SLOG Noise Fix? - CRANK THAT ISO BABY!!!

[@JamieSandel]

I love your tone here- you’re talking directly to those of us who know all the terminology and commonly understood technical details, but who haven’t completely mastered our rig yet. This is awesome.

[@EvansMTBSaga]

I love Gerald, but I just wasn't comprehending his S-Log2 instructions. Your instructions changed everything and reversed hours of headaches. Thanks so much man.

[@felixbird]

yes!!

[@CavanHaas]

I knew that I had to have my SLOG2 overexposed, but I did not realize how over exposed it needed to be or how much I could lean on the ISO to accomplish that overexposure. I was afraid to boost my ISO because of noise. I was stuck in my RAW photo class mindset, which advised me not to boost ISO above 1,600. I realize now however, that by not having my image over-exposed enough, I was forcing myself to raise the exposure in post to get the highlights right (which also ultimately raises the darks, even when the darks are brought back down). Hense noise. I just did a test and got the same results as you. Absolute game changer, thank you.

[@luvair6765]

The first video I have found that puts things to rest. Expose dark footage just like you would daylight +2 at whatever iso. Thank you .

[@mb3_media]

Man I prayed so much to find this video, I'm from Brazil and prime lenses here are small fortunes haha and I was having a real nightmare trying to film at night with Slog2, and I stopped to film it since I could't fix that issue. But today you solved two of my problems. Exposure in SLOG2 at least the right one and how to film in a under exposed ambient. I managed to film as a test now with my 1.7 lense with f/6 with -2 in fotometer and I cranked the ISO as you mentioned in the video. I'm totally shocked with the result, really, It looks like a ton of difference. Muito obrigado irmão!

[@Shaizyy]

probably the best video ive ever watched

[@juandelrio8097]

life changing advice man

[@MikeBrayton]

This video saved me days of work, I imagine. Thank you. Staying tuned to your channel.

[@WildOneFilms]

This was incredibly helpful. I have just started shooting C-Log on my canon, but have been afraid to put up the iso because I didn't want noisey footage, but got it anyway. After watching your video, I made my own comparison video at different iso's and wow. What a difference. My least noisey footage was at my highest iso (its a dark room). Thanks for showing me not to be afraid of shooting at a higher iso!

[@ChristopherBurress]

I'm so glad this was helpful! It's counterintuitive for sure but man does it work.

[@WildOneFilms]

@@ChristopherBurress 100%. You're always taught not to crank your iso and that lower is better... But they aren't talking about shooting Log 😂

[@taylorrowson3961]

Dude. DUUUUUDE! This helps so much! I did some tests of my own, and I am astounded. I have been struggling to shoot low light footage on my a6500 for a long time, trying to get low noise footage while getting enough exposure. I have always tried to find ways to avoid bumping ISO because of the classic teachings that it is a big no-no. Even shooting native ISO and leaving dark would result in noisy footage and I just didn't know what to do. I did some tests and shot a bunch of stuff at 25,600 (Max on the a6500 on slog2) and am already getting much better results than what I had been doing before. I was trying faster lenses and speedboosters endlessly trying to get those extra bits of light, now in conjunction with those things, my footage is already heightened. Thank you so much for the tip. Also, a little Neat Video goes a long way to get that extra little bit of noise reduction.

[@CryptikzChannel]

So higher iso is less noise??

[@tothespace2122]

Why do you shoot log in low light?

[@adamkatz2003]

I like how you are not trying to sell luts as a solution And actually helping people

[@ChristopherBurress]

Lol, oh the lut and preset sellers.... What would we do without them....

[@jojowaldi_]

Just got this video recommended thank you so much! I have been struggeling with noisy footage for so long this really helped me. I just tried it out and my god does is make a difference!

[@andrescolintv]

Wow, thanks for all these tests, you saved me so much time from doing my own. I just shot a video today, and the slow mo broll at 120fps is so noise is ridiculous

[@RaphaelBellizziFilms]

I discovered that by myself yesterday with iso 51200 on my A7SIII and was impressed and surprised nobody was talking about that and then I found your video confirming that! Amazing!!!

[@CaliberCreativity]

Hey man, i've just wathced your video and i can confirm that. I also spent a lot of hours in to finding an answear to my Slog-2 exposure dilemma and the only answear is this one. 70 ire for the skin and 104 for the highs. I swear everything looks so cinematic if exposed correctly. The highs sometimes can be tricky to handle especially in sunny days, but if done correctly it's just pure magic.

[@urbanskargren9310]

And what ISO do you recommend?

[@TheJeffChase]

Hi Christopher, just stumbled onto your channel while looking up some SLOG vids. Your main shot at the desk there, looks really really good. Well done. I work in post production in a major market, and quite often will NOT get stuff coming in that looks this good. Keep up the good work!

[@leofreitax]

Why no one talks abouts this??? man, you are my hero hahaha this was one of the best things that i saw about sLOG

[@MrTheUpgrade]

I actually thought exact same thing every step of the way. I set the maximum ISO to 800 while shooting product video in the dark thinking I would get the cleanest image, which I didnt. So I left it at default which was 800 min and 6400 max and it chose 3200 on it own, and I was surprised with the quality of the video after grading.

[@jeffthemasterbarber7881]

AWESOME EXPLANATION I WAS GOING TRU THE SAME CENERIO YESTERDAY AND YOU WAS THE ONLY ONE THE REALLY HELP ME SO THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH I APPRECIATE IT FOR A GREAT INFORMATIVE VIDEO🙏🏼

[@Nojoke85]

Wow. GOD BLESS BROTHER!!! I was thinking about never touching s-log setting on my camera until I found this video. Thank you so much!

[@isaacsnowhite104]

I found Caleb (dslr video shooter) smaller color space suggestion made the filming and correction much easier. So itg709 color space with slog2 provides more saturation on the back of the camera, exposure is closer to final product, and free Davinci Resolve transform(Gerald undone) slog2 to 709. Just balance (offset) the over exposure.

[@tomguder]

i have to to look it twice. but this knowledge is a treasure for sure!

[@nelsonpuello8722]

Chris, like you I have struggled with this issue and I too have consumed far more videos on this subject than I would care to count. I have also found out through practice what you have shared here, and I depend solely on Zebras for proper exposure. One resource that helped me a lot in this regard was the documentation that Paul Leeming put together with his LUTs. He basically states the same thing, to use the zebras and cranck the ISO as a way to get proper exposure and maximize what the camera can do.

[@ChristopherBurress]

Oh neat, I've heard great things about the leeming luts. It's good to hear my findings are backed up by someone so reputable.

[@MarkBennettCameraCrisis]

Yeah - man - love the leeming LUTS. Use them to match all my cameras - and exposing shots is easy.

[@nicotritschler9087]

Thank you so much for watching so many youtube videos for us! I really wanted to do it for a long time but was never motivated enough ^^ The results are honestly crazy!

[@nicotritschler9087]

May I ask if you want to share your picture profile settings with us?

[@ChristopherBurress]

It's just the default picture profile 7. Which is slog2 and Sgamma. I intentionally set it back to default for this video so it's a little more relatable.

[@nicotritschler9087]

@@ChristopherBurress Ah, thank you! I`ll do my own testing this weekend so I can use it next time I have to film something :)

[@ChristopherBurress]

Good luck!

[@fauzanjamahat1]

This method of ETTR has been the best method for my usage👍👍

[@80productions]

Thanks a lot Christopher ! After 5 videos I finally found the one with the right answer !!!

[@PabloAmadorGarcíaCarrión]

Actual game changer, life saver. THANK YOU

[@umavoz7]

I just made a quick test with my Little Dougie (ZV-E10) and the difference its absolutely amazing!!! Awesome content... made me want to move from HLG1 (less noise) to SLOG2... of course I'll do more tests... Thanks...

[@CartyCantDance]

i was looking for this comment. It appears i will be CRANKING my ISO for my zve10 now

[@sh1maru]

Ok, I did some testing. Yes, overexposure using ISO is definitely better than not doing so. But it’s even much better not to use s-log at all for dark scenes and shoot in rec709 with proper (close as possible to final image) exposure

[@thomasspencer8177]

Thank you for this video! I've been using the Sony 6500 for 4 months and I've had many issues with noise for low light shots but this helped out a lot 👍

[@mhimagist7132]

Mayne where are you? You cannot save lives of billions people with these tips and disappear :( Thanks for all, that's really helpful.

[@RenmiyaAsakura]

Man, I really appreciate this. The results really answer a lot of my questions.

[@arjunkamble3479]

Nice Chris! you figured out what was the actual problem. thanks a lot, Keep doing great work.

[@Hail_Sagan]

Thank you very much for this. Shot some stuff yesterday and was perplexed as to why I was getting all the noise. I appreciate you making this video. Liked and subbed!

[@adolphemusanga3319]

Life saver!! Thanks man👍🏾👍🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

[@vladyboi8911]

This was incredibly helpful. I’m to scared to use s log during shoots because I have no clue what I’m doing and only shoot s log when I’m experimenting. But I did notice that a higher iso in low light conditions gave me a way less nosier video rather than shooting as low iso as possible. And I also notice s log 2 works better in low light than s log 3. This video did make me feel a bit more confident with cranking that iso now.

[@josephmarzak4153]

I know this was a month ago. But I started shooting in SLog2 and my videos are pretty noisy at lower ISOs. Have you learned anything new that you could pass on?

[@ChristopherBurress]

Prioretize high exposure over everything else. It's better to turn up your iso to reach your highlight clipping and darken in post (which reduces noise) than it is to run a lower iso and have a perfect exposure right out of the camera.

[@vladyboi8911]

@@josephmarzak4153 yeah I’ve been messing around with it and experimenting, I actually over expose my shots. I crank up the iso and completely ignore the +2.0 blinking on my screen because it’s really not that accurate. In low light conditions I shoot 6400-32000 depending on how dark it is, and when I throw it into post and darken it I get a WAYYY better image than I did with lower isos. S log is still pretty scary for me even though I mess around with it literally all day every day trying to learn as much as possible, but I’m still experimenting with it and it has been getting a little better.

[@TheChinShowtv]

This worked great for me. I recently shot a wedding using SLOG3 on a Sony FX30. In the evening, I did a lot of shots at 32000 ISO and it came out great with some adjustments in post (I did need to use noise reduction). But I think MUCH better than the alternative which might have been keeping it at a base ISO of 2500 and then bumping in post. I believe the reason is that iso operates in the analog domain (i.e. amplification before analog-to-digital conversion). Whereas amplification in the digital domain in post will only push noise already baked in. I'm not 100% sure I'm right, but makes sense to me.

[@ChristopherBurress]

I think you're right, once it's baked in then it's there forever

[@xuchenglin6256]

Here is the dilemma, if you can get an acceptable usable shot at iso 32000, that means the shooting subject does not have such a huge dynamic range, probably you just don't` need to shoot in log at the first place. Log is all about to extend the dynamic range, for the situations when you need say 10 stops but 8 bit linear can only have 8, if you get the lower right then highlights are clipped. To have that extra stops not clipped, you compress the whole thing into 8 bits. I believe with this subject, you can get very good result without log, and you even won't fill all the histograms... Probably the take here should be, if you can "solve" the noise with boosting ISO of 32000, that means you should NOT use the log profile, which creates more problems than solving any, the problem it tires to solve just don't exist in this case (insufficient dynamic range) .

[@izzulhaziq4898]

I have no clue what to say

[@davidxiu8020]

log is for pros and pros videos output.

[@rafael.c_costa]

bro it would be easier to colo match a projet with just 1 PP woundn't ? and this was a test so we can perceive that is better overexpose, simple,

[@tylerleecapper]

SUPER helpful and to the point! thank you!

This change my life man 🔥🔥🔥

[@donpablin5381]

THANKS YOUUU, this is what I need to use slog, keep doing videos, just for this one I'm subscribing

[@lilkilo8820]

This videos amazing, & EXACTLY what I was looking to fix for my a7IV

[@antobaghdassarian6134]

Hey Christopher, Thank you for posting this video, I have only shot in SLOG2 twice so far and have been wondering why I get so much noise during the shot, Ive been thinking of it from a photographer aspect that the 800 was too high but from watching this realizing its too low. Thanks man , Liked and subscribed!

[@romanflys6544]

Great video, been looking for how to do this for a long time!

[@nicolasherrera9147]

I found this video much useful! Thank you so much

[@umarhoudini6480]

thank you so much, this is the answer what i've been looking for. this is help me a lot 👍👍

[@PiriyaSambandaraksa]

This is life changing

[@jamierobbins7108]

Thank you so much.. This has helped immensely. I will try it out

[@JWilkeTv]

Great video mate!

[@timj.8056]

Thanks Chris!

[@ChristopherBurress]

Thanks for watching!

[@cainKuri]

AMAZING ! Thank you so much. This video ears my subscription to your channel ! ♥ So basically is set Zebras to 104+ and move ISO until clips and then reduce the ISO until Zebras clipping disappears. Zebras for Skin tones should set between 70 to 78 I want to do my tests. Thanks.

[@baaao]

great i just want to know if this footage shot at 4k or 1080p?

[@MattWaltonChannel]

Nice.

[@IMDABROWN]

Super Chris! Good video.

[@ChristopherBurress]

Thanks!

[@handwoundpickups6555]

Great video thanks I have had the same problem I filmed a project in slog 2 and when I brightened it in post noise every where.

[@Andrew_AWMEDIA]

this messed my whole head up because it goes against what i THOUGHT was right!!!

[@rickyconti4729]

Tanks, man!!!!! 👏🏼

[@cjk21]

Thanks Chris for sharing your tips. Time to make some tests :)

[@ryanrosswinslow]

Hey man. Thank you for this. I too love me some Undone, but you summarized this excellently and deserved a like and comment. 🤙🏻 any insight on how frame rate alters your picture profile choice? Cheers

[@saulgoodwin8328]

Thank you SO much

[@digitaldevigner4080]

Part of this is due to how thin the stops are in the shadows. Thin in terms of how little of a lux value difference there is at those stops at the bottom. The other part is the log curve itself which has very little coded samples at the bottom stops. The curve eventually tapers off into a flat line with no value difference. Stops at the bottom like -6 or -7 below middle gray are super thin and even in 10bit they have very little samples to resolve any detail. This is why shooting over even when using ISO yields better results. The lux values electronically capture more detail and the log curve utilizes a lot more samples to define each of those lower stops. Log formats really should not be used as a one size fits all profile. To me it’s really designed to allow us to shift stops between highlight or shadow detail. Much like the BMD Pocket cameras use ISO to shift how many stops are below or above middle gray. This allows to use the log curve to map which detail is the most important for the particular shot. If you need highlight detail then use the log format to protect more highlights. If you need more shadow detail then use the log format to emphasize stops in the shadows. We basically want to pack as many stops as we can in the areas we actually need to capture. Some think of this as ETTR but really it can be more controlled than that. Ever shoot an indoor moody scene where no values went about 60 IRE? Think of lol that wasted potential of the log curve. The way log works it uses a ton of detail in the stops above middle gray. If the values never go above 60 IRE you are essentially wasting most of the detail capturing potential of the log format. That’s why we shoot over. So we can use the largest portion of detail of the log format and give more detail for the shadows.

[@rgbstangs]

That thumbnail is CRAZY

[@norgerichard]

This was very informative.. Thank u a lot

[@SinaFarhat]

Very informative and great! :)

[@ChristopherBurress]

Thanks for watching!

[@thmallik]

Very good, I tried in a7c..it worked well

[@ajvfilm6924]

i did this to my clip..n its work!!!

[@jonathangolgota]

what colour mode do you use? very helpfull video

[@cinemahouse9380]

IN ADDITION: ISO (as a concept) should have never been converted over from the film days cause really it doesn't make any damn sense, ISO really represents: equivalent brightness. But it is simply applying Gain after the native Gain of the sensor. Think of it this way: 800 ISO in Slog 2 after applied contrast could potentially be the equivalent of 100 ISO in all actuality it is only because of the lack of contrast in SLOG 2 that it appears brighter, so, its equivalent brightness is rated at 800 ISO.

[@blastfilmmaking3658]

Really helpful video mate! Did you use any color noise on post? I also own Sony A7iii, but i notice that on so much high iso's the picture gets watery. But i have never tried it with slog-2 in so high iso. I will try it and I will let you know. Thanks!

[@ChristopherBurress]

This is straight out of the camera no corrections at all.

[@blastfilmmaking3658]

@@ChristopherBurress Amazing!!!! Thanks borther. I will test it

[@videosbyeddie9023]

Great video! Do you remember what ISO your zebras began to show? Were you past the limit at 32,000?

[@YoungBlaze]

What camera?

[@ChristopherBurress]

A7iii & a6500

[@thewaliiiii]

Can you list all the settings I need to change from a new camera? I am lost.

[@slambk]

hello, thanks for your inputs. do u mind sharing your Slog 2 settings, am still figuring out ..Please help

[@MusicGalaxyy]

great content can you do this in another location pls

[@motordemic]

Love the thumbnail 😂🤣

[@YOUWIDEaudioSTUDIO]

Does it works with sony zve-10? And what about for photos? Shoot in raw whith or without PP?

[@cadmanfilm]

Did you end up adjusting the saturation? I saw a different video recommending to jam the saturation all the way up too to make save the camera from color banding when you edit S-Log 2 in DaVinci.

[@ChristopherBurress]

I did, it made color noise go through the roof and made skin tones weirdly red and unnatural looking

[@cadmanfilm]

@ChristopherBurress I appreciate the reply! I am trying to make S-Log 2 on my A6400 look good with my DJI 4D which shoots D-Log and it is very strange to deal with S-Log in comparison to how much I like D-Log but your video helped me understand S-Log 2 a ton, and I am going to continue playing around with Sony's picture profiles to find out what works best for me! So far I really like Cine 2 as a temporary replacement for S-Log 2 until I can understand/become more comfortable with editing it in a way that works well with my 4D.

[@ChristopherBurress]

@@cadmanfilm I really like the HLG profile, might be worth checking out

[@aaronteh6491]

May I ask how exactly I would correct the overexposed footage in post? Do I bring down the exposure entirely or just shadows and highlights? What software did u use to bring down the exposure and how exactly did you do it? Thank you in advance!

[@cinemahouse9380]

Yeah there are massive penalties for attempting to increasing your exposure in post. That's like adding volume to a signal that doesn't have enough Gain ( i.e. lots of static, noise, hissing etc) While its not commonly known about the A7iii, it does kind of have a dual ISO where the signal does clean up substantially at about 5000 ISO (maybe some form of internal noise reduction? some wild black magic from Sony engineers?). Part of the reason why you are progressively getting less noisy footage is that you are also progressively moving the exposure out of the noise floor.

[@tomguder]

very good comparison!

[@WeDoFilms]

Super!

[@NETBU]

Seems like the higher iso worked because your filming low light with undisrupted background which doesn’t account for any color apart from dark/black shadows. It would offer better understanding of your scenario if you applied the same measures in a brightly lit situation and see what result you get based on the same iso values used in this demobstration.

[@Booyar]

Okay but where can we see the full settings?

[@guidoyebara6835]

Could you tell us how you import your footage into your video editor, what settings you use and lut?

[@joackocirica3037]

Expected results, but very helpfull data

[@karinayuwono9181]

Hi there! I am wondering what if I am shooting outdoors in daylight? if I increase the ISO so much and keep the shutter speed at 1/30, how do I balance the shot to make it well exposed and not too bright without using extra gear like ND filters?

[@LoboProducciones]

I thought the same thing. This great idea in this video, I think is only for studio shots, like Christopher is using for the example.

[@stew8584]

Hi Chris, first off where's Sarg, second I'm not any great photographer, but if you used an external screen like an Atmos or any of those fancy pants screens would you have more control over what you see then the actual camera screen, not a blown out bright image as you said. Having never used them myself was just curious as maybe this could be helpful if it worked like that. Cheers

[@ChristopherBurress]

He's made a few appearances recently in some videos, he's just chilling lately with our new pups Freddie.

[@jahmalgopie]

This video helped so much I can’t thank you enough bro 🫡

[@JoeMayk3D]

Daft question-but when you mentioned increasing by X amounts of stops in premiere, is there a setting for this to accurately know how many stops you are increasing decreasing? Or is this just estimating after increasing decreasing the basic corrections? Thanks for the tips! 👌

[@ChristopherBurress]

Estimating based on the brightness and what the in camera equivalent would be.

[@scenemode2967]

Can i ask if what is your camera? Thank you

[@ChristopherBurress]

A7iii

[@scenemode2967]

@@ChristopherBurress thank you, can also use that setting in a6600?

[@ChristopherBurress]

@@scenemode2967 yes

[@pady8365]

Hey, i know this video is older... but the reason is very simple. It depends on each camera individually and its native iso values. In addition, LOG profiles want to be overexposed. Therefore the performance is better in higher ISO ranges in log profiles..

[@NETBU]

Each camera..How so?? Slog2 is only a Sony stand alone profile. Do you mean different Sony alfa cameras??

[@JairajSinghPatil]

What's the situation with the a6500

[@ChristopherBurress]

A little more noise, just because of the camera difference, but similarly improved results. I shot the talking head with the a6500 and slog2

[@MummaKnowsBest]

What was your metering mode?

[@ChristopherBurress]

Multi

[@ubbeats98]

So I’ve got a question. What you say is get the exposure set correctly in camera even if you have to higher the iso, rather than doing it in post?

[@ChristopherBurress]

That's correct. Your camera will be able to get brighter with less noise before it bakes the footage into a compressed file which falls apart very quickly when brightening underexposed images.

[@bakhromvorisov9533]

If I boost the iso at the same time zebra all over around, how to fix that?

[@godwinmackafui6677]

What camera are you using in this video? Sony A7iii? Or A7Siii?

[@ChristopherBurress]

A7iii

[@godwinmackafui6677]

@@ChristopherBurress perfect thank you bro! Also shooting with 1080p what range or iso would you recommend for less grain?

[@ChristopherBurress]

Probably a pretty similar range to 4k. You are getting the same amount of light to the same pixels.

[@godwinmackafui6677]

@@ChristopherBurress cheers man!

[@geno3772]

does s log 2 have a dual native iso?

[@jameiealehandro]

what camera has the lowest iso of 800 for slog2 ?

[@clydedigital]

Does the dual native iso explain it?

[@ChristopherBurress]

I don't think at these crazy high iso's, I think if it were the dual iso then it would get worse until a point then clean up and reset the noise at a point.

[@ClockWorkHeroBand]

Great Video. I am new to this and trying to educate myself and its hard because i see one persons video which is amazing and their settings and then someone else which says the polar opposite and has amazing video also. I was shooting some one lipsyncing to a song in my recording studio using as7ii and my go pro hero8, everything from the go pro looks amazing but the nice sony looks horrible way too much graininess in the video. i was also set at 32000 iso in room that gets fairly good light during the day but i didnt use any external lighting. and shooting s log 3 cine. everything looked clean off the monitor and in small form when i loaded it into FCP but when i went full size i saw how bad it was. What would you suggest or anyone? Thanks -Sam

[@ChristopherBurress]

If the video isn't bright, like super bright, when shooting slog then you will always have noise even at low iso. Gopros honestly have underwhelming video quality under scrutiny so you should definitely be getting better results from the Sony. You want to be in manual mode using the widest aperture, the slowest shutter speed (1/60 usually) then whatever iso gets you bright enough to almost clip your subject, don't worry about clipping the lights or sky or something gist doesn't matter (turn your zebras on and set the limit to 103, gerald undone has a good video about this). If you do all of this then you can darken the video in post and have a clean look. I recommend the leeming luts for slog, one of them is designed for big over exposure like I recommend in this video.

[@ClockWorkHeroBand]

@@ChristopherBurress thank you so much i am going to do some tests today!!

[@man-lo1ve]

hi thank you!!! can you tell me where can i get the sony 709 lut? a lot of thanks and sorry fot my ingles

[@ChristopherBurress]

Sony has it on their website, I forget the exact location but I a Google search should get you in the right direction. I have had better luck with the leeming luts though.