I recently shared that my favorite picture profile for newer Sony cameras is S-Log3, which gives you amazing dynamic range and beautiful colors if you have the time and the ability to color grade it properly.

But that’s not what this post is about, because there’s a new picture profile in town.

Sony’s S-Cinetone says you don’t need log footage. Here’s a beautiful image straight out of camera.

So if you’ve been wondering whether to film in S-Log3 or S-Cinetone with your a7S III, FX3, FX6, a1, or any other new Sony that ships with both, here are the technical differences, plus three scenarios where I’d choose each one.

Technical Differences Between SLOG3 & S-Cinetone

The most obvious difference is that S-Log3 is a very flat picture profile that requires you to grade it to put contrast and saturation back in, whereas S-Cinetone comes out of camera with that contrast and saturation already baked in.

S-Log3 records that flat image to maximise dynamic range. Depending on your lighting setup, it’s possible to hold more detail in your shadows and keep brighter highlights from clipping. With S-Cinetone you sacrifice some of that shadow and highlight detail, but in return you do significantly less work when it comes time to color correct.

There’s one other significant difference, and it shows up while you’re filming rather than editing. With S-Log3 your minimum usable ISO is 640. With S-Cinetone you can go all the way down to ISO 100.

So if you’re filming on a bright, sunny day and you want to keep your aperture relatively wide instead of stopping down, S-Cinetone lets you do that easily. With S-Log3 you may need an ND filter to darken what you’re recording.

Now, I hear you saying: but Matt, that’s wrong, the a7S III goes all the way down to ISO 160 in S-Log3. And you’re correct. But when you do that you’re making significant compromises to your dynamic range, among other things, and I definitely don’t recommend it. As far as I’m concerned, 640 is the minimum ISO for S-Log3, and my easy S-Log3 filming settings covers exactly why.

3 Scenarios Where I Would Choose S-Cinetone

First: live streaming. When you’re live streaming you typically don’t want to be messing around with grading or LUTs. You need an easy, uncomplicated image that will look good on the internet. If I’m streaming a wedding, or streaming from my computer at home using the a7S III as a webcam, S-Cinetone is what I’m using. If that’s a thing you want to offer, I’ve written up how to live stream a wedding ceremony.

Second: when someone else is editing it. This one is pretty common. If I’m shooting something I’m not going to edit or grade myself, and I’m handing raw footage to a client or an editor who may not have the experience or ability to grade a log profile properly, I shoot S-Cinetone.

I’ve filmed corporate and commercial jobs, and weddings, where I was just the shooter. I always ask: “do you want this footage shot in a log picture profile?” If they know what that means and want to grade it themselves, they’ll say sure, of course. But you’re also going to run into plenty of clients whose eyes glaze over the moment you say the word log, and if you want to save yourself time and headache, that’s the point where you say, you know what, we’re not going to shoot in S-Log.

Third: fast turnarounds. If you have to film and deliver with very little time and you can’t properly grade, S-Cinetone wins. Maybe it’s a client who needs the video by tomorrow, or maybe you’re doing a same-day edit at a wedding, where you have to film the day and cut something to play at the reception, so you have a few hours at most.

In those situations, a profile that already looks good out of camera means at most some minor color correction and you’re done. I’ve spent literal days grading a video I filmed in S-Log3, and while I love its versatility, the words “fast” and “S-Log3” do not go together.

3 Scenarios Where I Would Choose SLOG3

First, the obvious one: when you want the best possible quality. If you want the absolute best image and the highest dynamic range you can get in camera, S-Log3 is by far the best choice. Bright highlights, dark shadows, it doesn’t matter, because if you expose S-Log3 properly, even footage shot in challenging lighting will still look great.

You also get far more versatility in the colors you can reach. Warmer, cooler, modern, vintage. You can really tune the image to whatever look you want.

Second: when you don’t control the lighting. Maybe you’re shooting run and gun with all natural light, or maybe you’re filming a wedding where, apart from one or two small lights you brought, you’re at the mercy of the venue.

In that case log gives you far more room to push the colors and make the footage look how you wanted it to, even when the lighting isn’t optimal. I’ve lost count of the weddings I’ve filmed in mixed lighting where I knew that if I hadn’t shot log I’d have been in big trouble. Because the footage was flat, I could shift it heavily and bring out the colors I wanted, instead of having a look baked in at the camera.

So if you’re a control freak like me, shooting log, especially in 10-bit, which many of Sony’s newer cameras do, gives you an extreme amount of leeway.

Third, and this is really a question I ask myself before every shoot: do you have time to work with S-Log3?

It’s a simple question. Look at your workflow, look at your shooting schedule, and think about how long grading is actually going to take you. Because if you have the time, I think it’s completely worth it. Your footage will look more filmic, you’ll get a better highlight roll-off, more dynamic range, and colors that land exactly where you want them. All it takes is the time, and knowing how to grade.

Help With SLOG3

And I want to help you with that part. There’s my easy S-Log3 filming settings, which takes a lot of the guesswork out of shooting it, and then two grading walkthroughs: grading S-Log3 without LUTs and grading it with them.

And as the ultimate time saver, I’ve created a set of video presets called WhoisMatt LUTs. They work with S-Log3, I’ve tweaked them to work with log profiles from other cameras, and I include versions that work with non-log profiles like S-Cinetone too.

If you’re wondering whether you can have both at once, that’s its own question, and I answered it in can you combine S-Log3 with S-Cinetone?

So, in summary. If you’re live streaming, or delivering footage to someone else to edit, or you need to deliver very fast, choose S-Cinetone. If you want the best possible picture quality and dynamic range, or you’re filming somewhere you don’t control the color and lighting, or you simply have time to work with log, choose S-Log3.

Lastly, if you happen to be a wedding filmmaker like me, and I know I used a lot of wedding examples here, I’d love to help you book more couples and film more weddings. I’ve created a free guide that walks you through some practical steps you can take right now in your business. It’s a completely free gift to you.