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 for Sony Cameras

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-ii-
a7r-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-sony-
cameras/?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) !!UPDATE!!: Cine4 with -1EV (or skintones at 60 IRE)
Black Gamma: Default
Knee: Default
Color Mode: Pro
Saturation: +10 (0)
Color Phase: -3 !!UPDATE!!: +2
Color Depth: R: +3, G: +4, B: +4, C: -4, M: +4, Y:-5 !!UPDATE!!: R: +3, G: +3 B: -3 C: -3, M: -3, Y: -4
Detail: -3, V/H Balance: +2, Type4

!! Important !!: Always set your white balance manually!

!!UPDATE!!: You can use AWB with a little shift toward amber/magenta: A2M0.25
!!UPDATE2!!: AWB + A3 if you are using Sony E PZ 18-105 F4

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 default 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.
Dont be afraid if you see crushed blacks with this settings, it can be easily recovered with no penalty
in post if necessary!
This settings have no effect with SLOG2 gamma settings.

Gamma: Cine2 it gives nice contrast in the highlights and a good amount of shadow lifting. Base
ISO100 (ISO200 for older cameras). Best results if you underexpose about -0,33 EV
This gamma is using legal range which means 16-235 luma range

With Cine4 the base ISO value is 200, and it enchants the shadow contrast, but gives lighter contrast
in the highlights

!!UPDATE!!: if you want to get the best results from Cine4, you have to underexpose the image
while recording, and rise the midtones in post production. The benefit: huge dynamic range, less
fragile codec usage than it is in SLOG2
-0,7 or -1 EV with wide metering is the best settings, or set your zebra pattern to 60 for skintones
You can recover at least 1EV highlight information from the files, and you can lift at least 1 EV from
the shadows without noise penalty. But with -15 black level the out of camera result are fine
without colorgrading. If you see crushed blacks you can recover them with no penalty.
This gamma is full range which means 0-255! Dont forget the recover the super whites above 100
IRE!

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 (update: +2): 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 luminance level of the colour and not it’s saturation as you
may think. 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

Important note about Picture Profiles: PP1-PP2… stands for Picture Profile 1..2.. obviously. Of course
they have default parameters. But dont think about them „PP1 stands for Cine1” You can configure
the way you want.

I recommend to you to set up 4 different picture profiles.

One for Cine2 (for every time)
One for Cine4 (for experimenting)
One for Movie (for low light)
One for SLOG2 (for grading and LUT’s)
 SLOG3

On the consumer cameras like Sony A6xxx/A7x line you wont have any benefit from using SLOG3
over SLOG2. On the white paper SLOG2 can have 14 EV dynamic range, SLOG3 can have 15+ EV. On
these cameras both LOG profile is only able to contain about 13-14 EV stops dynamic range. SLOG3
should be full range (0-255 or 0-109 IRE) but it clips at 94 IRE on 8 bit cameras. That’s sensor +
firmware limitation. Dont use SLOG3 there is no benefit here, but you can see tons of banding on the
image after grading.

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 record wider 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. With 8 bit
codec this is just an emulation!
- S-gamut3.cine is nice, The color gamut is wider than REC709 but not shifted on the magenta
channel (like S-Gamut). It’s easier to work with. Use this gamut if you have color clipping with
the Pro Gamut (mostly happens in clubs from lasers/strong lamps)

With S-gamut/Sgamut3/Sgamut3.cine „Color Depth” and „Color Phase” settings are ignored by the
camera. (except with the A7S II)

I have been shooting with the updated profile since the end of may and im happy with the results.

I also shoot two weddings with this profile, on this link you can check one with the recommended
updated Cine4 profile:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9d46mzo8guUS1pmTlZKMlpzejA/view

The first half of the movie is out of cam a6300 1080p 50p with no color correction or colorgrading.
When the resolution drops and becomes shaky, it’s Canon 6D with Standard profile, out of cam.

Here you can see an example of colorgraded SLOG2 with my settings:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9d46mzo8guUU1REcUs5YTZWcTQ/view?usp=sharing

Special thanks to SPDTDL for creating a comparison video versus the EosHD Pro Color
https://youtu.be/sH8aIXViOw8

May the colors be with you

Péter Bak