There is a lot of talk and quite a few videos out there
comparing the different picture profiles
of the Sony cameras, but it's all a bit too subjective
and opinion-oriented for my taste,
so today we're gonna take a look at the scopes
and see what's really going on.
Let's get Undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What's happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone
and resistance is futile.
Today, we're gonna look at three things.
The first is the noise level and dynamic range
of the popular picture profiles for Sony for video
using the a7 III, and when I say picture profiles,
for that first part, we're gonna focus on
the gamma selection. Second, I'll give you my pick
for the most well-rounded picture profile
and third, I'll dispel a couple myths about
picture profiles in general along the way.
So, let's stop monkeying around and get right into the samples.
So, for each one of these, we're gonna have the gamma
that was used here, which in this case is Movie,
or like I said, you could set picture profile to Off,
as well as ISO and the f-stop,
and then we just have some increasing power of lights,
and then over here, we're gonna have the scopes.
Now, we're using the Luma Waveform right now
which will show us a few different things.
Each one of the lights is obviously going to show us
a step here and then this example
would be what happens when something has clipped.
So, we can see there's four different lights
that are all above 100 or above 255,
and they're just showing as flat, clipped lines.
And over here, we can see that
they're just bright, white lights
and they're pretty much indistinguishable.
And then, as it comes down to the bottom here,
this bar is going to be our black level.
That's basically the rest of the black in the scene
and the higher that goes,
the higher the black level will be
and also the noise may encroach upon it or overtake it.
And also, this will count as a stop itself,
but if, say, this bottom stop here,
as you can see, the stop on the left, you can't--
you can't make it out. It's buried within the black level
and this stop is pretty much being
eliminated by the black level as well.
This is what you would look for to decide
if this gamma is gonna give you enough information
to work with for what you're trying to do,
as well as the noise values. So, the next one we have here
is Cine2. Now, Cine2 is one that I personally like,
but something I should let you know is that
all of these first ones were done at ISO 800
and that's the reason primarily why both Movie
and Cine2 have some clipping.
Now, Cine2 has less clipping. There's only two
of the stops that are pushed all the way up over 100,
but the reason why we used ISO 800
is because S-Log, and-- S-Log2, S-Log3,
they require a minimum of ISO 800.
So, in order to evaluate these things evenly,
we're gonna do ISO 800 first,
but then we will utilize the lower ISOs that we can
for the picture profiles that allow it,
but let's start off with just the ISO 800 ones.
So, Cine2, we have a better shape here.
Less contrast, it's not being pushed to the extreme.
We get decent lower stops and decent upper stops,
but again, we could set a better exposure
because we're not required to do ISO 800.
Now, let's go to Cine4, just to compare.
Similar idea. The top two stops are being clipped
and we get kind of a similar roll off,
but there's two differences here.
Cine4 has more contrast, which again we can see
because the middle area is being pressed apart further,
and the black level is lower as well.
If we jump back to Cine2,
we can see the black level is higher,
but there's a disadvantage here which is that,
on Cine4, our lower stops are having difficulty,
you know, erupting through that black level
and if we look at the image itself, we can see this,
the lower areas here in the shadows, there's fewer of them
that are pronounced compared to the Cine2,
which we can clearly make out
some more of the shadowed areas better.
So, those are the trade-offs there
between Cine2 and Cine4. Both are okay.
I think that Cine2 gives you more to work with
and I think it's much easier to push down those levels
afterwards and you'll actually end up
with a cleaner result, but we'll get into that
when we have the better ISO settings.
Alright, let's jump ahead to this one, which is S-Log2.
Now, we can see with S-Log2 that we're nowhere near
clipping anymore using the exact same exposure settings
of ISO 800 and f/2.8. We're only reaching 80 IRE
and it's rolling off rather nicely.
And let's just compare that real quick to S-Log3 over here.
S-Log3 is giving us more shadow information.
We're getting higher bars. The higher the bar
that you're seeing here is basically gonna suggest
that there's more information there.
So, as you can see, these stops here are reaching higher
than if we go back to S-Log2, they're lower.
So, we're gonna get more shadow information
out of S-Log3, but the highlight bars aren't reaching
quite as high as S-Log2 is, so we'll get
more highlight information out of S-Log2.
But there's some trade-offs here.
If we just kind of look at the noise in the scene here
and then we jump over to S-Log3, we can see
there's clearly a lot more noise in the scene
and when we zoom out, the black level, like we said,
is different. So, this is gonna impact where, yeah,
we can see more shadow tones and fewer in S-Log2,
but the image is dirtier.
Now, the common recommendation for shooting S-Log
would be to shoot it more exposed
and then bring it down afterwards
if you want in order to clean up your shadows
because if we bring our shadows and our black levels down,
that's going to hide a lot of that noise,
but it's still not going to fix it perfectly.
Now, let's jump over to this one, which is still S-Log3
and it's still ISO 800, but it's f/1.4,
so it's two stops brighter and that allows us
to get our highlights to come almost all the way up to 100
and this is sort of, I don't want to call it a myth,
but something that's commonly done,
is the idea that you can just overexpose your S-Log
and then you just push it down and it's fine.
It depends on what you're shooting.
Let's push our shadows down here and our blacks down.
So, now our noise levels are a little bit better,
but now we're getting to the point
where we're actually losing almost a full stop
of the shadows. Now, the advantage of S-Log
is that you're probably gonna gain that stop
up on the higher end and if we clean it up
a little bit more and push it even further,
we can get a pretty nice looking image,
but we've almost completely lost that last stop now
and this is just what happens.
Generally, if you wanna get rid of the noise
from an S-Log image, you're probably gonna have
to crush your blacks out, which is fine, again,
if you're shooting a nice, bright outdoor scene
or something with a lot of light, but it doesn't work
the greatest in a dark scene because it can kind of get
muddy and crushed and hard to really
make the details out. OK, moving right along,
let's jump over to HLG. Now, this is HLG3
and this is probably my favourite gamma for the Sonys
and I'll explain why. So, first off, you'll notice right away
that we get all the way up to the 100/255,
while keeping the ISO 800, f/2.8 setting
and then also, we can come all the way down here
with a nice, smooth shape and our bottom stops
are doing pretty well to keep above the black level.
And HLG also has the advantage, unlike S-Log,
where we can have a lower ISO, just like we can
with the Cine gammas. And so, let's jump into
the lower ISO situation now
and talk about reducing some of the noise.
So, this is ISO 800, f/2.8.
If we jump over here, this is HLG3 again,
but ISO 200 and f/1.4, so it's the same exposure,
but we've shifted those stops on the f-stop
instead of the ISO and this is usually good
for blackened areas, but something interesting
about the HLG profile is that it doesn't have
as big of an impact on HLG as it does on other gammas.
The 200 one, this is ISO 200, so this should have
lower noise. Let's give this a bit of a play for you.
So, look at the noise over here.
And now, let's do the same thing but on the ISO 800.
You might find on the switch back and forth now
that it's not that big of a difference,
and this is one thing that's great about HLG
is that even if you kind of have to get there with ISO,
despite what I was just saying about S-Log,
is that it doesn't punish you as much as other gammas do
by getting there with ISO.
Now quickly, let's just compare to the other HLGs.
HLG3, ISO 200, f/1.4, just notice the shape over here.
Now, let's jump over to this one, which is HLG2.
You'll notice that there's very little difference at all.
All I see is that the very top stop is just being pushed down
a little bit, so let's jump back. It's a little bit higher.
A little bit lower. And the other difference would be
the black levels and the noise.
Let's take a look at HLG3.
Look at the bottom where the black level is
and then HLG2. So, it just comes up a little bit.
So, I would just say that HLG2 is just slightly inferior.
It has slightly worse blacks and noise
and slightly worse whites. So, there's not really
any reason to use that one in my opinion.
I would just stick with HLG3 based on
what I'm seeing here on the waveform.
Let's go to HLG1. Now, that's just even worse.
If we compare that even to the second one,
this is two, this is one. The black levels go up
even higher and we're clipping two and a half
to three stops on the upper end here.
And then lastly, HLG straight, no number.
It's very, very similar to HLG3.
Let's jump back to HLG3.
And then, just HLG.
So, the shape is fundamentally the exact same
on the two of them and we're getting very similar values,
but the black level is higher on the straight HLG one.
Now, this could indicate to you that maybe,
you would be able to push that down a little bit
and get better noise reduction,
but there is one thing to consider
which is if we look at how much
our lower stops are coming up out of the black level
and we compare that to HLG3, we are getting a little bit--
a little bit more separation on our lower stops on HLG3
than we are on HLG.
So, even if we did have more room to bring that down,
we also are gonna be bringing down
our lower stops as well. I don't think that
one or the other here is gonna really make it or break it.
I think that HLG3 maybe is
slightly, slightly more versatile,
but they're very, very close, but I wouldn't use HLG1 or HLG2.
I don't really see much reason for that.
Now, let's jump over here.
I've got some better exposed Cine ones.
This is Cine4. I was able to use ISO 200.
The lowest you can go on Cine4 is ISO 200
and with Cine2, you can go down to ISO 100
and like I said, HLG's, like, 125 or 160.
So, if we look at this one, it's definitely not clipping
like it was earlier. Where was our previous Cine4?
It was this one, right? Yeah. So, see we had this pushed
all the way up? So, we have an advantage
of not having that happen. But we still have the issue
where there's definitely more contrast
and a lot of our lower tones are, you know,
being faded into oblivion.
Let's compare that to a better exposed Cine2.
Same idea as what we saw earlier where there's more--
more shadows. We can see them here versus the Cine4.
I actually kind of like the way the highlights
are being handled here with Cine2 over the Cine4
and the lowered contrast. Again, I feel like
it's going to give you more to work with afterwards
than Cine4 would. You could argue that Cine4
would be more deliverable right out of the camera,
but it's not that hard to add a little bit of contrast
and change your black and white levels,
so I think that Cine2 is gonna give you more
to work with and you can have a full stop lower ISO,
which will probably make a difference.
So, if we were to just drop down the blacks a little bit
on Cine2 and the shadows a little bit
and compare that to Cine4, we still have more--
more shadows. We still have more different stops
in the darker area. Now, you are going to get
better dynamic range on the S-Log profiles,
if we compare this Cine2, which is pushed down to the S-Log3,
which is pushed down. You can see that, you know,
we're getting better dynamic range out of the S-Log3,
but the S-Log is harder to work with.
And there is still something to be said about
the fact that the S-Log might band
and cause blotching artifacts sooner
than the Cine would
just because of the 8-bit limitations
of the smaller Sony mirrorless cameras,
where with Cine, I don't think that you're really gonna find
that happen as easily, and again, you don't even
have to push it as hard to grade it
because it's less extreme than S-Log to begin with.
Throwing this all together though,
I think I would still go with the HLG,
which as you can see, I didn't push this one down at all.
Let's just do a quick comparison between the HLG3,
the Cine2 pushed down and the S-Log3 pushed down.
So, this is HLG3.
This is S-Log3.
And this is Cine2. Now, we can definitely see
that we're getting better dynamic range
out of the HLG3 and S-Log3,
but the HLG3, compared--
which, by the way, I did nothing to it,
compared to the S-Log3, you know, we're getting
most of what's already been done to the S-Log3
with the HLG right out of the camera
and we can achieve lower ISOs,
so we don't have to push down as far.
And, if we look closer into our darker areas here, let's...
zoom in here, and compare this to the S-Log3,
we can definitely see that we're retaining more
with the HLG3 than we are with the S-Log3.
And again, with that whole 8-bit banding,
blotchy artifacts thing, the HLG will be less susceptible
than the S-Log to that because we don't have
to push it as far. So, to answer my second point
where I said I would tell you what I think
is the most well-rounded picture profile gamma,
I would use HLG3 and as a runner-up,
I would go with Cine2. For HLG3, I would use
the BT.2020 colour and not the Rec.709.
The BT.2020 just has a better rendition
and allows for more versatility and more applications
in the future, and it's pretty easy to conform down
to Rec.709 in post. Okay, now point three,
I said I would talk about a couple of myths.
One of the first ones that I see a lot is that
it depends which picture profile you actually
put your settings in. So, some people say, like,
if you're gonna use Cine2, make sure you put it on
picture profile six because-- that stuff doesn't matter.
Now, it is possible that on your camera,
there are different settings for the different
picture profiles that are deeper in
like in some of the details and advanced stuff,
where if you just changed the gamma,
then it's going to look different than just changing
the gamma on another picture profile,
but if you make the settings the same,
exactly the same, on any picture profile,
it will look the same as any other picture profile
with the exact same settings. But if you don't believe me,
I've got a couple just side-by-sides here to show you.
This one here is Cine4 set to picture profile one.
Everything's exactly the same.
And this one here is Cine4, picture profile nine.
Everything's set exactly the same. If we look over here
on the scopes, which we would see
if there was a difference, when we click back and forth,
they are exactly the same. And then for another example,
providing an actual image, here it is again.
This one I think I used picture profile two and eight,
just to mix it up, and so this would be picture profile two,
and this would be picture profile eight.
And, the scopes look exactly the same
and the image looks exactly the same as well.
When I click around, you can't even tell I'm clicking.
So, trust me, there's no difference
if you set all the settings the same,
regardless of what picture profile number you use.
Now, I also went through and looked at
all the different colour modes and tried to make
some evaluations on that to pass on to you,
but I'm not going to bother with this
because colour is so subjective and I'm not going
to tell you what might look better to you or not.
Do whatever you like the best.
There's a lot of different colour options in there.
I can say which ones I think are the most versatile.
Like, I told you the BT.2020 I think on HLG3
is the right way to go and for the Cine ones,
I actually think that Cinema colour might be--
it's a little bit flatter and it might give you
a little bit more to work with. Some people like ProColor
and that kind of thing, but I think if you want,
you know, a better starting point,
a more open starting point, I think Cinema
would be the way to go, but if you want
some specific look to come right out of the camera,
that's gonna be up to you. And, this is the perfect point
to talk about my final myth,
which is that adjusting the knee to have a point
of 80% and a higher slope will really improve your image,
and my answer to that is not really.
There are definitely some looks out there
that people try and sell or give you downloads for,
LUTs and that kind of thing,
where there are specific settings
that would probably work best with that LUT,
but I think just as sort of a general statement,
you're more likely to worsen the image than improve it
by adjusting those things. These aren't magical options
that are gonna increase your dynamic range
or widen your colour space, and I think in many cases,
they're advised by people that I don't think
fully understand the downsides.
For example, crowding a lot of information
into that 80 IRE area,
if you have lighter skin like me,
can make for really murky highlights
and blotchy skin tones.
So, my advice is to leave everything on auto or zero
or whatever neutral setting there is
and stick to the more important things
like white balance and nailing exposure
because those actually will have real,
serious advantages on your final image
and your dynamic range. The one option
that is good to adjust, though, is the detail.
I would push that all the way down to -7
because sharpening is usually best left off-camera
and done in post, where you can adjust it
after the fact and non-destructively.
But if you truly wanna get good at choosing profiles
and grading your footage, you're just gonna
have to practice and base it off of what looks
good to you. There's no quick fix
and I think starting with a neutral HLG3
with BT.2020 colour or Cine2 with Cinema colour
is a good, safe, versatile launch point.
But if you drew different conclusions from these tests
based on your own needs, then that's okay too.
There aren't any miracle settings out there
that you can just put in your camera
and not have to think anymore.
It's always gonna require a thoughtful attention
to detail, but hey, that's what makes it your video
and not someone else's. But that's gonna be it for me.
I hope you found this video helpful
or at least entertaining, and if you did, make sure
you leave it the old thumbs up and consider
subscribing if you haven't already. But, if you did not
find this video helpful or entertaining,
feel free to hit the dislike button twice.
Alright... I'm done.