The Best Sony Picture Profile for Travel Videos
So, you’ve invested in some high quality camera gear, learned the best camera settings for filmmaking and even started implementing different techniques to make your travel videos look more cinematic, but something still doesn’t look right. The colours in your videos seem, well, a little boring. You’ve likely seen other creators upload epic, cinematic travel videos on social media with eye catching colours that make them stand out from other travel videos, and wondered why your travel videos never look the same. Well, to tell you the truth, a lot of those creators are colour grading their footage in post production, implementing colour theory to help give their videos a cinematic, one-of-a-kind look. Before any colour grading can take place, however, our cameras implement a specific picture profile that dictates our video’s initial colour as we film video clips. This initial picture profile provides the foundation for all of our colour grading efforts later on.
Sure, some picture profiles can provide us with a great looking video right out of the camera, requiring little to no post production, while other, flatter profiles require more work, but provide more “room” for colour grading tweaks. Sony, which is the camera system that I use, offers a range of picture profiles for creators to work with - each with their own pros and cons. As a travel videographer, I generally want a picture profile that will allow me to recover highlights and shadows in post production, while also giving me a bit of room in post production to tweak the colours as needed. But I also don’t want to use a profile that requires extensive work and time to make sure I have it properly exposed, as I am typically on the move quite a bit when I’m travelling and need to capture scenes fast.
After years of experimenting and creating travel films, I’ve landed on what I believe is the best Sony picture profile for travel videos. But first, let’s discover what a picture profile fully is, and also the simplest way to create videos with good colour right in camera:
What is a Picture Profile?
A picture profile is essentially a preset with a set of parameters that define the overall characteristics of your video’s image.
Some picture profiles provide a more complete / finalized image right after you film it. With these picture profiles, the camera has typically “burned” the final colouring and characteristics into the video clip, meaning you won’t really need to do much post production work to create a nice looking video, but you also won’t be able to change much within the footage either. In contrast, other picture profiles provide you with a flatter, almost grey looking image that requires a bit of work in post production to bring it to life. The benefit here is that the camera has retained more information from the scene, providing you with the ability to more easily tweak the highlights, shadows and overall colouring of the footage to your liking.
On most cameras, you can select the picture profile that you want to use, helping you determine your video’s overall look in camera. You can also typically tweak each picture profile’s parameters, creating a more custom look for your footage.
A Word About S-Log
If you’ve spent any time researching filmmaking, you’ve likely heard of S-Log. S-Log is a gamma curve that offers a large dynamic range, meaning footage shot in S-Log will have a ton of information stored in it (almost like a RAW image file), so you will be able to restore details lost in the highlights and shadows. The picture profile from S-Log is also very flat, and almost looks grey in camera, providing you with a large amount of room to colour grade your footage to the exact look and feel that you want. The standard Sony picture profiles for S-Log are PP7, PP8 and PP9.
Now, capturing as much data as possible in a scene sounds solid, but there are some issues with S-Log when it comes to travel videography. Firstly, S-Log typically requires a fairly high base ISO, meaning you can’t use it unless your camera’s ISO is set to something like 640 or higher. This is fine in a controlled environment, but, when you’re travelling and filming a lot of your content in direct sunlight, exposing your video clips with such a high ISO can be extremely challenging. Sure, you can use ND filters to correct the exposure, however you will need to use a fairly strong one, which can create colour casts in your footage. S-Log footage also tends to have more noise in the darker areas of your footage, creating another potential issue to consider while exposing your footage out in the field. To sum it up, shooting in S-Log will require a lot more work, effort and time, which may not be ideal when you’re on vacation simply trying to capture decent looking video footage.
Secondly, because the resulting image in S-Log is generally flat and grey, you can’t really tell if you’re video is exposed correctly by looking through your camera’s viewfinder or monitor. Most people who shoot in S-Log attach an external monitor to their camera that shows what their S-Log footage would look like after it’s been colour graded, but, again, we’re talking about travel videography here, so do you really want to bring an external monitor and connect it to your camera while you’re filming a trek through the jungle?
So, because of all of this, I don’t typically recommend S-Log footage for travel videography. There’s just too much risk of having poorly exposed shots while trying to capture scenes quickly. So, what picture profile should you use for travel videography? Well, there really are two decent, fairly easy to use options.
The “Set it and Forget it” Picture Profile
While travelling, it’s pertinent that you capture nice looking video clips. After all, you can’t just easily go back to a given location once your vacation is over to reshoot clips that didn’t turn out! So, how can you more so ensure that, more or less, your final clips have nice colour straight away? Use Sony’s “Movie” picture profile. You can activate the Movie picture profile when PP is set to “Off.”
With the Movie picture profile, Sony cameras will essentially burn a colour profile into your videos, leaving you with footage that can be shared immediately with little to no post production work. For some people that are simply looking to capture nice looking vacation footage, I would recommend using this picture profile setting. It is Sony’s standard profile, and you won’t need to stress about capturing nice looking scenes throughout your vacation (as vacations shouldn’t have stress)!
There are, of course, a few drawbacks. If we revisit some of the principles discussed earlier, a picture profile like Movie has low dynamic range and, again, burns the final colour into the video clips. This means that you don’t have much room to recover highlights or shadows, or alter the colours. This may not be an issue for most vacation travellers, but, if you end up with a scene where the background is washed out and the mountains that were supposed to be there just, well, aren’t, know that you likely will not be able to recover them in post production.
But, again, for most people, the set it and forget picture profile will work just fine if you’re simply looking for nice video clips from your trip. If you want a bit more room to work with, but don’t want to jump into an intimidating picture profile like S-Log, however, there is one more picture profile that can work wonders for travel videography.
My Preferred Picture Profile
As a travel videographer, I need to be able to expose my camera fairly quickly and easily while out in the field, but I also need a flat picture profile and decent dynamic range so that I can recover highlights and shadows, and adjust the colour, during post production. So what is the sweet spot in terms of picture profiles for this specific need? Sony calls it Cine 2.
The standard Cine 2 Picture Profile is PP6 on most Sony cameras. The profile’s gamma curve provides a decent amount of dynamic range - not as much as S-Log, but quite a bit more than Movie, so you do have a decent amount of room for post production edits.
The picture profile is also flat, but not too flat, so you can actually see a fairly completed image right in your camera’s viewfinder while you’re filming, unlike S-Log where the in-camera image is very grey, as mentioned previously.
As another bonus, Cine 2’s base ISO is ISO 100. This to me is one the picture profile’s greatest benefits for travel videography, as a lot of the filming I do is out in bright sunlight. Of course, I do still need to use an ND filter a lot of the time to stay properly exposed at wider apertures, however I don’t need to use any super high ND filter stops like you would with S-Log, whose base ISO is much higher. Again, you don’t get quite as much dynamic range as S-Log, but you get a fair amount with Cine 2, so, for the ease of creating a perfect exposure quickly while on the move, I’ll take slightly less dynamic range.
If you’re looking for a solid picture profile that gives you a somewhat completed image, while also providing you with enough room to make some adjustments in post production, give Cine 2 a try. The colours are flatter straight out of camera, however you could still utilize the footage without any post production if required, as it still looks pretty solid. If you do want to make more of a custom look, however, Cine 2 provides you with the canvas to dial in a look that truly speaks to your style.
Conclusion
Selecting a picture profile for your Sony camera while travelling can be challenging and intimidating, especially when you’re trying to ensure that your precious vacation footage looks as good as it possibly can. If you’re simply looking for nice looking clips, stick with the Movie picture profile, as this will give you great looking colours straight away. If you’re looking for a bit more room to work with in post production and you don’t want to figure out proper S-Log exposure while you’re on the road, use Cine 2. Its dynamic range and flatter image profile will provide you with the room you need to recover highlights and shadows, while also letting you dial in a custom colour and overall look.