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A mini doc shot with the Sony A7s II - Stories of Wild India - Tadoba
  • GMCGMC

    A mini documentary about Tadoba National Park in India. This is a condensed version of my longer film "Sarpanch Sanju's Tigerland" - vimeo.com/148837040 - see the full description there!

    All shot on Sony A7s II in SLOG 2 / 3 with the SGamut3.cine color profile. Graded in DaVinci Resolve 12

    I am here to learn, therefore let me know how you like it, criticism is welcome, also compared to the longer one.

    best regards, Gunther

    Follow me on twitter: twitter.com/gunmac

  • 11 Replies sorted by
  • kingmixerkingmixer

    Excellent, love the grade

  • GMCGMC

    Thanks @kingmixer!

  • nomadnomad

    Did you experience any problems with Slog3, like banding in soft transitions? After all it's pretty extreme for 8 bit recording. Did you have problems with skintones when grading Slog2? I see that frequently with the A7S and try do avoid Slog when one of the cine settings is enough for the DR of the scene.

  • GMCGMC

    Hi @nomad, I did not see issues with SLOG3 in any of my recordings so far, but I did some tests with the cine 4 vs SLOG2 vs SLOG3 and when you push the grade and contrast (e.g. in the sky) very heavily you start to see banding in SLOG3 earlier than in the other profiles. But I am using DaVinci Resolve for grading - and thats part of the reason why I have not seen it to the extend that others have reported. In Adobe Premiere for instance if you push hard on contrast yu very quickly see the banding. That holds also true for the skin tones, in DaVinci it is easy to get very good skintones with a little tweaking.

  • nomadnomad

    Thank you for the detailed answer and the tests.

  • cantsincantsin

    Preferred your work with the Blackmagic Pocket - it had much richer colors. I own both cameras (BM Pocket, A7s), too, and have the same issues with my own footage from the A7s.

  • GMCGMC

    Interesting comment @cantsin and I have to agree that the BMPCC has much richer colors. Also bigger dynamic range, and much better codecs / raw. Using the pocket I completely forgot that codecs can be an issue. The XAVC-S codec on the Sony is certainly not up to the task for most resolutions / frame rates - exception FHD 24 fps. Imagewise the pocket is by far better than the Sony A7s II. What I also do not like on the Sony is that focus aids don't work accurately like peaking, and also the magnification feature. It is really hard to judge focus. On the BMPCC this was no issue as the focus peaking works very well. Unfortunately every thing else is quite basic on the pocket hence you end up with a significant rig which I cannot always carry around on some of my trips. Well, I have both now and depending on the situation will choose which one to take.

  • TifoseTifose

    Fantastic work. i own the BMPCC and BMPC 4K all two are damage the glass before the sensor got Fungus on it :( i so miss them sending them back to fix. i now own the A7S MK2. now getting around the SLog3, did you use any Lut love how the guys look under the Tree

  • RKMRKM

    Wow I love india. Very nice work. These images bring back great memories. Nice tiger shots. lucky you've seen them. And the shot of the pheasant tailed jacana in flight is excellent. Wow. Thanks for sharing.

  • GMCGMC

    @Tifose thank you. As a starting point for the grade I used the Lut which comes with Resolve, it is called something like Sgamut3.cineSlog3 to Rec709a, but I cannot remember correctly.

  • GMCGMC

    @RKM thank you for that kind remark. Yes, I love India too! It was a fantastic experience.

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