Just over 2 years ago I acquired a Sony F55 for a feature length documentary. I had never shot anything in log format before. Wow... jump into the fire from the frying pan! Over the last 2 years I've been working on developing my skills not only shooting in this format, but also in color grading. I've used Davinci Resolve a tiny bit, but since I edit with Premiere Pro... it was a no brainer to use SpeedGrade, since the round trip.. is not even a trip. It is so nice to not have to render and replace clips.. wow. The surprising thing I am finding is that very few people who have S-Log capable cameras are using this feature since they are not familiar with how to grade it. With all the people I've met in the last year... I am one of very few who have taken the time to learn and use this workflow. And... it has really put me into a niche of sorts. I'd love to talk with anyone who has an interest in either learning about S-Log and/or color grading it.
Post-Production : Color Grading and shooting in Log format by Frank Smith
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Glad to connect with you Frank. I have done a fair amount of shooting, here in Atlanta, with an F55 that is owned by Turner Studios. I also shoot establishing shots for some of the Tyler Perry Studios shows, with their F-55's (they own several). Basically everything that I do with the camera is shot S Log 3. I have also be shooting some lately with the FS7. Would like to hear about your experiences with the F55.
When I first got the F55 I had a quick shoot to do before I could acquaint myself with the S-Log workflow... so I shot in vanilla flavored MPEG... Wow. I have never gone back! Virtually everything I shoot now is S-Log 3 as well, but occasionally I get a job that the client just wants something they can edit with a minimum of grading. So, recently I have been working on creating some scene files that use a hypergamma to start with, so I'm at least getting roughly 10 stops of latitude. I have the Fuji 19-90 Cabrio on the F55, and generally using Canon L series 2.8 lenses on the FS7.. so you can guess which one I prefer to work with.. Unless there is hand held footage to shoot... in which case... the FS7 is normally the preferred camera. In the distant betacam past I owned Ikegami HL 55s... (where did Ike go?)... and more recently Panasonic cameras, because they had a reputation for having warmer images. It took a lot of convincing to get me to even look at Sony... but with Log shooting and all the advances in color grading... it's hardly an issue any more. I'm so glad I made the change. I just wish Sony would fix all the firmware so that these cameras could do what they're inherently capable of doing!
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I've graded 5 features in SpeedGrade from LOG Arri Alexa prores files. But not using direct link :) If you have any questions, feel free to write to me.