Peter Bak in Cam Profile for Sony Cameras

Welcome

You came here to know more about my in camera settings for Sony MILC cameras. From now on let’s call it Péter Bak’s in camera profile My goal with these settings is to get perfect colors out of any Sony camera. I was inspired by Andrew Reid’s EosHD Pro Color, his going for „canon like colours” with more yellowish greens and more purple skintones. You can buy his profile from the following link: http://www.eoshd.com/2016/11/now-available-eoshd-pro-color-for-sony-cameras-including-a7s-iia7r-ii-and-a6300/ I think he did a great job, and it’s totally worth the price. I was also inspired by Geoff CB’s profile, you should try it too: http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/20843-gfilm-a-easily-graded-flat-profile-for-sonycameras/?page=1 These settings are working with: A7s, A7 II, A6300, A6500, A7S II, A7R II, but it was tested on A7R II and A6300 only. So any feedback is appreciated Here are my settings:

In short: Black Level: -15 Gamma: Cine2 (SLOG2) Black Gamma: Default Knee: Default Color Mode: Pro Saturation: +10 (0) Color Phase: -3 Color Depth: R: +3, G: +4, B: +4, C: -4, M: +4, Y:-5 Detail: -3, V/H Balance: +2, Type4 !! Important !!: Always set your white balance manually! 2800K for tipical light bulb 3800K for „warm” incandescent light 4300K for „cold” incandescent light 4800K for tipical outdoor morning light 5500K-5600K for tipical sunny day afternoon 6500K+ in shadows and around sunset Rule1: add +100K to the values above to get proper warmth with my profile Rula2: add +400K for warm „canon like” yellowish tones (i prefer correct WB on set, and warming up in post, it gives more information on the blue channel) If you leave your WB settings on auto, it will constantly choose colder WB settings than it should be. In depth: You are still here? All right, here comes the explanation for the settings, step-by-step. Let’s start with the Black Level: -15 it lowers the black level by 15, what a surprise. BUT! It does not give you more gradient in the shadows! This settings is only for out of cam looks, it gives exactly the same results if you do this in post in your NLE. So it’s not necessary, but it can save some time in post-production. This settings doesent have any effect with SLOG2 gamma settings. Gamma: Cine2 it gives nice contrast in the highlights and a good amount of shadow lifting. Base ISO100.

With Cine4 the base ISO value is 200, and it enchants the shadow contrast, but gives lighter contrast in the highlights. It also introduces some (color) noise in the shadows even at ISO200 if the image is underexposed. Movie: this one is really like „Canon’s standard look with default contrast”. The highlights burns quickly, shadows crushed to black… use it if you want the lowest noise possible, and dynamic range is not the point. Dont forget to change the saturation to +8 if you are using this gamma. Cinema: gives a little bit muted red and a little bit more magenta. Try it, maybe you like it more than Pro, but pair it with +12 saturation instead of +10 SLOG2: later in this document SLOG3: avoid it Still/Cine1/Cine3: others gives better results.

Saturation: +10 with Pro, +12 with Cinema, 0 with SLOG2 Color Phase: -3: with this settings you can „tint” your footage, negative values gives more green, positive values gives more magenta look. This one is a personal preference, you can leave it on 0. Color Depth: These settings change the „lightness” of the colour. Positive values lowers the luminance level of the colour, negative values increases the luminance level of the colour. R: +3 for little bit deeper reds, better lips and cheeks. G: +4 for less neonish foliage, trees, grass B: +4 deep blue sky… C: -4 … but not like you used a CPL filter, let’s stay natural. M: +4 hard to spot it’s effect, this one looked best with the colorchecker :D Y: -5: for flowers, the sun, this settings is the most important to avoid „greenish” yellow Detail: -3: this settings is A6300/A6500 related and 1080p only. For 4K, use auto and -7 detail. With 1080p 24/25/30/50/60/100/120p, these cameras dont give nice results. At 0 it’s oversharpened but there are a lot of aliasing. At -7 it’s too soft. -3 gives a nice balance between the soft and the oversharpened look V/H Balance: +2 it enchants the horizontal detail more than the vertical B/W Balance: Type4: it’s like the „radius” settings below the sharpening slider in lightroom. This settings gave me the most balanced look with 1080p footage

Let’s talk about SLOG2 You only have to change the Saturation to 0. All other settings can be the same as you read above. Always overexpose about +2 stops. In post production you only have to do is apply a nice S -curve, and you are done (and of course some exposure compensation is necessary). Huge dynamic range, nice colors, easy post production workflow. You may find the red colour a little bit oversaturated, im working on it. Always check your WB with SLOG2 too! If you are shooting in 1080p 100/120p, try to avoid SLOG2, it’s very fragile with such a low bitrate

I recommend to you to set up 4 different picture profiles. One for Cine2 (for every time) One for Cine4 (for experimenting, sometimes it can give nice results) One for Movie (for low light) One for SLOG2 (for grading and LUT’s) Few tips and tricks: - If you are using 1080p 24/25/50p you can set your monitor/EVF brightness to „Sunny Weather” so you can see what you filming outdoors. Sometimes this is more important than the pin sharp 4K - Set Airplane mode ON. It increases battery life. - Never use SLOG3. It’s not designed for 8 bit codec. - S-gamut/Sgamut3 designed to emulate bigger color gamut than REC709. Only use it if you have the proper correction LUT, otherwise it’s a pain in the ass in post production - S-gamut3.cine is nice, The color gamut is bigger then REC709 but not shifted on the magenta channel. It’s easier to work with With S-gamut/Sgamut3/Sgamut3.cine „Color Depth” and „Color Phase” settings are ignored by the camera. (except with the A7S II) Currently im working on a correction LUT for these settings to get perfectly matched colours to my 5D Mark II RAW REC709. Sometimes check back to my youtube channel, if i make any progress i will make a comparison video about it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrZilPVExozlZqkqogt4ApQ Special thanks to SPDTDL for creating a comparison video with EosHD Pro Color https://youtu.be/sH8aIXViOw8 May the colors be with you Péter Bak