Sony a7S III Best Low Light Settings
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ค. 2024
- Shooting at night with the Sony a7S III (or Sony FX3) and looking for the best settings? Is S-Log 3 the best gamma, and how should you expose? Testing the best low light settings for the Sony a7S III.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Intro
0:25 ISO and Gamma
0:56 S-Log 3 Exposure Comparison
3:04 Gammas Compared
4:11 Overexposure with ISO?
4:59 Sony a7S III Settings
5:31 3 Exceptions
5:59 Outro
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Now THAT is how to give out information. No loud music, no long pointless intro, just exactly what is needed to make an informed decision. You are the first YT person to whom I have ever subscribed. Also kudo's for mentioning Undone. He is a lot like you and I hope you soon grow to his level of subscriptions.
Wow that's a very nice thing to say - thank you! And I'm totally with you regarding the intros and loud music, I don't like those either, I hate having to skip the first 2 minutes of every video!
That's exactly what I was looking for. I always shoot in S-Log3 with 1.7 or 2 stops over and yesterday filming a party I needed to use 51.200 to keep it +1.7 and today I was wondering if I have chosen a different PP or underexpose to keep the 12800 and you answered all my questions. I watched more than 10 videos before and nobody was so accurate than you! You got a new follower!
Very cool, thanks for commenting, I hope the footage looks great!
What a great video! Thanks so much for information, and thanks for presenting it in a clear and concise way. I love my A7Siii and always looking at ways to use it in various conditions. Your insights are invaluable for a night shoot I'm planning for next week. Thanks again for the video - you now have a new subscriber!
Very cool, thanks for watching!
Hey Brad, I have has two A7S3's ever since they first came out. I have watched/read numerous tutorials (including several Gerald Undone's) about different aspects of the camera, but specificaly the low light exposure issue. Your video is the most succinct, clear, understandable, accurate useable tutorial on the subject out there. I have used your suggestions and everything is right on the money. I actually require everone on set to watch it several times such that we are all on the same page when it comes to exposure/lighting etc. Thanks for your expertise and great presentation.
Wow that's pretty cool, so glad it helped out, thanks for the message!
exactly what I was looking for, great video
Great, glad to help!
The most helpful video i've ever watched. & I've spent the past week watching videos explaining slog3, exposure ect. for the a7s3 i just upgraded to... thank you! Slog3 is a lot more to learn the HLG that i used on the a73 was
Glad to help! I think once you get the workflow down you'll end up thinking S-Log3 is pretty easy too. Good luck!
this was legit exactly what I was looking for, have my first shoot with the cam tonight and im kinda excited
Great, that's exciting... Best of luck!
finely someone explain this in less than 10 minutes, and nails it !
thank you
Thanks David!
Great video! Both information and video aesthetic wise!
Thanks so much for the kind words!
My god this video was so freaking helpful! thank you so much. Earned yourself a follower! Keep goin
Glad to help, thanks!
Super helpful. Nice work
Thanks for the kind words!
Brilliant video, thank you
Hey thanks!
Informative and fast! Subscribed instantly. In my case I found I was able of getting a cleaner image in low light with the Cine1 gamma profile, wich stands for PP5 in camera. But I have to make more tryouts in Slog3 as is my usual weapon of choice.
Thanks!!!! 😄
Cool thank you! Interesting about Cine 1 - yeah I think Slog3 maybe requires a little more forethought when dealing with low light but looks good, however I do like a few of the Cine gammas as well as S cinetone as faster options
Great Video! Just discovered your channel! Keep it up!
Thanks!
SUPER HELPFUL! Thank you !
Glad it helped!
Amazing video man! Thanks for the great insight. This definitely helped me a lot :)
Awesome, glad to hear it!
thanks mate this has been very helpful cheers
Great glad it helped!
Thanks, Bard another informative video.
Thanks for watching, really appreciate it!
Thanks! Very helpful
Glad to help!
Nice Chicago shot!
Fab Brad, very useful!
Well thank you!
This is what I was looking for
Glad to help!
Absolute best advice here!
Hey thanks so much!
incredible video thank you!
Glad it helped!
Great video!
Thanks you, glad it helped!
great video
Thanks!
Yea this is outta my price range. I enjoyed the vid
Very good! Thanks
Thanks for watching, glad to help!
Sony a7S III Best Low Light - great sharing
Thanks!
I ask me why you only have 261 subscribers. You are a great creator!
Thank you, just getting started, lots more to come!
@@BradGiannini Thats cool to hear!
Great video. We do a lot of night stuff. SUBBED!
Thank you, appreciated!
Thanks bro
Glad to help man
Very incredible analysis, Brad. Though I disagree about 1.7 stops of overexposure for SLOG3 -- from all of the sources I have read and personal trial and error experience, between 0.5 to 1 stops of overexposure is optimal for SLOG3.
Did you have it fixed at 12,800 ISO for this video?
I was going to do a low light video on my A7SIII at the beach as well in SLOG3. I am wondering if having it locked between 12,800 and 25,600 ISO range would be ideal. I am going to have it in aperture priority mode so if it gets too bright in places, the shutter will go way up to compensate.
I do not want it to go any lower than 12,800 to prevent unwanted noise.
So this all depends on what your goals are, if you want to minimize noise at night, your best bet is overexposure at a native ISO like 12800. The darker the image, the more beneficial the overexposure becomes. In a very bright image there's little reason to overexpose at all. But I tested all the ISOs and found for optimal noise in very low light you'll want to overexpose at the native ISO if possible. Good luck with the shoot!
That chart at the beginning is news to me. I was under the impression that when using S-Cinetone you could crank the ISO to 12,800 to get that clean low light image. That is my preferred PP because of the superior skin tones IMO. Is SLOG-3 really the only profile which offers that 12,800 option? I feel that this is by far the most incredible feature of the S3.
If you're talking about S-Cinetone gamma, then yes the effective native ISOs for S-Cinetone are 100 and 2000. Of course you can use 12800 but that would be far above the effective native ISO and thus produce noise. S-log2 and S-log3 are the only ones with an effective native ISO at 12800. I do love S-Cinetone as well though. You can definitely get the skin tones to match with S-log3, it just requires some grading.
Can you make a follow up video on what you're doing with this footage in post in terms of color grading and bringing down noise levels? Not a whole lot of "low-light" color grading videos on TH-cam for the a7siii from what I've seen.
That's a good idea, thanks!
Great video subbed.... 2 questions
I noticed slog 3 with s-cinatone color space is good for my taste. Any reason to use the S Gamut3 cine?
Also, which lut to use to covert to rec 709.... Can't find a good one. Thanks
Hey Sammy, thanks! Well so for me when I've combined the S-Cinetone color space with S-Log 3 I notice some weird blocky stuff, and I think it's because S-Gamut3.Cine is a wider color space. Supposedly when combined with S-Log 3, there's gradation characteristics of negative film, which in theory should help with grading, especially in low light. But if it works for you, go for it. As for a good rec. 709 lut, check out the video I did here: th-cam.com/video/TOaakY-aReU/w-d-xo.html. Hope that helps!
@@BradGiannini thanks for the reply 🙏
Just for the ISO chart, many many thanks
Of course, thanks for watching!
Thank you for the tips, now i have a question, i used A7s3 for shooting real time video for the low light condition like milky way for scientific research content, i tried PP8 and ProResHQ with Ninja V, and did the post process at DaVinci Studio with deNoise feature, still have a lot of noise. do you have any suggest for it? Thank you!
Hmm, are you applying a rec 709 lut to make sure you're getting a proper black level? Shooting at 12800, overexposing? It could be a situation where you're seeing more noise because the footage wasn't normalized properly to a rec 709 curve.
Is it normal that my recently both “used” A7SIII makes a tone of noise over 400 ISO ? So much that over 800 ISO it’s barely unusable to me, unless I’m at the second ISO of 2000 or 12800, whether I shoot on Cine4 or Slog3 on s-gamut 3 ciné color. I thought that camera made no noise, and its worst than my old Canon 80D. I’m baffled.
Nice so do shoot with slog 3 in low light? not like cine or hlg? u like that g shock? i want to ge tone
Yeah I've been shooting in slog 3 in low light because you can preserve the most information, and then overexposing. I do love the g shock! It's the G-Shock GA2100. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for this great video ! What are your measuring tools settings please?
Evaluative? Zone ? etc ..
I just shot a video clip with a lot of color neons. I struggled to overexpose at +1.7 keeping the native ISO. And still I have a lot of noise in the back. For wide shot, the faces are even a bit blurry because of the noise.
I’m thinking about using another profile for those lowlight colorful conditions. What do you think ?
🙏🏼
Btw I’d love to send you the footage to show you the noise problem
For the metering it largely depends on the scene, and unfortunately it can be tricked pretty easily. Sounds like the contrast ratios are pretty extreme in this shot. Sure, I'd be happy to take a look!
@@BradGiannini yes there’s a lot of contrast indeed !
Could I have your email to send you some screen shot and footage example ? Thanks !
@@indyeyeprod yes it's on my channel page actually, no problem
@@BradGiannini hmmm sorry but I can’t find it :/ could write it down please ?
About to shoot my first night video tonight consisting of rolling bikes ect. Still wondering so if I’m properly exposed a well under 12800 but over 640 obviously should I just bring it up to the native 12800 and adjust the aperture?
So you can take a look at all the ISO differences against black in this video here: th-cam.com/video/tVPbsAJ5AKo/w-d-xo.html. Depends how far over ISO 640 you are, but in general I would say you're better off going to ISO 12800 and then maybe adding a ND filter if you want to keep the aperture the same. Good luck with the shoot!
@@BradGiannini bro no lie I literally just got back on to check if you replied to ask “what if I use an nd filter” reas my mind 🤯
Hi guys, I have a question.
When Shooting on a Log footage specifically SLOG 3 on SONY A7SIII, should I always shoot in 12800 iso? (which I did everytime) Coz you know many youtubers/people are saying to overexpose when shooting log footage, and always go to it's native iso which is 12800 especially in low light situation. But what if when shooting in a controlled environment?... like in sets where you can control the lights. Should I still make my ISO to 12800? What is the best value for the best image quality?
Hey, in a completely controlled environment on the a7siii I would shoot ISO 640, not 12800. It's not technically a dual native sensor, and the reason for that is the dynamic range on both "native" ISOs isn't identical. You should technically get a little better dynamic range at ISO 640. I've been using this camera pretty religiously for a while now, and I don't find the need to overexpose much in a controlled environment. I generally overexpose less than a stop. Hope that helps!
Appreciate the talk. I would appreciate some discussions for NOT shooting with LOG files. Im not a cinematic guy, I produce for TH-cam.
Well I would say LOG is pretty easy to shoot, and useful, even for TH-cam. But if you're looking to avoid all color correcting/grading I think S-Cinetone produces a nice result straight out of camera. I would still turn the detail down at night though.
@@BradGiannini Thanks for the suggestion. I've spent the weeking testing S-Log3, and I'll use the lower 4K at a show this weekend, at a dimly lit bar. I was intimidated by all the "you need a special computer and data cards to use 4K". Really though, the flat color modes look great - less fiddling.
@@Jambo1999 Yeah I think in general LOG is not as complicated as people make it. Good news is you'll get some extra flexibility in case the shot isn't perfect. Good luck!
Nice vid, especially the -7 detail tip. Slog-3 has better shadow graduation, which is great for urban low light where there is a lot of stray light. When I'm shooting landscape scenes at night which at most are illuminated by the moon, I've had good results with Slog-2. Seems to have better highlight graduation which I find more useful when there is absolutely zero illumination out of the shadows anyway. YMMV.
Good point, thanks for watching!
nice，maybe you can make some examples?
Yeah I think I'll do a follow-up with some examples and the grading I do, does that sound helpful?
so if i were to shoot in daylight, use slog 3 at iso640?
Yep you got it! For any brightly lit scene, ISO 640 in S-Log 3 is best. Hope that helps!
@@BradGiannini Thanks! I'm the one who e-mailed you. Glad to see you're super responsive even on TH-cam
Hi Brad, great video!!! "The A7Siii delivers clean video at ISO 12,800 or higher." That's only partly true for me! I've had all previous A7s, but they were only partially suitable because of the amplifier glow during video recordings. For a year now I've been experimenting with the A7s III with 11 profiles, 12,800 ISO and various settings to record 4K aurora videos in good quality. All tests show a clear "sizzling" not only in the northern lights, but also in "twilight" recordings. No expert / no specialist could show me an optimal PP setting - not even Sony experts. I only noticed slight improvements in the PP 6 when testing all the settings. However, they are still not satisfied. I'm looking for professionals on this issue and would be happy to find someone who can provide me with pertinent pointers. I am looking for detailed information about the optimal PP 6 with all the settings in the profile. Can you give me a hint?
Hey thanks! Well first off, the 12800 ISO is only the 2nd "effective native ISO" for the LOG profiles. If I'm not mistaken, PP6 is in Cine2, which has effective native ISOs at 50 and 1000 if I remember correctly. PP8 will give you S-Log3 gamma and the S-Gamut3.Cine color mode. So that would be the first thing I would change. But that doesn't sound like the only problem here. When you say "sizzling," are you saying noise? If you're shooting Cine 2 at 12800 ISO I would expect a considerable amount of noise. What lens are you using? I would think you'd need something extremely fast to shoot clean night sky. After that, if you are using S-Log3, it can still look "noisy" until it's post processed correctly, by bringing those noisy shadows into black. Are you applying a Rec.709 LUT? Hope some of that helps?!
@@BradGiannini Hi Brad, thank you very much for the information. I think I wrote to an absolute expert. There was an error in my text: Grizzel=image noise.
I just posted a video with noisy northern lights on youtube. th-cam.com/video/PakCBjB3lrI/w-d-xo.html The original is even worse. I also have this noise (grizzles) when I'm filming here near Hanover at dusk. I'm still looking for the ideal setting; I'm getting closer with the PP6 at Iso 12,800:
black level: 0; gamma cine2; Black Gamma: Mid Range, Level 0; Knee: Mode Auto, Automatic Adjustment: Maximum 100%, Sensitivity: Medium; Manual adjustment: Point: 95%; Curve: +5; Color mode: S-Gamut3; saturation: 0; color phase 0; color depth: RGB… all 0; Details: level 0, setting: mode auto; V/H Balance 0, B/W Balance Type3; Limit 7, Crispning 0, Highlight Detail 0
File format: XAVC HS 4K
I test all film settings with the recording settings shown: 60p with 45M 4:2:0 10 bit; 24p with 30M; 120p with 200M or 280m
What detailed PP settings do you think would be effective (for auroras)?
Thank you in advance for your help. Greeting Utz
@@utzschmidtko4440 So sorry this message got hung up in spam for some reason. Honestly all things considered, the footage looks much better than I thought it would. That is quite a sky! I would still think PP8 would work better, but if you're getting results with PP6 then stick with that. As far as the details, I think what you're already doing is pretty good. I like the black gamma there, and I would keep the detail down all the way and add it in post later. What lens are you using by chance? And what aperture?
Also, if you shoot in low light and there are no hard light sources, don't be affraid to overexpose by 2 or even 3 stops in SLOG
Yeah, although you start to get diminishing returns and can wash out colors if you overexpose too much!
I use meter set to highlights and set my zebras to 94 for exposure. Going above 94 clips your highlights.
Question... I am shooting a Sony A7S3 but to complicate things, I am using it mostly underwater. On a recent night dive I finally switched to SLOG-3 and just happened to film a school of herring coming right at me. The footage had a ton of noise, despite me even using lights. I am using a 16x35mm wide angle lense. SLOG-3, F13, Iso is set to auto 100-12800, and my Ex comp was +1.3. The noise is intense! You can see the footage here: th-cam.com/video/rVegdJr1vCE/w-d-xo.html I was able to tone it down a little in post, but do you have any tips for shooting in near pitch dark conditions like this? Maybe SLOG-3 isn't the right gamma for these types of dives?
Really cool footage - Hmm it could be a few things, but the auto exposure sounds like the biggest culprit. With that, it's going to cycle through any of the ISOs between 100 and 12800, and quite a few of those have a lot of noise. I would suggest staying at 12800 if possible and adjusting the aperture if needed. I may also try to overexpose a bit more, like +1.7. Some of the noise can be pushed down into black as well in post. The gamma doesn't actually equate to noise more the dynamic range so you shouldn't have more noise with S-Log3. But if more of that dynamic range sits in the noise floor instead of complete black it can appear like it does (which can be corrected in post). Does that help?
@@BradGiannini Thank you so much for the reply. So your suggestion is to not use the auto ISO? Just leave it at 12,800. I haven't tried manually adjusting the ISO yet, so I will play with that and the overexposure. I was using HLG3 for all of my footage and it was looking pretty nice but with the SLOG-3 I can sure make the colors pop. It was just frustrating with all the noise in the dark. Thank you for the tips, I am going to give this is a shot on my next night dive!!
@@scubabc6701 Yeah easier said than done sometimes, but if you can manage exposure with keeping it at 12800, I would think you'd get a cleaner image. Good luck!
@@BradGiannini Got it, I'll give it a shot! Do you think it's a better idea to keep it at 12,800 when shooting with better ambient light as well? Or also when using my video lights? I have kept it on auto the entire time and now am rethinking that strategy.
@@scubabc6701 Well if you have bright conditions you don't need 12,800. 640 ISO is your best bet in bright conditions. But I doubt that'll be the case underwater. In which case your best bet is to go to the 2nd effective native ISO in 12,800. That also will give you more leeway with the f stop, which will keep more in focus if that's what you're going for.
Hello frome france. I bought sony ZVE1 and I thought that 12 800 will be the top, but no!!!!!! I shoot in a church and 12 800 and the histo was near left and the result was noisy!!!!! now, to have the histo at right and 1,7 I go to 40 000 iso and down the noise in poste and it s magic!
Wow 40,000 ISO, pretty cool...Glad it worked!
sure, detailed test
but slog 3 is for high dynamic scene and grading
a low light offers none of these
Yes, but it also tends to capture more information also in the lower light scenarios, offering more opportunity for grading
No, the camera doesnt have dual native iso. Please stop spreading this rumour
That's fair, I didn't here but usually say an effective dual native sensor, because for most purposes it behaves as one