Video on Sony cameras - shooting profiles for artificial light / macro (other than S-log3?)

Hello all

I've begun my transition to Sony with the A7SIII, and I'm curious as to what people using this camera or other Sony cameras ended up using when it comes to video shooting profiles.

I've been digging into the archives, and there was a lot of excitement back in the day about S-Log3, but I shoot mostly macro and blackwater-type video, so it's either artificial-light dominant or fully artificial light (BW). I'm not convinced shooting in log will add much other than the hassle of handling ETTR exposure.

I plan on keeping S-Log for ambient light or mixed lighting (ie wider shots), which will come one day when I'll have a wide lens, a boat trip planned etc. Not for now anyway.

I finally got the A7SIII in the water yesterday for two test dives and shot in HLG3. Hybrid log seemed like a good compromise for grading: excllent dynamic range, but without LOG's exposure/ ISO issues.

However, I'm not impressed by how it behaves in post. I'm on FCPX (no, I can't run DaVinci due to a big fat hardware issue - I need a computer update and don't have the cash for one at the moment), and the HDR-to-SDR 709 conversion is underwhelming.

Dynamic range is certainly there (wow), but other than that, there is still quite a lot of work needed after the conversion. The image is still pretty much flat (not much changes), which could be due to Final Cut, but who knows. Other than trying to recover clipped highlights, I might not need as much DR. I don't really lift blacks and it's heresy for BW. Colours need a lot of saturation lifting, which is great for precision, but then again I could start with something of a less flat-base to grade with.

Long story short, I can make HLG3 work, sure, but the question is: should I?

This first test has made me wonder if I should shoot in standard picture profiles instead.
I've read recommendations for Cine2 and Cine4, asked AI to search for published material, but it ended up hallucinating verbose pseudo-technical garbage that went nowhere, as usual with LLMs...

I'm really curious as to what actual humans out there are actually using in this situation. Actual hands-on experience. I understand artificial light / macro / BW video is not the most common shooting scenario, but I'm really happy to hear what people have used, are using, or would use in such a situation.

On my previous camera, the Lumix LX10, I was shooting in Cine-D with flatter settings, which worked fine (of course there were no log options, which narrowed it down quite a bit ˆˆ)

Thanks!

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by bghazzal