EOSHD ProColor for Sony Cameras Guide by Andrew Reid Version 2.0‘Sony cameras have a colour science which seems to take an engineering ed approach. Canon’s colour hhas a green and blue channel optimised for landscapes and places, but a red channel optimised for skin and people. find there is more separation in the greens and blues on a Canon camera, leading to more, tealistc green foliage and landscapes, along with vivid shades of blue inthe sky - but less separation in the red channel, This is key. Too much separation of reds is bad for skin, You get to see every imperfection with a Sony camera, from dark reds to grey-yellows under the eyes. The Canon trick seems to be to take a ‘more forgiving and flattering approach to faces and skin, delivering a pleasing flesh tone which remains realistic but far more flattering of talent infront ofthe camera. What ths tells us is that Sony's adherence to absolute numbers and figures in a technical calipration does not always give us the most pleasing image to look at! ‘As wollas the skintones and red channel issue, Sony's JPEG Creative Styles, video Picture Profiles and. ‘Automatic White Balance system suffer other issues leading to a less crowd-pleasing colour rendering Overall, as test after test reaction tells us. Many of us, myself included, prefer Canon's JPEGs and white balance. My Sony camera used to give a crayon-lke artificial hue to greens, clipped blues which can turn turquoise and a rough fall-of to highlights, So what can we do about the problem? ‘As it happens, quite a lt. ‘Sony's Picture Profiles for advanced users and filmmakers aren't very good locking on their default settings but unlike the more basic Creative Styles they offer a huge range of customisation. By carefully fine tuning every aspect of them in detail, one solves the issues and is able to shoot beautiful looking Colour in 4K straight out of the camera, With my customised profile you get a beautitul Canon-lke colour science rocking, no matter what the subject. White balance on Sony's current cameras also needs tuning. The auto white balance setting falls to distinguish artistically between giving an absolute white hue and maintaining the ambience of a scene. ‘This is massively important no matter what ight you're shooting in. Scenes and people shot under artificial light can have a Iifeless cold look with automatic white balance. This is not how the human eye perceivesthe temperature of colour in the room. Sometimes a dominant light source wil simply take over the image, tuming blues in the scene a muddy brown or even too green! EOSHD Pro Color changes the approach we take with white balance on Sony cameras. It will give 3 recommended custom temperatures to select depending on whether you're shooting indoors or outdoors, day or night. Ths allows you to remove the ‘green cast, avoid a clinical white balance and maintain the real ambience of the scene. These presets also prevent random colour shifts in the middle of a shot. This approach is inspired by the Canon 1D X Mark I Which has a dual-white balance mode. One made maintains the ambience of warm light and one does the ‘scientifically correct’ thing from an engineers point of view (maintaining white no matter what the colour temperature of your ambient lighting). Once white balance is tuned for ambience an your Sony camera, colour in general improves dramaticaly + Truer, deeper reds + Greater separation of green hues for more natural looking foliage and landscapes + Greater separation of blue hues for better skies and better cool tones under warm lights + Skintones, faces and people given a more flattering treatment + Smoother and more film-ike rol off to highlights and shadows. + Reduced colour clipping (prevents a blue object turing turquoise or green in bright light) + Sony A7S Il + Sony A7R Il + Sony A7S = Sony A711 + Sony A6300 / AB5O0 + Sony X10 I /l + Sony RX1001V/V + Sony FSS ‘Not compatible with RX100 1 to 8, original AX10, original A7R, A7 and AGOOO