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A7s SLOG2 Easier to Grade with Lumetri Color


Gregormannschaft
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So I've always, always struggled to get SLOG2 right on the A7s. I'm self taught and not a particuarly good colorist. I still haven't learned how to read scopes properly and found myself relying on the presets within FilmConvert to help me get colour and exposure right when using it. I had a couple of tests that were 'OK' but always found there to be far too much noise and ended up switching over to Cine4, and recently, Cine2 when using the camera.

For some reason I decided to give it another shot this weekend after playing around with the new Lumetri Colour panel in Adobe Premiere CC, and lo and behold, it is far far easier to grade and I have finally gotten footage that isn't a noise infested mess. Being able to play around with the highlights, whites, shadows and blacks with sliders instead of curves (as I was previously using) gave me way more control over the image. Below is an example of some quick shots I took walking around Berlin this weekend, graded with a Visioncolor Impulz Ultimate LUT. Also have to add, that while the original footage did have a yellow tinge to it, this was easily taken out with the saturation wheel. Single out the offending yellow hue, drop the saturation of that hue, and its gone.

 

 


Now onto the next mystery of why my Vimeo uploads always end up pixelated when there's any sort of movement...better to download if you're curious.

Either way, if you found SLOG 2 was a nightmare beforehand it might be worth checking out again if you have access to Premiere CC.
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Seems to be clipping quite a lot?

There is no reason to ever use Cine2 if you are doing grades. Cine2 has no superbrights.

​True. I was playing with the exposure, trying to find the right balance and experiment to see what looks best with SLOG2, so on some shots there's too much clipping. Out of interest, what does everyone set peaking to when using SLOG2?

+ Cine2 looked flatter to my eyes than Cine4, retaining more highlights but losing a little shadow detail. I know most folks go with Cine4 and use Cine2 at night but I've not heard the superbrights reference before - any explanation?

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It doesn't have more highlights, whait it does is pull mid grey lower and clip signal at IRE 100. The lower midgrey point may create the illusion of more highlights latitude, but it is the actually opposite. The other three Cine curves go to IRE 109. Cine2 is supposed to be used "as is" and be broadcast safe (hence clipped at IRE 100).

I don't think any peaking setting will work well with slog. Peaking relies on contrast and contrast is very low with s-log. One way to sort of work around this is to pre-focus with a contrasty PP and switch to s-log for recording.

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It doesn't have more highlights, whait it does is pull mid grey lower and clip signal at IRE 100. The lower midgrey point may create the illusion of more highlights latitude, but it is the actually opposite. The other three Cine curves go to IRE 109. Cine2 is supposed to be used "as is" and be broadcast safe (hence clipped at IRE 100).

I don't think any peaking setting will work well with slog. Peaking relies on contrast and contrast is very low with s-log. One way to sort of work around this is to focus with a contrasty PP and switch to s-log for recording.

​Gotcha, thanks for the info.

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Great work, Greg! Nice shots and a pretty good grade for a self-taught colorist. You might look at increasing saturation in the blues--the skies are a little anemic and the foliage has kind of a neon look. 

Have you tried the Autumn Leaves creative style at all? It sounds stupid, but Brandon Li gets amazing results with it dialed down. Any chance you could do some comparison shots between SLOG2 and Autumn Leaves in the same conditions? 

Thanks so much for the post!

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Great work, Greg! Nice shots and a pretty good grade for a self-taught colorist. You might look at increasing saturation in the blues--the skies are a little anemic and the foliage has kind of a neon look. 

Have you tried the Autumn Leaves creative style at all? It sounds stupid, but Brandon Li gets amazing results with it dialed down. Any chance you could do some comparison shots between SLOG2 and Autumn Leaves in the same conditions? 

Thanks so much for the post!

​Thanks for the great feedback! I actually did an Autumn Leaves test a few weeks back and found the colours amazing but it was very, very contrasty so I didn't do anything with it. I got the impression that dropping contrast to -3 wouldn't really help but might give it another look. I do love the flatter look you get with SLOG2.

Will also take your tip with the skies and make them a little punchier, it's also very teal-y at points but that might be the LUT at work.

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​Cheers! I altered the SLOG2 profile a little according to Kholi's recipe, then used Sony SLOG 2 > SLOG2_Fuji Pro 400_FC.cube file. I always tend to use the FC versions of the LUTS.

​Thanks ... I do the same with the SLOG2 profile ... I will give the F Pro 400_FC.cube LUT a try ... it looks gorgeous in your examples.

 

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​Thanks for the great feedback! I actually did an Autumn Leaves test a few weeks back and found the colours amazing but it was very, very contrasty so I didn't do anything with it. I got the impression that dropping contrast to -3 wouldn't really help but might give it another look. I do love the flatter look you get with SLOG2.
Will also take your tip with the skies and make them a little punchier, it's also very teal-y at points but that might be the LUT at work.

​You can increase the DRO setting if you are going to use Autumn Leaves for grading. DRO +3 flattens the low-mid range of all the styles.

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Cheers @Devon, always nice to be complimented. This was shot on my old A7s, and I think at the time I was playing around with the Kholli profile that was doing the rounds. Ed David often posts it and it's available with a quick search I think. I used Lumetri and a straight SLOG2 Lut from Impulz. The shot you're refering to was shot at 24mm. Highlights were clipped quite a bit in places as others mentioned, I've got the hang of it all now and tend to do that a lot less.

I have to say, since getting the A7SII, I've produced much nicer LOG footage in the SLOG 3 & 2 gamma settings with the SLOG 3.cine colour profile. So practice plus leaning how to use FilmConvert and Impulz LUTS is a real help.

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2 hours ago, Ed_David said:

that does look great.

the problem for me with slog2 - it's that it's meant for a 10-bit or 12-bit codec.  The 8 bit on the a7s can't handle the luminscene as much.

Have you tried cine4 or cine2 with sgamut?

Cine4 is my go-to option if I need 100% guaranteed clean, punchy footage. SLOG gives an added texture that I really like in my personal work and student/ethnographic/doc film work which places about 0% emphasis on looks.

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