Test the ETTR approach. But be aware, that you may end up with a significant over-exposure, that must be corrected again by you in the post. The goal of ETTR is, to get a clean picture - since you reduce noise, if you decrease the scopes in the post again. The issue could be, how much you have to reduce the overexposure - you simply may not know.
Especially with 8bit, it can be helpfull to try to get the exposure right when you shoot the footage.
The Sony picture profiles are generally identical so zebra settings should carry over. Cine has tweaked colors for new vs older gen Sonys but zebras and exposure should be the same.
Realistically there isn't much leeway to overexpose except with HLG or Log, so err on the side of brighter while watching your zebras. Cine 2 is close to what you see is what you get.
The Sony picture profiles are generally identical so zebra settings should carry over. Cine has tweaked colors for new vs older gen Sonys but zebras and exposure should be the same.
Okay. Well that’s good to know. Thank you.
Realistically there isn't much leeway to overexpose except with HLG or Log, so err on the side of brighter while watching your zebras.
Alright, duly noted.
Cine 2 is close to what you see is what you get.
Ah, okay. Well that’s good.
…watching your zebras.
Seriousness aside for a bit. But I don’t have any zebras to watch, just a cat.
Sounds like a perfect test subject for exposure, just add a window : )
The Sony picture profiles are generally identical so zebra settings should carry over. Cine has tweaked colors for new vs older gen Sonys but zebras and exposure should be the same.
Sorry Roger, I think we are talking about different points, maybe.
If you expose with ETTR, that means that you do not care about the correct expose like an 18% point of a grey card. But you simply use an histogram or zebras to expose near to the clipping point. But how many stops you may overexpose here, compared to the 18% point of the grey card, that you never will know. But also for sure, nobody uses greycards in the field (maybe in studio settings).
Means, that you have to correct the overexposed footage in the post - but you do not know how much you have to correct. One could argue that he measures that and makes notes during shooting. Well, I would not do so.
And since you are doing that in this case here with 8bit footage, this is not ideal. If you do that with 10 or 12bit footage - then you got more reserves to do that.
The better idea would be to learn, how one has to exposure in the right way during the shooting, Maybe by using the exposure measurement in the camera?
Realistically there isn't much leeway to overexpose except with HLG or Log, so err on the side of brighter while watching your zebras. Cine 2 is close to what you see is what you get.
Especially HLG should not be overexposed, since the gamma curve does not have many luminance informations in the highlights. Remember, HLG was never designed as shooting format, too.
With 10bit log you can do that better, for slog the recommendation is typically to overexpose 1 to 1,5 stops, so a known amount. And reduce that again in the post (see Alister Chapman).
Thanks for all the help, guys. I really do appreciate it.
I think we're basically talking about the same points. The Sony profiles are the same from camera to camera for middle gray and mostly for clipping points as well. For low contrast scenes where it is possible to increase exposure you can err to the right while watching highlight clipping to keep image data above the noise floor. You will have to adjust the image exposure back down in post to look normal.
For high contrast scenes there is not enough dynamic range for ETTR to even be usable except in log-type formats. FWIW I helped test the Leeming LUT Pro on Sony cameras when it was in beta and this encourages a ETTR-type approach. You can see the derived gray values and clipping points for a number of Sony profiles it supports here.
It's a misconception about HLG not being usable for capture or grading. While not its original intended use (it was for HDR broadcasts) it is as it seems- a quasi-log format that can be used as an extended dynamic range Rec 709 format in post. In its Sony implementation it can be used at 8-bit depths with somewhat less risk of banding than a full log format. (The relevant Leeming LUTs do exactly that.) Alistair Chapman discusses this approach 
(and notes similarities between HLG and Cine gammas for their extended highlight rolloff at 3:20) and earlier in the conversation discusses HLG as an acquisition format for HDR.
For high contrast scenes there is not enough dynamic range for ETTR to even be usable except in log-type formats. FWIW I helped test the Leeming LUT Pro on Sony cameras when it was in beta and this encourages a ETTR-type approach. You can see the derived gray values and clipping points for a number of Sony profiles it supports here.
True, that the amount in number of stops will be lower for SDR or extended SDR-curves. But for log this is an endless discussion to my opinion (not here but in general), so it is fair to point out the different opinions on that. And give everyone the possibility to find out, what works for himself.
I have tried ETTR with 10bit slog3 in my FS7 - in a situation, where I was shooting in an room some persons, with very brigth windows in the background. Even with the 14 stops of the FS7, this dynamic range was not high enough to have the correct exposure on the faces of the persons! So to avoid cliping, I used ETTR. And had in the post the issue, that to bring up the exposure in the faces was hard in the post. But the other way would have been to expose the faces in the right way - and to accept the cliping in the background of the bright windows (it was not possible to set light).
It's a misconception about HLG not being usable for capture or grading. While not its original intended use (it was for HDR broadcasts) it is as it seems- a quasi-log format that can be used as an extended dynamic range Rec 709 format in post.
To my opinion there are good reasons why HLG should not be used for capturing. Frankly spoken, either one shoots 8bit HLG with the correct exposure, make hard custs only and avoids any corrections (also in the critical color space since that is recorded to rec2020). Or you use 10bit slog and grade that.
To my opinion, Alister has the problem that he works a lot for Sony - maybe that makes it hard to come up with his real opinion about HLG for shooting. I have seen some later marketing publications, where he stated that HLG can be used for shooting too.
But you will see his opinion if you go back to his older publications:
https://www.xdcam-user.com/2017/07/what-is-hlg-and-what-is-it-supposed-to-be-used-for/
and here you find his points:
HLG stands for Hybrid Log Gamma. It is one of the gamma curves used for DISTRIBUTION of HDR content to HDR TV’s that support the HLG standard. It was never meant to be used for capture, it was specifically designed for delivery.
...
But before you get all excited by the log part, the log used by HLG is only a small part of the curve and it is very agressive – it crams a very big dynamic range into a very small space – This means that if you take it into post production and start to fiddle around with it there is a very high probability of problems with banding and other similar artefacts becoming apparent.
So, to grade HLG is tough to his opinion. Even more with 8bits.
The fact that the signal gets stretched out means that the quality of the codec used is critical. HLG was designed for 10 bit distribution using HEVC, it was never meant to be used with 8 bit codecs, so be very, very careful if using it in UHD with the FS5 as this is only 8 bit.
This is especially important here, since here we discuss a 8bit camera system!
What about grading them? My advice – don’t try to grade HLG footage. There are three problems. The first is that the gamma is very different in the low/mid range compared to the highlights. This means that in post the shadows and mid range will respond to corrections and adjustments very differently to the high range. That makes grading tricky as you need to apply separate correction to the midrange and highlights.
...
As already discussed, HLG is far from ideal for grading, so better to shot 709 if that’s what your audience will be using.
@RogerS | @Wolfgang S. | If it’s of any help, I did actually try filming in HLG with Rec.2020 and Rec.709 (if I remember correctly) and it was quite difficult to correct. So, I have avoided using any picture profiles for now. I may try Cine at some point, but HLG was not a good choice on my 8-bit Sony FDR-AX700 camera. This is from my personal experience.
Alister is inconsistent in his opinions over time including how to expose for Slog as well as HLG. While fealty to Sony may be part of it I think his opinions also evolved as he worked with these formats and gained experience. Just because something is supposed to work a certain way doesn't mean it can't be adapted for other uses.
Personally I don't use Slog or HLG on 8-bit cameras as I'd like to have better tonal precision over extended dynamic range images with possible artifacts. When I get a 10-bit camera (FX30 or successor) I'll likely use Slog 3.
Alister is inconsistent in his opinions over time including how to expose for Slog as well as HLG. While fealty to Sony may be part of it I think his opinions also evolved as he worked with these formats and gained experience. Just because something is supposed to work a certain way doesn't mean it can't be adapted for other uses.
Yes, he is inconsistant in his opinion. But my interpretation is more, that he works for Sony a lot. And Sony produces 8bit camcorder, recording to both HLG and slog. Ok, this may have an impact. ;) ;)
But technicaly spoken, the gamma curves have not changed at all.
Personally I don't use Slog or HLG on 8-bit cameras as I'd like to have better tonal precision over extended dynamic range images with possible artifacts. When I get a 10-bit camera (FX30 or successor) I'll likely use Slog 3.
I used slog with 10bit in my FS7. For the FX30 I agree, that I would shoot in 10bit slog3. I would do that again with a defined overexposure. That deliver great results, also for grading to HDR.