Prores good for color grading? A6300+ninja 2= $1295 high quality 1080p prores?

[carltsang125]

Hello everyone! I am a newbie, just a hobby video shooter (for daily life and family only), and hope you could give me some advice. Thanks in advance!

I want to ask a question. short version:
Does Prores video have any advantage over h264/xavc on color grading? 
I shoot photos in raw. And I think Prores video is like raw image in photography, h264 is like jpg. Color grading to Prores (raw) is much better than grading H264 (jpeg). Is this correct?

Long version:
As A6300 come out , I think of shooting video for daily life and my family.
While I love a6300's high quality 4k , sony's color is not that great in my opinion. So I want to "convert" it to more pleasing canon-like, or nikon-like, fuji-like.
I have seen people grading the xavc/h264 footage out of camera, but it seems take a lot of work to get a natural look. May be the reason is that H264 is like jpeg in photography, contain too little color information for grading?
I start to think of buying Shogun/Assasin, and record the 4k externally in prores format. I hope that prores would behave like raw image in photography, the color is easier to correct, and I can apply a color conversion preset and the footage color can change easily and naturally. So this is my question: does prores have advantage on color grading, like what I think?

If that works, I will buy a ninja to record 1080p prores externally. (Shogun and Assassin too expensive)
According to the following video, recording in 4k mode and choosing 1080p output, that 1080p is very sharp, like downsampled 4k.
With A6300 ($1000) + ninja 2 ($295) I can get very high quality 1080p prores video.

 

[BrorSvensson]

prores is not the same as raw. Prores gives a more robust image and a lot better for scenes with alot of motion in it. Also h.264 dont grade anywhere near as good as jpg images from cameras.

[Phil A]

It won't really help a lot. The colors will be the same and the HDMI out is only 8bit 422. That's not a huge advantage against the internal 8bit 420. Your only advantage would be the higher bit rate of ProRes against h264 helping with compression artifacts like macro blocking.

To stick with the picture logic you don't get raw, basically you would re-save the JPEG as a PNG/TIFF. While the file format gives a lot of quality, your source can't fill it.

[ricardo_sousa11]

The problem with the A6300 is the Rolling shutter, its way too high, at least for me.

[dahlfors]

If you want Canon/Nikon/Fuji-like colors with APS-C sized sensor, you might want to take a look at Nikon D5300/D5500 instead. Good 1080p, good colours out of the box. If you really want to have Prores / RAW for video, you could always go for Blackmagic pocket cinema camera, although the sensor is a lot smaller. These cameras are in same price range as the A6300.

[Don Kotlos]

8bit with high bitrate 4:2:2 downscaled from 4K will give you much better color, and better gradations than the internal highly compressed 8bit 4:2:0 image. 

I had no idea Sonys can do downscaling! Now I am thinking of getting the ninja for the A7rii...

 

 

[Snowfun]

The implication is that you have the A6300 already? If so, then I'd forget the external recorder option. Focus instead on improving grading, editing, "effects" skills in FCP (or...) so you can improve the look. I too make short films for "family & friends" and the biggest improvements in image quality have been made by hours of practice grading (in fact even simpler things like editing and choice of soundtrack). Simply having a better camera/recorder (which, yes, would give an improved image file) will result in a negligible return compared to your developing talent in post processing.

Some of the "best" sequences I have come from my Sony rx1004 - simply because it tends to be in my pocket at the right time and place. And, yes, of course I enjoy playing with the rigged A7S or grading the raw files from my BMCC & Pocket. But in terms of the quality of the final product the two biggest factors are 1. Getting the camera shooting and 2. Skills with FCP. Both of those are free!!! 

[carltsang125]

Thank you all! It seems that the extra 2 bit of prores over in camera H264 not that siginificant for color grading. And I don't shoot a lot of motion, so I can skip the recorder.

1 hour ago, Snowfun said:

The implication is that you have the A6300 already? If so, then I'd forget the external recorder option. Focus instead on improving grading, editing, "effects" skills in FCP (or...) so you can improve the look. I too make short films for "family & friends" and the biggest improvements in image quality have been made by hours of practice grading (in fact even simpler things like editing and choice of soundtrack). Simply having a better camera/recorder (which, yes, would give an improved image file) will result in a negligible return compared to your developing talent in post processing.

Some of the "best" sequences I have come from my Sony rx1004 - simply because it tends to be in my pocket at the right time and place. And, yes, of course I enjoy playing with the rigged A7S or grading the raw files from my BMCC & Pocket. But in terms of the quality of the final product the two biggest factors are 1. Getting the camera shooting and 2. Skills with FCP. Both of those are free!!! 

Thank you for your advice! It is very helpful to me!
I have already bought A6300. Following your advice I will buy more portable lens so that I can always put in the bag, so I can easily shoot it at the right time!
And try to use premiere pro as good as I can.

[Phil A]

7 hours ago, carltsang125 said:

Thank you all! It seems that the extra 2 bit of prores over in camera H264 not that siginificant for color grading. And I don't shoot a lot of motion, so I can skip the recorder.

They are but you don't get real 10bit. The Sony alpha cameras output only 8bit via HDMI. Saving 8bit data into a 10bit container is still only 8bit. Of course there's the discussion if downscaling 8bit 4:2:0 UHD gives 10bit 4:2:2 1080p but the opinions vary and I think the answer is "not really" regarding the 10bit part.

[Dustin]

18 hours ago, dahlfors said:

If you want Canon/Nikon/Fuji-like colors with APS-C sized sensor, you might want to take a look at Nikon D5300/D5500 instead. Good 1080p, good colours out of the box. If you really want to have Prores / RAW for video, you could always go for Blackmagic pocket cinema camera, although the sensor is a lot smaller. These cameras are in same price range as the A6300.

This. Having owned a d5300 for a few months now, it really does get great colors out of the box. Sure there is no flat profile, no stock log profile, but for colors its great. I use standard and vivid profiles the most. Baked in look but good colors!

[IronFilm]

If you want real 10bit on a tight budget then there are three main options:

1) Panasonic GH4
2) Sony PMW-F3 secondhand
3) Any of the many BMD cameras (such as BMCC/BMPCC/BMMCC)

No Sony stills mirrorless camera will give 10bit to you in 2016. 
Neither does Panasonic, aside from the GH4, or any of the other camera companies with their stills cameras.