BEST Sony Picture Profile for Video (Cine 4 vs. S-log)

s log or no s log that is the question in this video we're gonna dive into what s log is and go over my suggestions on whether or not you should be shooting in this picture profile or just forgetting about it altogether let's get into it hey guys what's going on thanks for tuning in to my channel today we're gonna talk about s log and whether or not you should be shooting in analog picture profile when I started shooting I didn't want to get anywhere near it then I found out that it was actually what all the professionals are using so I started using it for a few years and now I've actually come full circle and I'm not using it as much and I'm gonna tell you exactly why that is so what is s log well s log is a flat picture profile that actually looks a lot worse in camera but the what the video is actually doing is it's recording more information than a conventional profile and then you have to extrapolate that out in post-production by pulling out the colors adding contrasts and doing a lot more manipulation in the editing process the biggest advantage shooting an S log is dynamic range shooting in any flat picture profile is going to give you more dynamic range which is the distance between your highlights and your shadows so why do people use s log well the biggest reason is that most filmmakers or videographers want to have the most flexibility or ability to customize their footage in the post-production process that means doing a lot of manipulation in post and when you take in your fridge you actually don't want any data baked in so you can just add it on later now for an advanced editor this is pretty seamless and easy to do but if you're new or don't have a lot of experience color grading then this is actually a lot of work so because the log format is really flat you basically have full customization of what you want that image to look like when you're in the post-production process the colors the highlights the saturation all that kind of thing whereas if you're doing it all on camera it's gonna be baked in your footage and that's basically what you're gonna get when you're editing so a lot of people get confused between a log file and a raw file a log file is basically just your contrast and saturation very much reduced when you're recording whereas a raw file is totally uncompressed which means all the information in that raw file is in there and you can extrapolate and change a whole bunch more when you're editing it but log format really just focusing on those highlights contrast and saturation so as I progressed as a videographer and filmmaker I started using s log all the time because that's what the pros were doing and I found that I just wasn't a great color grader so I was getting into the post-production process doing all kinds of manipulation with my colors sometimes my footage would come out really saturated sometimes would look really contrasty and I just couldn't figure out how to dial it in and create a consistent look I then started switching back to actually using simpler picture profiles for my sony a7s - that's picture profiles like cine 4 or just conventional shooting and I found that the footage actually looked really good in camera I could really monitor things a lot better than if it's an S log and when I was in the post-production process there was a lot less to manipulate and the footage and colors in my opinion looked really great so as someone who's not a professional color grader if you're gonna be color grading your footage then save yourself a lot of work in the post-production process and just dial it in and make it look as good as you can when you're actually shooting it one of the other challenges with s log or log format is that what s log does it's actually pulling up your shadows and what that can do is actually introduce graeme into your footage so when you're comparing an s log picture to a cine or regular picture it's gonna be there's gonna be a lot more grain and a lot more I guess noise within your darks versus using a regular picture profile or a simpler picture profile another big annoyance well at least with Sony cameras what we're shooting on is that you have to start shooting s log at a minimum ISO of 1600 which may Slee means you're using a lot more digital enhancement of the shadows and that's just going to introduce more noise and then you're basically forced to use ND filters if you want to get those shallow depth-of-field or eliminate a lot of light coming into the camera if you're shooting in daytime so again just an added frustration with shooting an S log that's easily eliminated by going to a cine or conventional picture profile the biggest reason why I decided to switch away from s log is that when I'm shooting s log I can't see on my small LCD where the exposure is and what the picture looks like you're really not getting a perfect image of what you're gonna actually see on your footage later the highlights are hard to determine and your shadows are really hard to determine now what you can do is apply to a let to your monitor but now you're seeing a differe color graded image that's totally different to what you're gonna see in the post-production process so I just figured simplify the process expose your image for exactly what it's going to look like when you want it done in the editing process and get that out of the way right in camera while you're shooting so after all that what do we shoot in well I typically shoot in on a Sony camera with a picture profile like cine 4 it's a little bit flatter than a standard picture profile so you get a bit more dynamic range and you do have to do a bit more post-production color correcting just to get it up to a normal level but it's a lot less challenging to manipulate than an s log file a lot safer to shoot because you can actually see the colors in your camera monitor and just overall a lot a little bit of flexibility and a lot easier to use throughout the whole production process a lot of people think in order to be professional you have to shoot an S log and a flat picture profile while as a professional I tend to stay away from it there's so many other elements that are important to focus on like your story or just how your shot looks in general and because s log can take away from these other elements then I think it's better to stay away from it and dial in your other settings I hope you found this video helpful guys if you did like this video smash that like button consider subscribing and stay tuned for the next video peace [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Moves Media

Views: 90,138

Keywords: sony, slog, log, picture profile, mirrorless, camera, slog-3, how to, comparison, test, camera test, s log 3, sony mirrorless, cine 4, best picture profile, best picture profile for sony, sony picture profiles, vancouver video, vancouver videography, film production, vancouver production company, slog 2, sony slog, sony s-log 2, sony s-log 2 to rec.709 lut, cine4 vs slog2, cine4 vs slog

Id: xx0ovMl4XJc

Length: 6min 10sec (370 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 20 2019