Try this when shooting S-LOG 3 on Sony cameras

[Robert Collins]

13 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

I haven't had the a7III for very long, but HLG seems to offer all the DR benefits of SLOG without the headaches. There's an amazing amount of latitude in HLG files, it responds well to pushing the colors around, and it seems to have more detail as well.

Chris

My experience too. You get reasonable DR, reasonable latitude to push files and colors and you can shoot down to iso125 which makes switching between stills and video a breeze.

[Trek of Joy]

10 hours ago, kye said:

This is one of the reasons that I find the Juan Melara grading videos such a revelation - almost every sentence in his videos contains information that would take you hours or days of watching YT videos to find in those "buy my LUT" colour grading videos, but on top of that he presents the information in such a way that it builds an understanding of how to link techniques together in simple but powerful ways.

Searched Juan out after reading this, good stuff. Anyone else you'd recommend?

I'm working my way through the book "The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction" by Steve Hullfish in tandem with YT videos on FCPx 10.4's new color tools, because my grading skills definitely need some improvement. I'd recommend the book, its a great foundation builder with a lot of insight from industry heavyweights. The only drawback is the software has all been updated from 5 years ago when it was published, so you spend a bit of time figuring out what corresponds to what he's using. He also does a lot in an older version of Resolve, which I don't use. The nice thing is the book doesn't really do a lot with LUT's, which like you said, a lot of YT tutorials go overboard with their use. Its starts with the basics for every shot beginning with shadows, highlights then midtones and builds from there.

One interesting takeaway, Stefan Sonnenfeld - colorist for 300, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Fast and Furious, CSI NY and so on - routinely does 70-75 shots in an hour. I'm much quicker with photos in Lightroom, that's a pace that would be tough to match. Though he's working with much better source material than I am.

Cheers

Chris

[kye]

11 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

Searched Juan out after reading this, good stuff. Anyone else you'd recommend?

I'm working my way through the book "The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction" by Steve Hullfish in tandem with YT videos on FCPx 10.4's new color tools, because my grading skills definitely need some improvement. I'd recommend the book, its a great foundation builder with a lot of insight from industry heavyweights. The only drawback is the software has all been updated from 5 years ago when it was published, so you spend a bit of time figuring out what corresponds to what he's using. He also does a lot in an older version of Resolve, which I don't use. The nice thing is the book doesn't really do a lot with LUT's, which like you said, a lot of YT tutorials go overboard with their use. Its starts with the basics for every shot beginning with shadows, highlights then midtones and builds from there.

One interesting takeaway, Stefan Sonnenfeld - colorist for 300, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Fast and Furious, CSI NY and so on - routinely does 70-75 shots in an hour. I'm much quicker with photos in Lightroom, that's a pace that would be tough to match. Though he's working with much better source material than I am.

Cheers

Chris

Avery Peck is also worth checking out (https://www.youtube.com/user/theavenogfilm/videos), Ripple Training gives some good free content (https://www.youtube.com/user/rippleguy/videos) and also the articles at PremiumBeat are really good (like this one: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/create-illness-davinci-resolve/).  I suspect the real reason that excellent colourists aren't all over YT is that they're busy doing actual work and producing free content doesn't pay their mortgages.  Of course, if you're willing to pay for courses then I think it's a different story.  

If you want to work hard and learn fast I'd recommend a few things:

• Practice matching clips from different cameras using only the Lift Gamma Gain and Offset wheels (for log footage you need to convert to REC709 first).  Once you've got a basic handle on how to use them and what they do, pull in clips from as many sources as you can into a project, put on some music, and grade them to visually match as fast as you can.
  I know what you mean about pros working really fast, I've noticed they pretty much use these controls and only use others if there's some specific quirk in the footage.  Getting good at this helps train your eye to see contrast and colour tints.
• Find a bunch of before and after grading videos, pull them into your software and have a go at replicating the grade.  I'd suggest using scopes to help you see what is going on (waveform and vectorscope are tremendously useful).  Videos like this are great if you put in the work, but useless if you don't:

Basically, the best way to learn will be to work at it.  Set yourself challenges and dive into them.  Watching a video is easy, replicating it is painful but is how you'll learn.  Real learning is about changing what's in your brain and that's not easy and doesn't happen if you're passively involved, which is why people watching cooking shows on TV don't end up as brilliant cooks!

[Mako Sports]

On 8/17/2018 at 12:38 PM, Deadcode said:

Exactly.

The clipping point for SLOG2 is 107%

The clipping point for SLOG3 is 93% with consumer cameras

They both represents exactly the same dynamic range.

With professional cameras SLOG3 can go up to 109%.

Technically the dynamic range for most of Sony's SLOG2/3 capable consumer cameras are little above 13EV

The SLOG3 curve was created to handle around 16EV dynamic range if used for the whole range.

Slog 2 clips bright reflected white at 109 ire not 107 and I've never heard of Slog 3 clipping at 109 ire, even on the FS7 and F55, have a source for this info?

[Trek of Joy]

11 hours ago, kye said:

Basically, the best way to learn will be to work at it.  Set yourself challenges and dive into them.  Watching a video is easy, replicating it is painful but is how you'll learn.  Real learning is about changing what's in your brain and that's not easy and doesn't happen if you're passively involved, which is why people watching cooking shows on TV don't end up as brilliant cooks!

Thanks for the links! I used Ripple Training's free FCPx 10.4's overview of the color tools for the how and the book previously referenced for the why. Everything revolves around the RGB parade, the vectorscope, and the Luma waveform and I've been practicing/skillbuilding in almost all my free time. I'm getting a little better everyday and something that was previously a chore is now a process I'm really enjoying.

Cheers

Chris

[Deadcode]

9 hours ago, Mako Sports said:

Slog 2 clips bright reflected white at 109 ire not 107 and I've never heard of Slog 3 clipping at 109 ire, even on the FS7 and F55, have a source for this info?

You are right i did not remember the first part of the sentence  

So in the future SLOG3 will be capable to handle white levels above 92 IRE, but currently it's limited on all sony cameras.

[kye]

8 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

Thanks for the links! I used Ripple Training's free FCPx 10.4's overview of the color tools for the how and the book previously referenced for the why. Everything revolves around the RGB parade, the vectorscope, and the Luma waveform and I've been practicing/skillbuilding in almost all my free time. I'm getting a little better everyday and something that was previously a chore is now a process I'm really enjoying.

Nice

I tend to think of grading in three 'levels':

• Level 1 is knowing what a tool does on a technical level (eg, curves, LGG, contrast/pivot, keying/windows, etc)
• Level 2 is knowing how to use it to get the effect you want (eg, how to make the shadows brighter, how to desaturate the reds, how to change the colour of a t-shirt)
• Level 3 is being able to look at an image and understand what adjustments you need to do to it to make it look great

I'm pretty good with the first two, and am now working on the third.  It's taken a while to get to the point where I can work on the third because you really need to play with things to learn what looks good and you can't play until you are good with at least one tool.  That's why I recommend getting good with the LGG wheels - they're the best 'bang for your buck' tool.