3.cine

Used the LutCalc to convert Sgamut3.cine into LC709 or similar, it really messes up the color.  I don't think Sgamut3.cine needs converting, but I'm not an expert.  I think Sgamut3 apparently needs to be converted, but .cine looks fine, either that or the tool is messed up.  

[Yurolov]

4 hours ago, Simon Young said:

I honestly find the Sony color science bashing mildly offensive - and I agree with Philip Bloom’s statement that it’s easy to get the new Sonys to look almost anyway you want (within the limits of the 8-bit codec).

If people don’t know or won’t take five minutes to learn how to grade slog2 but still use it, no wonder a lot of footage looks like shit. The color space transform plugin takes two seconds to apply. And have people not heard of the fucking qualifier in Resolve? If you’re too lazy or pressed for time to grade correctly use EOSHD then and apply some minor tweaks.

There’s little to fault with the colors from the a7rIII in this clip:

The famous “canon colors” from the 5d mark IV looks like thrash straight out of the camera by the way with a nasty highlight roll off and too much red in the skin.

 

Yes, you are right and everyone else is wrong. And showing me a video doesn't say anything unless you compare the two; case in point:

 

 

I think the results speak for themselves.

On an unrelated note, or perhaps not, rumors are that the new as7iii will inherit the Venice color profile which is something that could elevate the sony above its competitors. Exciting times. 

[Simon Young]

Haha, great comparison, both cameras look awful. Thank you. But why do you get all aggro? Weird.

[scotchtape]

1 hour ago, Yurolov said:

 

I think the results speak for themselves.

On an unrelated note, or perhaps not, rumors are that the new as7iii will inherit the Venice color profile which is something that could elevate the sony above its competitors. Exciting times. 

"The canon has more of a green tint on the skin which I like more" from the video... yeah no thanks.

These guys love wacky green skin tones... Praising Canon for green tint, even though they literally say the Sony camera captured the scene more truthfully.

IMO the Sony won hands down, not saying much since their comparison shots said nothing about the color or white balance settings.

Just look at the YT comments, everyone is calling them out for their ridiculousness.

[Robert Collins]

36 minutes ago, Yurolov said:

I think the results speak for themselves.

Honestly, I am not trolling but I just disagree the 'results speak for themselves'. 

Lets take a very specific example where the commentators are 'drooling' over the Canon cameras.

So look I understand that people see better Canon color here but I dont. I actually dont like either very much but the Canon is definitely too green for me.

But more obviously, the Canon is less sharp/softer which makes it look more 'cinematic'. Softness tends to be a 'character' of 5D mkiv images in general but I dont see it as much of an advantage because you can always make images less detailed but you cant add detail.

And along the same lines people tend to like Canon video because they 'crush the blacks' and again I dont see that as an advantage on the basis that I can crush the blacks in post but it is more problematic to uncrush them.

So, as I see it, there is much more 'subjectivity' in this whole subject than people imagine. I am sure that people who shoot Canon love the colors (most probably because they are used to them) and I would guess that they see any other camera that shoots different colors as 'not so good' because they judge colors against a Canon color standard. And as the majority of pros probably shoot Canon they are all in a cosy information bubble.

[Yurolov]

Some opinions are worth more, which I think you would agree with having bashed their opinions. I said: the results speak for themselves, because I too think their opinions are rather sophomoric. 

17 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

Honestly, I am not trolling but I just disagree the 'results speak for themselves'. 

Lets take a very specific example where the commentators are 'drooling' over the Canon cameras.

So look I understand that people see better Canon color here but I dont. I actually dont like either very much but the Canon is definitely too green for me.

But more obviously, the Canon is less sharp/softer which makes it look more 'cinematic'. Softness tends to be a 'character' of 5D mkiv images in general but I dont see it as much of an advantage because you can always make images less detailed but you cant add detail.

And along the same lines people tend to like Canon video because they 'crush the blacks' and again I dont see that as an advantage on the basis that I can crush the blacks in post but it is more problematic to uncrush them.

So, as I see it, there is much more 'subjectivity' in this whole subject than people imagine. I am sure that people who shoot Canon love the colors (most probably because they are used to them) and I would guess that they see any other camera that shoots different colors as 'not so good' because they judge colors against a Canon color standard. And as the majority of pros probably shoot Canon they are all in a cosy information bubble.

This is a cherry-picked frame. We all know that canon does not tend to green so I can only assume it is a WB issue. 

Regardless, you don't understand color science if you don't see that the canon image is far superior. In it's simplest and most effective form a good color science 1) separates and isolates the subject from his or her environs and 2) brings dimensionality to the image. If you notice all of the sony images look flat and boring and like they were shot with my smartphone. This is best exemplified at 4:00. 

You mention sharpness effecting the overall image. Yes that is true, but not to the extent you are saying.

More important is how skin tones, and even more importantly, how tones which are similar to skin tones are interpreted by the color science. So that you can clearly see a blue discoloration under his eyes in the sony but not in the canon as that color is close enough to skin tone to be identified by the camera and interpreted as same to give the appearance of smoothness (and in his instance - health). 

This is my considered opinion, but even if I am wrong your opinions go against the weight of popular opinion.