S Log 3 & Night Filming

[fatbaldmemes]

Hey guys - I've been getting acquainted with my A7siii and shooting s-log 3. I have no issues hitting 2+ stops in the daytime but I am a bit curious about shooting with S-Log 3 at night.

I want the flexibility with color, but hitting 2+ stops of exposure has been difficult.

Filming fisheye, fullframe, 5.6 aperture, 100 shutter 12800 ISO, will usually give me a meter of 0.0 +- at night.

Anyone have experience with pushing the ISO further?

I plan on testing this out at the next night session, but was wondering if anyone had some insight for me. Thanks!

[EdwardVsShark]

Compromise:

-Bring lights to the spot / light rigged on the camera
see if you can achieve the shot at F/4 or lower / if filming lines, maintain a consistent distance to make the shallow DOF manageable (though fisheye is the most forgiving type of lens with a low F-stop)
-If filming 4K, consider filming in HD which is less light hungry
-If filming 30fps, consider a 1/60 shutter speed
-Last ditch effort is use an Atomos Ninja to see if ProRes files captured from the raw sensor data could help get you the color flexibility you seek

[fatbaldmemes]

Compromise:

-Bring lights to the spot / light rigged on the camera
see if you can achieve the shot at F/4 or lower / if filming lines, maintain a consistent distance to make the shallow DOF manageable (though fisheye is the most forgiving type of lens with a low F-stop)
-If filming 4K, consider filming in HD which is less light hungry
-If filming 30fps, consider a 1/60 shutter speed
-Last ditch effort is use an Atomos Ninja to see if ProRes files captured from the raw sensor data could help get you the color flexibility you seek

Really appreciate this well thought out response. Thank you.

[allenalexander]

I would sacrifice using log before frame rates and shutter speeds. can also use HLG instead of Log which has a ton of latitude but does not need as much overexposure for a clean image.

[allenalexander]

Also, the A7siii is better in low light than any other camera used in skateboarding. if you are using a light you can use whatever setting you want and be less noisy than industry standard skate footage.

[fatbaldmemes]

I would sacrifice using log before frame rates and shutter speeds. can also use HLG instead of Log which has a ton of latitude but does not need as much overexposure for a clean image.

I jumped from an A7S to this A7Siii and actually found the night filming much easier with the A7s. I could shoot up to 10k ISO cropped and almost 40k ISO on full frame and still get very usable footage. (shooting 1080 60 s-cine)

I've bounced between s-cine and log at night. The base ISO on S-cinetone 100/2000 doesn't seem too flexible either. Curious to learn more about HLG, thanks for the suggestion.

I recently grabbed a genaray 7100t light which has helped tremendously(as long as it has full batteries)

[sus]

I generally avoid using S-log at night since there will be a lot of color noise, etc. S-log is meant to be used in high contrast environments so that you can use the camera’s dynamic range to capture all of that information. At night, even when passing through lights, etc., your scene won’t really warrant using S-log.

If anything, I would use Cine1 since it has the least noise but still has good dynamic range. Use Color mode: S-Gamut Cine if you want to grade in post, but overexpose by a third to one-and-one-thirds of a stop and bring your midtones down in post (it’ll be noisy if you do the opposite and try to brighten your scene in post). You could also use Color mode: cinema if you want it good out of camera. I haven’t used HLG since I use an A7Sii but I’ve heard that’s a good option for night time filming as well.

If you’re adamant about using S-Log at night, I’d recommend using a conversion lut on a camera monitor so you have an idea of what the footage will look like once it’s converted to rec.709