Why Sony Video Color SUCKS and How to FIX IT!

Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
1:16 My Custom PP Settings
1:58 Gamma and Color Modes
3:14 The Problem with Sony Cameras
4:39 Settings Comparison
6:17 Conclusion

Hopefully this helps you get better Sony colors and customize your picture profiles to get better footage. Do you have a custom Sony picture profile setup that you like? Share it in the comments!

MY MAIN CAMERA SETUP

MY LIGHTING SETUP

MY AUDIO SETUP

DISCLAIMERS:

This video was not paid for by outside persons or manufacturers.
No gear was supplied to me for this video.

The content of this video and my opinions were not reviewed or paid for by any outside persons.

[dslrvideoshooter]

Try these settings for yourself and let me know what you think! I wish there was more we could do with color on these cameras but someday (hopefully) we will all have 10-bit color in our Sony cameras!

[indymogul]

Wow! The S-Gamut results were really surprising. I'll remember that forever. Thanks Caleb!

[aaroncadena]

you've saved so many future projects of mine because of this, ive always hated how my colors fell apart, and now i know why, thank you

[dmd]

Kind of weird to post a comment three years after video release but just rewatched this to freshen up.

I can't stress enough how clarifying this is.

Initially oblivious to the consequence of 8-bit I tried to film and grade with the "fancy" S-gamut/log setting on my A6400. The result was horrendous. This is the way to go.

[dunnadidit]

Great video dude! I have a similar fix where I still use s.gamut but I just crank up the saturation so that there is more to start with and it achieves a similar result of the colors not falling apart. I’m stoked to try this way though!

[Moredrums]

Caleb you are a friggin live-saver. I'm an audio guy who started filming during Covid and have since gone through the whole Action Cam --> Budget A600 setup --> Upgraded A6400/ZV-E10 setup --> First FX30 setup process. I've shot SLOG2 from the start and even with custom white balance, using a greycard for exposure, zebras, false color on my Ninja V and all those little things you need to get just right, I still felt there was something off. This might just be my biggest facepalm moment hunting for reasons why but holy moly will I go through all my settings, luts and grading presets on the weekend 😀

[AureliusTjin]

Genius! This fixed my looonggg issue with slog2 color correcting. Thank you Caleb!!

[phucmapvlog]

I started with Cine2 based on recommendations, but I’ll be sure to give this setting a try!

[OriginaldoBo]

Gave this a go I was skeptical I’ll admit but... I will say it’s easy to grade and the color is incredibly accurate. Really don’t have to add any additional saturation either which is ideal. I noticed very minimal shift and skin tones were looking natural and pleasing.

[imjustsomeguy]

For me, using S-Log2 ITU709 Matrix messes with the hues, making skin pink. After playing around with Davinci Resolve, I find that adding a SMPTE-C Sony S-Log2 to Rec.709-A Rec.709 color space transform helps. Messing around with tone-mapping helps too. If that’s not enough, then I slightly push the hues to the negatives before the color space transform node

[maisonmallninja]

This video has made me feeling more like a nerd than anything else.

I just spent the entire last night trying to find the right A6500 color setttings to take out a magenta cast in a used Kino Flo i bought.... and your intro (un-ironically) spoke to my exhausted soul

[MangoTalksTech]

I cannot stress enough just how helpful this was! My video was not looking great (a7ii) but now it looks really rich in color! Thanks for the easy to follow guide :D

[droneeye]

I have owned this camera maybe 5 years and after this video I am for the first time happy with the colours- thank you so much !!

[melmie]

I use sony a6400 for Twitch streaming, and this actually helped so much! I kept having overly bronzy patchy skin that looked like a bad fake tan, but this solved my issue and my skin now looks more even and soft. Thank you again!

[stevengonz]

Caleb, I cant tell you how much I appreciate you putting this out.
I was about to spend a couple days doing tests with all the different color spaces to figure out a better option than the sgamut because I found it was making my videos look too desaturated .
Was really not looking forward to it, so im super thankful you put this out just in time 🙏🏼

[digitalsportsclipstv]

Absolute masterpiece. I love this cam. People want to talk me into buying a cannon but I really want to master this cam and I'm invested into it. Thank you for posting such a great video for us!

[sacredxgeometry]

Maybe you’ll see this, maybe you won’t, but I wanted to thank you for being honest and coming clear about Sony’s colours. I absolutely hate them but I think the cameras and their technology are really good. Furthermore, the video you’ve uploaded here itself has really nice grading. I’ve noticed Sony’s issue is that it makes everything that’s black, more like it’s blue, and everything that’s white, more like it’s orange; worse still, is that almost all green and magenta tones caught by this camera are absurd to edit. This is not true on my Nikon RAWs, so I hope there are also ways of editing the camera that reflect the ethos of this video, but for photo as well (what I do mainly).

[skymakai]

I tried this a few weeks ago and it’s really the best way to shoot with the 8-bit profiles... no color gamut correction needed!

[OmarAfuni]

Thanks for the video! PotatoJet mentioned that there are problems with AF with S-Log2 on the A6400 so I’ve been using HLG2. I’ll definitely be trying this setting and see if this affects AF in any way.

[JaredBishopFilms]

This! This worked for me on the a7iii like a dream. And surprisingly I got even more pleasing results using the same principles in s-log3. Thanks again for all the good work you do.