$100 Prize - Camera Matching Contest: Red x Sony

[Kris Tait]

Hi All,

We've been working for several months on finding the best method for matching the a7s with our Epic for an upcoming documentary. Although I've come somewhat close to building an in-camera profile on the Sony based on Cine4+sGamut3.cine to bring it into a gamma and color space that feels like REDGamma3, it's simply just not good enough. And the Xrite color passport hasn't been the easiest thing to find a way to only change the Sonys image to match the Reds straight-out of camera RGamma3.
We know matching an 8bit image to a 12bit raw image isn't something to get your hopes up about, but here and there I've seen it done in people's work where they managed to get an incredible look out of the Sony that was virtually indistinguishable from the Red.
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do this here, so moderators please let me know... But with 3 days left before we start shooting, I'd like to start a little contest. I'm offering up $100 USD to the man who can brew up the best secret sauce that can best match the Sony a7s to Red's REDGamma2 or 3. It can be an in-camera profile combination built in the a7s, a LUT, an xrite color passport technique or any other method. The only criteria is that it doesn't break the 8bit image in order to allow minor grading afterwards, and that it is applied either at aqcuisition (in-camera) or is applied in either Resolve, Premiere or After Effects. If two sauces are equal in quality then the one that is achieved in either fewest steps or in-camera will take the prize. The winner will be chosen this Wednesday the 13th and prize money will be transferred via PayPal.
We ofcourse hope this isn't breaking any kinds of forum rules or that its perceived as a solution to laziness or other. It's a nut that many, many people have been trying to crack and were really excited to see what kind of sauce gets brewed by us Red users in such a short timeframe. If anyone needs sample footage from either camera please let me know and we'll find a way to provide it. Right now my closest sauce is brewed from an in-camera profile arrangement on the Sony, the second best is based on a LUT. Deadline is Wednesday 13th July at 10am PST.
With no further ado, let the games begin! Good Luck and thanks!

Kris, Christian and Simon

 

[Louis Maddalena]

I feel you're going about this in the wrong way.

It is easier to get a look out of the A7s that you like and works well for you and then matching the RED to that, than it is to get the A7s to match the RED.

 

[Kris Tait]

Yes, and we've done that. But we've seen a few people who have managed to match the two so it is possible. We thought we'd just get something fun going while we're working on it from this end. It's for the fun of it we thought of doing this. We plan on also sharing our results on Wednesday as well since there's a lot of users out there trying to crack the same nut. Give it a shot!

 

[Phil Holland]

If the images are a "contained exposure" the gamma curve is fairly trivial to match, the color is actually the difference in this case. DR is different on both systems and how it looks when clipping in particular.

Had to make a few *gasp* LUTs to do this when the A7rII was released. Though the focus was matching the log spaces.

 

[Kris Tait]

Phil, yes the colors is where all the work lies. So far it's been like a rubicks cube. You get Red and green matched, but the yellow is off. You dial in the yellow, nail it, sit back and realize the blue has gone a tad magenta. I can't seem to pull the primaries all down together and lock them in place. One always pops out again with a bizarre color cast.
But what you're saying about log is really, really interesting, because when I use sLog3 I can match the two cameras very very close. But we just don't use sLog3 on the 8bit Sonys. World of pain. Banding Hell.