This is for all the non S-LOG people out there who might believe it’s needed to capture and grade images to get beautiful results. I know first hand what it is like to want the best of the best all the time, and even then still feel behind with your equipment in one way or another.

There is bickering and arguing over the need for S-LOG and recording it off-board to capture 10-bit 444 RGB output versus recording it internally to SxS 8-bit and getting the extra “look” and lattitude of S-LOG, or just forgetting S-LOG all together.

People have sworn that you can’t grade 8-bit but not sure I agree. It depends on the quality of images you start with and the level of grading that is intended. I just finished shooting at a beach this weekend in direct sun with no clouds and let me know what you think of these images – all were recorded non S-LOG directly to SxS cards in 35Mbps 4:2:0 XDCAM format and “graded” from the originals.

S-LOG is said to give much better skin tones and color rendition that can’t be described but since I don’t own S-LOG nor have I shot with it yet, I simply can’t attest to that. I have seen some bad examples of S-LOG too. Its all very subjective. At this point I only have the specs to go off of and then ask myself if I really need 14.5 – 15 stops of dynamic range and on top of it spend $3k + $6k to record it off-board? Will my clients notice? Will my work really benefit from it? Would a beach shoot like this had been a disaster with all the extra off-board gear needed for S-LOG?

In the end I think with proper lighting and good base exposure you can really squeeze a lot out of the F3 and no one should disagree with that since people have shot beautiful images using cameras with less dynamic range capability.