Easily & Professionally Color Grade S-Log Footage WITHOUT LUTS - Like A PRO!!! (Plus here are my camera settings)
I joined a Facebook group a few years back created as a place for an “unnamed individual” to help other filmmakers and share his knowledge. Kind of an extension of his YouTube channel. The reason I know him is I took the TV position he held after he “quit,” but we stayed in contact and helped each other when we could. He was a good guy and very knowledgeable but (no offense guys we all do this) like most men he believed everything that he did or said was scripture. That is all fine and no hard feelings because I did learn a lot from him, but I was blocked from the said group because I made a comment on a video he had made about how you must use LUTS to color any LOG or RAW footage and that couldn’t be further from the truth. A lot of communication went around this post about coloring S-Log and a lot of people didn’t want to use LUTS and were new to coloring log footage. I gave a written explanation on how to color without LUTs because in theory a LUT is (in simplistic terms) made by coloring without LUTs and turning that into a LUT. Short story long I was banned from his group for misleading people and degrading his message. No hard feelings but we can’t teach people the wrong way or else we won’t help our industry improve.
I am by no means a color master, I wouldn’t even say I am a solid professional at coloring footage, I would say I do very well for what I need. No one is going to be calling me to color their movie and if I have a project with a big enough budget I am going to send it to a colorist and let them work their magic sauce on it. I do however know enough to get by and to know that a LUT is not needed to color footage. In some cases yes they are nice, working with .R3D files (RED raw) in the studio we use a color-checker passport and create a LUT off of it. Our lighting stays the same and does not move and camera settings do not change so we know that it will work for every clip shot in the studio. However, this LUT is doing nothing but making sure all the colors are true because our colors have to be true to the eye for our products at work.
So coloring S-Log without LUTs it’s pretty easy and in this video, I give a step-by-step process of how to do this. This same process will work for coloring standard rec709 footage as well as these are just basic rules of color correction and grading. You will gain more room to work with stuff like Log or RAW footage but if all you have is standard rec709 there’s no reason not to try and color and give your footage a good look across the board. Having a good look across all your footage that matches from scene to scene really shows you have an eye as a cinematographer and you know what you’re going for and how to get it.
Moving forward some may ask what are the settings you use for S-Log Michael? Well, I am glad you ask. These settings by no means are what you should use, you use what you feel works best for you and your workflow. I however have decided these are what I like best and what I have the best luck bringing to life in the color grading side of things.
So to get started, I am shooting on an A7sii using S-Log 3 to get the most dynamic range. Some prefer S-Log 2 on these cameras as they believe it’s best and again to each his own, I just prefer S-Log 3 but my S-Log 2 settings look identical to these.
As for camera settings I shoot in anything from 23.997fps to 120fps. It’s all dependent on the deliverables. For YouTube, I am shooting mostly in 23.997 or 24fps. For TV I am shooting in 29.997 or 30fps. Then for slow-motion stuff, I use both 60fps and 120fps. When using the Sony A7sii over the RED I prefer to shoot 60fps unless I am looking for that extra ability to slow down even more with 120fps. The reason behind this is that the Sony A7sii has a crop factor (2x zoom) on the 120fps so your 16mm would in theory be more like a 35mm and something like a 70mm would be more like a 140mm lens. When shooting most stuff I like to be between that 24-50mm range unless I am going for a dramatic look with telephoto lenses for slow-motion wildlife, etc.
As for everything else you want to respect the 180-degree rule which deals with the shutter speed so if you’re shooting 24fps you want your shutter at 1/50, 30fps 1/60, 60fps 1/125, 120fps 1/250. If you’re shooting on something like a RED, Sony Venice, Arri, etc you’ll see the 180-degree adjustment as that’s how cinema cameras operate. For aperture, I am shooting most everything around f/4 unless I need to adjust. I use a 2-5 stop Polar Pro ND filter to help my exposure when it’s the heat of the day and lighting is harsh. I try to avoid getting down to the 2.8 or lower unless shooting something dramatic or an interview where I want that bokeh. For ISO the native range on the A7sii is 1600ISO for S-Log and on the RED it’s 800ISO and that’s where I like to keep it unless I need to really let more light in. In which case I try to keep the Sony at 3200ISO, even though it can go to extreme ISO levels, and the RED at around 1600ISO because pushing it further than that introduces a lot of noise.
So for the S-Log settings… Create your own picture profiles and play with them to see what you like best. My settings are…
Black Level: 0 (This will be one you may want to experiment with based on the look you’re going for.)
Gamma: S-Log3
Black Gamma: Range-Middle Level-0
Knee: AUTO
Color Mode: S-Gamut3: Cine
Saturation: 0 (This will be one you may want to experiment with based on the look you’re going for.)
Color Phase: 0
Color Depth: All 0
Detail: Level -7
Those are my settings. Now go out and start practicing and see what kind of great stuff you can make. If you have any questions I would love to answer, you can comment, or shoot me an email via the contact section of the website. I hope everyone has enjoyed this and it’s helped out. Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel for more!
