- Hey, my name is Matt Johnson,
and I recently made a video sharing
my easy S-LOG3 picture profile settings
for the Sony A7S three.
After I made the video,
I started receiving a lot of comments
from people asking about Sony's S-Cinetone picture profile,
which is a beautiful picture profile
that looks great straight out of camera.
And a lot of these comments
were wondering, what would happen if you combined
the S-Cinetone picture profile
with the S-LOG3 picture profile?
Would this create some sort of magical combination
that gives you beautiful straight out of camera footage
that is also high dynamic range.
Is this everything we ever dreamed of?
Today we're going to look at these two picture profiles,
we're gonna be focusing on PP8,
which by default is the picture profile for S-LOG3
and PP11, which by default
is the picture profile for S-Cinetone.
And looking at these two picture profiles side by side,
you'll see that the main differentiator
between the two of them comes down to two settings.
Namely gamma, which in PP8 says S-LOG3
and PP11 says S-Cinetone
and color mode,
which on PP8 says S-Gamut3.Cine
and PP11, which says S-Cinetone.
You can think of the gamma
as the main effector of the dynamic range of the image,
which is how much detail you have in the shadows
and how bright your highlights can get
before they start to overexpose.
The color mode on the other hand,
as the name implies
is what affects the colors of the image,
AKA saturation levels
and skin tones color.
So, what would be the ideal combination
of these two options,
this gamma and color mode?
As many people have been asking me,
can you change one of these options to S-Cinetone
and to one S-LOG3
and create the ultimate picture profile?
Well, let's try out and see.
First, here's how these picture profiles look by default,
here's S-LOG3 with no color correction
or grading applied
looking pretty flat and de-saturated.
And here it is with a color grade,
bringing out those skin tones
and making everything pop.
Next, here's S-Cinetone straight out of camera.
By default as you can see
it is much more saturated in contrasty,
but it still feels very straight out of camera.
So here it is with a color grade applied
that gives it a bit more of a stronger look
that brings out the skin tones.
Now it's time to experiment,
I started by selecting the PP8 picture profile
which by default is set to S-LOG3,
and then I changed the gamma to S-Cinetone.
As you can see it didn't really work
because the gamma is what's going
to mostly affect the dynamic range of the image.
By setting it to S-Cinetone,
I was removing a lot of the dynamic range
you usually get from S-LOG3.
I was also unfortunately keeping the de-saturated colors
that also come with S-LOG3.
So choosing this option was a total fail
that resulted in worst dynamic range
and de-saturated colors.
Alternatively, I also tried setting
the picture profile to PP11,
which is the default for S-Cinetone.
And there I left the gamma set to S-Cinetone
but I changed the color space to SGAMUT3.CINE
to mimic what I did in PP8.
As you can see this didn't help either
and looks virtually identical.
I didn't really expect it to be different
but I wanted to be thorough in this testing.
Next, let's switch things up,
and this is where this experiment
starts to get really interesting.
Going back to PP8 now,
I kept the gamma at S-LOG3
to preserve that dynamic range this camera provides
but I also switched the color mode to S-Cinetone.
So I could have the colors that I get from S-Cinetone
but the dynamic range of S-LOG3.
And as you can see, wait a second,
this actually doesn't look any better,
this looks just as de-saturated
and flat as normal S-LOG3.
What the heck?
Well, hold on a second here,
because looking at the shots side by side
you're gonna notice that the green of the grass
looks a little greener
and my shirt looks a little bluer.
And this actually does make a difference
because if I apply the exact same color grade
that I used for the stock S-LOG3 picture profile,
this suddenly looks way more saturated and colorful,
far too much actually.
To compensate I had to go into Premiere
and reduce the saturation and contrast
that I had applied to bring the image back
to looking like it should.
Likewise, whenever I switched over to PP11
and did the same test again with the gamma set to S-LOG3,
but the color mode left at S-Cinetone,
the results were very similar.
The footage looked flat straight out of camera
but was significantly more contrasty
and saturated once I color graded
the same way that I do S-LOG3.
So if you find yourself struggling
with color grading S-LOG3
especially if your struggle relates
to the proper saturation of your colors.
Well, first I would actually recommend
watching my easy S-LOG3 filmmaking settings video
and my S-LOG3 color grading videos,
which I will link to down below.
But aside from that
you could also consider filming in PP8
with your gamma set to S-LOG3
and your color mode set to S-Cinetone.
This could give you more saturated colors
with a bit less work color grading.
Wrapping this all up now,
going back to the big question at the beginning.
Can you combine S-LOG3 and S-Cinetone
and make an extremely high dynamic range picture profile
that is also properly contrasty
and saturated straight out of camera?
No, sorry, you can't do that.
That doesn't exist.
If you do want a shortcut though,
I would highly recommend checking out my video presets
called "Who is Matt Luts?"
Which I have specifically designed
to take a lot of the guesswork out of shooting
in a complicated picture profile, like S-LOG3
and help you get great colors in your videos,
these presets even work with S-Cinetone
if you want to add a little bit of oomph to your footage.
I will link to my "Who is Matt Luts?" down below.
Lastly, if you've never filmed with S-Cinetone,
and you're wanting to learn more
about this saturated and contrasty picture profile
that gives you good looking footage straight out of camera.
I'm working on a video
that will share with you
my easy S-Cinetone filmmaking settings
which should be out very soon.
That's gonna take any guesswork out
of how to make your S-Cinetone footage look its best.
I will link to that video in the corner
and down to the video description
if you want to check it out,
I will also link down below to all my other videos
about picture profiles
and color grading,
including a link to my free Sony A7S 3 settings preset file,
which you can download
and install on your camera
to immediately have it set up for filmmaking.
With that thank you so much for watching,
please consider liking this video and subscribing
if you wanna see more videos about picture profiles
and film making in the future,
and also have a great day.