- Hey, my name is Matt
Johnson with whoismatt.com. And I recently made a video sharing that my favorite picture profile for newer Sony cameras is S-Log3, which is going to give
you amazing dynamic range and beautiful colors if you
have the time and capability of color grading it properly. I have a video showing you how to do that, which I will link to down below. But that's not what this video is about because there's a new
picture profile in town. Sony's new S-Cinetone picture
profile says you don't need a log footage. Here's a beautiful image that you can get straight out of camera. And so if you've been wondering
whether you should film in S-Log3 or the
S-Cinetone picture profile with your a7S III, FX3, FX6, or A1, or any other new Sony
camera that comes out that has those picture
profiles for that matter. Today, I want to talk about
the technical differences between S-Cinetone and S-Log3, as well as give you three
scenarios where I think it makes more sense to film in
S-Cinetone and three scenarios where I think it's best to film in S-Log3. Starting with the technical differences, the most obvious difference
between S-Cinetone and S-Log3 is that S-Log3 is a very
flat picture profile that requires you to color
grade it to add contrast and saturation back in. Whereas S-Cinetone already
comes straight out of camera with that contrast and saturation
baked into your footage. This is because S-Log3 records
this flat image to maximize the dynamic range of the
footage you're recording. Depending on your filming
and lighting setup, it's possible to get more
detail in your shadows and brighter highlights
that are not overexposed when filming in S-Log3. With S-Cinetone, on the other hand, you have to sacrifice some of the shadow and highlight detail. But in return, you get to
do significantly less work whenever it comes time to color correct and color grade your footage. In addition, there is one
other significant difference between S-Cinetone and S-Log3. And that difference is
going to be most evident whenever you are filming with your camera, not when you're editing. This difference is, that with S-Log3, your minimum ISO that you should
use when recording is 640. Whereas with S-Cinetone,
you can go all the way down to a minimum ISO of 100. So if you're filming on
a bright and sunny day and you still want to keep
your aperture relatively wide and not have to stop down, you can easily do that with S-Cinetone. But with S-Log3, on the other hand, you may need to look into using something like an indie filter to darken
whatever you're recording. Now, I hear you saying, "But Matt, that's wrong. The a7S III can go all
the way down to ISO 160 when shooting in S-Log3." And you are correct. But when you do this, you're going to be making
some significant compromises to your dynamic range among other things. And I definitely don't recommend doing it. As far as I'm concerned, 640
is the minimum ISO for S-Log3. And if you want to learn
more about those reasons and not just take my word for it, I will link it up in the corner and down in the video description to my Easy S-Log3 Filming Settings video, which covers all of this in detail. So those are the main
technical differences between S-Log3 and S-Cinetone. And which picture profile
you choose to film in is really up to you. But to help you out, I now want to share
with you three scenarios where I think it's best
to film in S-Cinetone and three scenarios where I think you're gonna be better
off filming in S-Log3. Let's start with S-Cinetone. The first reason that I would
choose to film in S-Cinetone would be if I was live streaming. When live streaming, you typically
do not want to be messing around with color grading or LUTs, and you just need an
easy uncomplicated image that will look good on the internet. If I'm live streaming
something like a wedding, or if I'm doing a live stream
from my computer at home using my a7S III as a webcam, S-Cinetone is the picture profile that I'm going to be using. Incidentally, if you want
to learn how to live stream a wedding, I've made a video
showing how to do that, and I'll link to it in the
corner and the video description. Moving on now, the second
scenario where I'm going to choose to film in the S-Cinetone
picture profile is pretty common. And that scenario is whenever
I'm filming something that I'm not going to be
editing or color grading myself. And instead, I'm sending off
the raw footage to a client or an editor that may not have
the experience or capability of properly color grading a log
picture profile like S-Log3. I've filmed videos for
corporate and commercial clients in the past, as well as weddings, where I was just the shooter. And then I handed off the
footage to someone else who will handle the editing. And I would always make sure to ask them, "Do you want this footage shot
in a log picture profile?" And the nice thing is, that if they know what
a log picture profile is and they want to color
grade it themselves, they'll say, "Sure, of
course, that sounds great." But you're also going to
run into a lot of clients whose eyes are going to
immediately glaze over whenever you start using words like log. And if you wanna save time and headache, that's the point where you say, "You know what, we're not
gonna shoot an S-Log." Finally, the last reason
that I would choose to shoot in S-Cinetone over S-Log3 is
if you need to film and deliver a video with a very fast turnaround and you do not have time
to properly color grade it. Maybe it's for a client
who needs the video edited by tomorrow, or maybe you're
doing something like filming a same-day edit for a wedding, where you need to not
only film the wedding but also edit the video that
you can show at the reception. Meaning that you only
have a few hours to edit. In these super fast, high
stakes video editing situations, choosing a picture
profile like S-Cinetone, which already looks good
straight out of camera means that you only need to do at
most some minor color correction to your footage to have it looking good. I've spent literal days
color grading a video that I filmed in S-Log3. And while I love it's versatility, the words fast and
S-Log3 don't go together. So to recap, if you're live streaming
or delivering raw footage to someone else to edit, or if you need to
deliver a video very fast and you do not have time
to properly color grade it, those are three scenarios where
I would shoot in S-Cinetone basically every time. Let's now shift gears and
talk about three scenarios where I think it makes more sense to film in S-Log3 over S-Cinetone. And we'll start with the most obvious. If you're filming a video and you want the absolute best quality
and highest dynamic range that you can get from recording in camera, S-Log3 is by far the best choice. Bright highlights, dark shadows, it doesn't matter because if
you properly expose S-Log3, even footage filmed in more
challenging lighting scenarios will still look great. In addition, you have so much
more versatility when it comes to the colors that you
can achieve in your films. Warmer, cooler, modern, vintage, you can really tune the image to give you whatever look you want, it's great. So if you have time to
color grade and you want the best possible image quality with the maximum dynamic
range that you can get from recording in camera, choose S-Log3 and don't
think about it anymore. The second scenario where I
would choose to film in S-Log3 is if you're filming in a situation where you do not have full
control over the lighting or color of your scene. Maybe you're filming run-and-gun
style where you're using all natural light, or maybe you're filming a wedding and save for one or two small
lights you're bringing, you're really at the mercy
of the venue's lighting. In that case, shooting
in log is gonna give you more control to push the
colors of your footage and make it look like you wanted to even if the lighting isn't optimal. I've lost count of the amount
of weddings that I filmed, where I was in a mixed lighting scenario, and I knew that if I had not filmed in a log picture profile, I
would have been in big trouble. But thanks to log, I was saved from baking in a
look to my footage in camera. And because my footage was flatter, I was able to shift it very
heavily and bring out the colors that I wanted. So if you're a control
freak like me and you want to be able to shift your
colors after the fact in post, shooting in a log picture profile, especially one that's
recording in 10-bit color, which many of Sony's newer cameras can do is gonna give you an
extreme amount of leeway in your footage to color it as you see fit and save you when your lighting isn't fully under your control. Wrapping up now, the last
scenario where I would choose to film in S-Log3 is really
a question that I asked myself before any shoot that I do. And this is something
that I want you to ask yourself as well. The question is, do you have time to work with S-Log3? It's a simple question. But I want you to look at your workflow. I want you to look at
your shooting schedule. I want you to consider how
much time it's gonna take you to color grade your video. Because if you have the time to do it, I think it's completely worth it. Your footage is going to look more filmic, you're gonna have a
better highlight roll-off, increase dynamic range, your colors are gonna look
exactly like you want them to. And all this takes is the
time and ability to know how to color grade. And I wanna help you out with this too. I've already made a video
that shares with you my easy S-Log3 filming
settings that take away a lot of the guesswork when it comes to filming with this picture profile. And I have color grading videos
that I've made that show you how to properly color grade it as well. And in the ultimate time-saver, I've created a set of video
presets called WhoisMatt LUTs that you can use to immediately
get beautiful footage on recording in log. These presets work with S-Log3, but I've also tweaked them to
work with other log profiles from other cameras. And I include versions that
work with non-log profiles like S-Cinetone too. I'll link to those videos
and WhoisMatts LUTs down in the video description
if you want to check them out. So in summary, if you are live streaming or
delivering footage to a client that you will not be editing yourself, or if you need to deliver
your video very fast, then I would choose S-Cinetone. But if you want the absolute
best picture quality and dynamic range that you can get, or if you're filming in a
scenario where you do not have full control over the color
and lighting of your scene, or if you have time to film
in a log picture profile, in that case, I would
definitely recommend S-Log3. With that, thank you so much for watching. I hope this video has been helpful to you if you're debating between
filming in S-Cinetone or S-Log3. I will link to my other
color grading videos below. And it would be a huge help to me if you would consider liking
this video and subscribing if you wanna see more videos
like it in the future. Lastly, if you happen to be
a wedding filmmaker like me, and I know I used a lot of
wedding filmmaking examples in this video, in that case, I would love to help you book more couples and film more weddings. And to help you do that, I've created a free guide
that's gonna walk you through some practical steps
that you can take right now on your business to book more couples and film more weddings. It's a completely free gift to you. You can download it at the link down in the video description. Thanks so much for watching,
and have a great day.
