Color pipelines
Standard, S-Cinetone, and S-Log3 — what each is for, and the honest advice on where to start.
- Distinguish a ready-to-use profile from a log profile
- Explain why S-Cinetone is the right starting point
- Understand what shooting log demands before it rewards you
The a6700 can record color in very different ways, from finished-looking to deliberately flat. Choosing well is mostly about honesty over ambition: pick the pipeline that matches how much you will actually do in editing.
Three ways to record color
- Standard (and the other basic profiles) give a normal, contrasty, ready-to-share image. Fine for casual clips.
- S-Cinetone is Sony’s cinematic profile: pleasing, gentle contrast and flattering skin tones, straight out of camera. It looks good with no grading at all, and grades gracefully if you want to.
- S-Log3 is a log profile — flat, low-contrast, and grey by design. It captures the widest dynamic range so you can shape everything later, but it looks wrong until you grade it and demands careful exposure to look clean.
Start with S-Cinetone
The honest recommendation: start with S-Cinetone and stay there for a while. It gives you a professional-looking image immediately, so your attention goes to framing, motion, and sound — the things that actually make video good — rather than to a grading workflow you have not learned yet. You can make beautiful work for a long time before log becomes the thing holding you back.
What log actually asks of you
S-Log3 is powerful, but it comes with obligations. Log profiles use a higher base ISO than the standard ones, which means their shadows carry more noise if you underexpose — so log rewards exposing brighter than looks right and pulling it back in the grade. Judge that exposure with tools, not your eye: the flat image is deceptive, so lean on zebras and a histogram, and expose the important tones well up from the bottom. And every clip must be graded before it looks like anything. Learn log when you are ready to add a colour-grading step to every project — not before.
A note on your lenses
One video nicety works with Sony glass only: focus-breathing compensation, which stops the frame from subtly zooming as focus shifts. It applies to the Sony 10-20mm, not the third-party Tamron — a small reason to reach for the Sony when a focus pull is part of the shot.
In the field
Shoot the same scene in S-Cinetone and in S-Log3, exposing the log clip brighter and watching the zebras. Drop both into an edit. The S-Cinetone is done; the log needs a grade to catch up. Decide honestly whether that extra step is one you want on every clip yet.