If you still haven’t figured it out how to get the best out of the S-Log 2 on your Sony A7II mirrorless camera, Brett Williams already has some helpful suggestions for you. In fact, his initial intention was to tweak the available picture profiles of the A7II to match its footage as close as possible to the other camera he owns as he predominantly shoots with the Canon C100.
The other reason why he modified the PP7 picture profile was to be able to get more accurate in-camera colours as he found out that the there are certain colour shifts and inaccuracies due to the S-Gamut colour mode of the camera and the 4:2:0 sub-sampling the device utilises when shooting with this profile.
Custom Picture Profiles for Sony A7II – for use with Canon C100 and an alternative for S-Log2 (PP7) from Brett Williams on Vimeo.
You shouldn’t take these custom profiles for granted, but more likely as a reference point to get the look you want in-camera, instead of trying to match colours in post-production afterwards.
Here are the settings for the three different Picture Profiles Brett ended up creating:
PP1: “S-Log Pro” – for shoots that I want the high dynamic range for and intend to grade, without sacrificing colour information. Lowest ISO you can use is 1600.
- Black Level: 0
- Gamma: S-Log2
- Black Gamma: Middle / 0
- Knee: Auto
- Color Mode: Pro
- Saturation: +3
- Color Phase: 0
- Color Depth: R +5, G +2, B +2, C +2, M -2, Y +2
- Detail: Level -2
- Mode: Manual, V/H Balance: 0, B/W Balance: Type5, Limit: 3, Crispening: 3, Hi-Light Detail: 2
“S-Log Pro” custom profile provides the same dynamic range that you can expect from the S-Log 2, but it uses the Pro colour space of the camera rather than S-Gamut with a few other minor tweak settings.
PP2: “The No Grader” – when there’s no need/time to colour correct.
- Gamma: Cine1
- Color Mode: ITU709 Matrix
- Color Depth: R +2
- Detail: Level -3, Auto Adjust
- All other settings are set to default
This profile utilises the Cine1 Gamma and Rec.709 colour space. It’s most suitable for fast turnarounds and on other instances where you need to shoot in-camera footage ready for delivery without any further tweaking.
PP6: “The C100 Emulator”
- Black Level: +2
- Gamma: Cine2
- Black Gamma: Wide +4
- Knee: Manual, Point 80%, Slope +2
- Color Mode: Pro
- Saturation: -5
- Color Phase: 0
- Color Depth: R +3, G +1, B -1, C -4, M -4, Y +3
- Detail: Level -4, Manual mode, V/H Balance 0, B/W Balance Type5, Limit 5, Crispening 3, Hi-light detail 3
You won’t get exactly the same look of the Canon C100 while shooting in Log mode, yet it’s considerably close to it so that you can easily match the footage from both cameras later in post.
Whether you are trying to emulate the Log Gamma of the Canon C100, or you simply want to achieve better colour rendition and reproduction in the Sony A7II right off the bat, you are free to test out and share the results with the community in the comment section below.
[via: Cinescopophilia, source: Brett Williams]
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