A7SIII RAW are darker by 2 stops in Adobe PS and LR

[Thomas Horvat]

Guys, I have updated firmware on my Sony a7siii and I'm using newest LR but still whenever I import photos from sd to LR, preview looks normal but once I go to "develop" colours go darker by 2 stops at least. Sure I can push the shadows and exposure but that shouldn't be the case as I made sure my exposure is good. No settings are turned on in camera to cause this colour wise and even i tried changing setting is LR to default when importing but still raw image when going to "Develop" tab looks dark. Same thing is in Photoshop. I can't for life of me find a solution and no real solutions are found online. It drives me mad. I'm shooting with certain settings, zebras. Slog profile but none of that should affect raw file anyways.

Any ideas guys I'd love to hear

[thebeardedgroundsman]

Are you shooting in RAW?

I'm no expert but I believe, RAW files contain "un-processed" information, whereas the image when previewing on in your camera have been processed into JPEG. Therefore, when you import your RAW file it will often look darker and will need processing anyway.

An interesting exercise is to shoot some images in RAW and JPEG (one of your options in the 'Quality' settings in your camera's menu) compare both images out of camera and you will see a marked difference. Most people would feel dissatisfied with the RAW image at this stage - but the advantage is that you have more flexibility and creativity in post processing - the changes are governed entirely by you, and not by the software in your camera.

 

[2WheelsGood]

On 1/7/2021 at 2:06 PM, thebeardedgroundsman said:

Are you shooting in RAW?

I'm no expert but I believe, RAW files contain "un-processed" information, whereas the image when previewing on in your camera have been processed into JPEG. Therefore, when you import your RAW file it will often look darker and will need processing anyway.

An interesting exercise is to shoot some images in RAW and JPEG (one of your options in the 'Quality' settings in your camera's menu) compare both images out of camera and you will see a marked difference. Most people would feel dissatisfied with the RAW image at this stage - but the advantage is that you have more flexibility and creativity in post processing - the changes are governed entirely by you, and not by the software in your camera.

 

You need to turn off D-Range Optimizer before shooting. It only works with jpegs, so it makes RAW underexposed. 

[2WheelsGood]

Here’s a video explaining the problem. 
 

https://youtu.be/21Z7l1-h71E

[Thomas Horvat]

Okay I figured it out. DRO was off but it seams gamma specifically in picture profiles messes up exposure. PP itself should have no impact on RAWs but only gamma inside PP plays a role so after switching PP off from PP8 (slog3 where gamma is different than PP off on default) I was able to get same exposed RAWs as when shot which is how it should be. So Picture profile was to blame. Thanks for all advices lads and hopefully this will serve someone with similar issue

[TVWXMAN]

WOW!  This thread is a life-saver!  I'm a brand new Sony A7SIII owner and indeed, ran into this exact problem.  Much like Thomas, the OP, I also had DRO off, that wasn't the problem.  But I did have PP8 active from configuring my video settings (Slog3 S-Gamut3.cine).  Once I changed that to PP off, as with happened with Thomas, problem solved.  

Thanks so much for making this public!

Eric

[zachhhgg]

@Thomas Horvat I literally just made an account to say thank you. You have saved me. I have two sony a7siiis mainly for video shooting but like to be able to take RAW pictures occasionally, stills have some use. Before, they were absolutely unusable and now they are back to normal. I was about to buy a new camera just for taking photos.

Thank you, you are making the internet a better place.

- Zach

[VTC]

If you shoot video set to a picture profile it affects images as well UNLESS the camera shoots images in SILENT MODE. Then pics aren't affected by the flat looking profile and exposure compensation settings dialed into video mode. (That's been my eperience.)