So far this is what I’ve settled on as a custom Cine1 profile for those times that we don’t want to bother with S-log. Okay, so I’ll start from the top down. 

I have Black Level set to +15 because it softens the black in the image, allowing the camera to capture the gradations in the shadows as well as emulating the look of film a bit.

The gamma like I mentioned earlier is set to Cine1. It’s the least contrast-y of the Cine gammas and has the widest dynamic range.

For Black Gamma I have the Range set to Wide and the Level set to +7. To make the shadows brighter by more generally affecting the tone of the image.     

Knee is where I had the most trouble figuring out the settings until I did a field test. I have the Mode set to Manual. From my understanding and Sony confirms this, a lower Point and a steeper Slope render a more film-like look, allowing for more gradations in the highlights. With that in mind I set the Point to 80% and the Slope to +4 (apparently setting it to +5 disables it entirely, although I’m not quite sure what that means).

Color mode I set to S.Gamut3 because in my previous test S.Gamut3Cine seemed to have a bit more depth of color than Cinema but was easier to work with in post than S.Gamut or S.Gamut3.

Saturation is set to -10 so I can choose how vivid it the image is in post.

Color phase I left alone because I didn’t really see the need to push to entire image to either more reddish or more greenish. Also I’m under the impression this setting is more so for matching looks with other cameras on the same shoot.

I tweaked Color Depth a bit for increased skin tones and better skies by raising red/lowering green and raising blue/lowering cyan respectively, but honestly I’m still a bit uncertain about these settings so I’ll do another post after a finish some tests. 

Which brings me to the final setting. I have Detail set to -7 to get rid of that unnatural sharpness, but the adjustment settings is where I begin to get a bit confused. I have the mode set to manual so I can change the V/H Balance to -2 in order to emphasize the details of the human face. Unfortunately though, I’m not too confident in my understanding of B/W Balance, Limit, Crisping, and Hi-Light Detail. At the very least, it’s difficult to see the major differences in settings on the camera screen itself, so I’ll probably end up running tests on this as well.