Hi Guys,

In this video tutorial, I explain the way D-Log works (and also log footage in general).  Some of the topics include:

-What is Log Footage?
-How does Log Footage compare to a linear profile?
-What do you have to do in "Post" to correct the Log Footage
-Sample Footage

Hope you guys enjoy this!

Thanks for sharing. As I am not a photographer, I am still trying to understand what is going on. I have experimented obviously with my phantom now for a couple years. I understand the reasons for shooting in Log, because you can do more in post, but at the same time it forces you to do so because the image is so flat. Most of the time I now use vivid or cinema, only because I am not required to do anything with it in post, or should I say I don't feel the need to, or maybe just a little touch up. Maybe the results aren't perfect to the professional eye, but I have managed to adjust my saturation and contrast settings to make things look pretty good for me. For myself, I have a basic editor that works for me. To use the higher end stuff like Lightroom or some of the others, I just don't feel like spending the cash. Just me. And although I have tried some demos of some of them, there seems to be quite a learning curve to be able to get good at it. The more I fool with it, I appreciate those of you that do what you do from a professional standpoint. You have obviously spent a great deal of time on your work. Thanks again from myself for giving an understanding of the phantom camera and how it works.

RicardoGray Posted at 2017-6-29 09:18
Thanks for sharing. As I am not a photographer, I am still trying to understand what is going on. I have experimented obviously with my phantom now for a couple years. I understand the reasons for shooting in Log, because you can do more in post, but at the same time it forces you to do so because the image is so flat. Most of the time I now use vivid or cinema, only because I am not required to do anything with it in post, or should I say I don't feel the need to, or maybe just a little touch up. Maybe the results aren't perfect to the professional eye, but I have managed to adjust my saturation and contrast settings to make things look pretty good for me. For myself, I have a basic editor that works for me. To use the higher end stuff like Lightroom or some of the others, I just don't feel like spending the cash. Just me. And although I have tried some demos of some of them, there seems to be quite a learning curve to be able to get good at it. The more I fool with it, I appreciate those of you that do what you do from a professional standpoint. You have obviously spent a great deal of time on your work. Thanks again from myself for giving an understanding of the phantom camera and how it works.

You are correct, there is no right or wrong. I personally, use both depending on the subject. If I am just shooting around my own area and just having some fun, I'll use one of the more neutral modes. But if I am in a rare location with a spectacular view, I'll use DLog. I don't have time to grade every video I take, but when the view warrants it or I am in a location I may never see again, DLog is the way to go. It is also more forgiving of minor exposure errors as well, which is another good reason to use it also.

One note. As far as video editing software? One of the most powerful editors around is free to regular users, Davinci Resolve. It does take a powerful system to run it well though as is true for most good video editors.

Capo Posted at 2017-6-29 10:29
You are correct, there is no right or wrong. I personally, use both depending on the subject. If I am just shooting around my own area and just having some fun, I'll use one of the more neutral modes. But if I am in a rare location with a spectacular view, I'll use DLog. I don't have time to grade every video I take, but when the view warrants it or I am in a location I may never see again, DLog is the way to go. It is also more forgiving of minor exposure errors as well, which is another good reason to use it also.

One note. As far as video editing software? One of the most powerful editors around is free to regular users, Davinci Resolve. It does take a powerful system to run it well though as is true for most good video editors.

OK, thanks for that! I'll check it out for sure. Yeah I agree too that if you are in a special situation and want to take advantage as best you can, I'm thinking d-log would be best to go with. You would have more info to work with correct? Thanks again for your expertise and comments.

If you do not use the D-Log Profile, my suggestion would be D-Cinelike.  It is a very similar recording profile  to D-Log and the saturation is back in automatically

Best solution is to leave it in normal profile, turn on the zebra stripes and then turn the right hand wheel to lower the EV until the stripes just don't show, then you know that you are capturing all the highlights and storing the best possible detail.

D-Log profile is not designed to be stored in an 8 bit video stream with H264 encoding, especially when that encoding throws away 14% of the available 8 bit range by using the restricted TV range!   Reducing the saturation is even worse since H264 stores the image using YUV instead of RGB so the saturation information is stored separately from the grey scale, if you store the image significantly desaturated then you have lost a huge amount of colour information which you can never get back, better to record it over saturated to use the full range available and turn the saturation down in processing.

Wonder what happened to the OP, I was expecting some discussion!

This is an edited frame grab from P4 video following my own advice above to use normal profile:


And following the same advice from a camera on the ground (a Gitup G3) which has the advantage of using full range H264 video:

Nigel_ Posted at 2017-6-30 02:20
Wonder what happened to the OP, I was expecting some discussion!

This is an edited frame grab from P4 video following my own advice above to use normal profile:

Fantastic pictures! You are obviously way smarter than I am regarding picture taking and camera settings! I understand what you have said and thanks for sharing. I don't think I have ever read about leaving the zebra lines on and adjust your exposure that way. I mean yes I have done it too, but kind of got into not using them at all. I guess maybe I should make an effort to use them more.

Yeah, I wonder too what the OP is up too?

RicardoGray Posted at 2017-6-30 04:51
Fantastic pictures! You are obviously way smarter than I am regarding picture taking and camera settings! I understand what you have said and thanks for sharing. I don't think I have ever read about leaving the zebra lines on and adjust your exposure that way. I mean yes I have done it too, but kind of got into not using them at all. I guess maybe I should make an effort to use them more.

Yeah, I wonder too what the OP is up too?

If you don't want the clouds to loose detail in the highlights then the zebras are very useful whatever profile you use, but there is no right way to do it, everyone wants to end up with something different, everyone has their own style, it is perfectly valid to deliberately loose detail in the cloud highlights in order to get more detail in the darker areas and then the zebras are not so useful.

You might like the video those frames where taken from, left with standard colour apart from getting the colour balance to almost match between the three cameras:

Nigel_ Posted at 2017-6-30 09:11
If you don't want the clouds to loose detail in the highlights then the zebras are very useful whatever profile you use, but there is no right way to do it, everyone wants to end up with something different, everyone has their own style, it is perfectly valid to deliberately loose detail in the cloud highlights in order to get more detail in the darker areas and then the zebras are not so useful.

You might like the video those frames where taken from, left with standard colour apart from getting the colour balance to almost match between the three cameras:

Very nice! I like taking videos of trains too. That is really cool. Thanks.

Nigel_ Posted at 2017-6-29 14:10
Best solution is to leave it in normal profile, turn on the zebra stripes and then turn the right hand wheel to lower the EV until the stripes just don't show, then you know that you are capturing all the highlights and storing the best possible detail.

D-Log profile is not designed to be stored in an 8 bit video stream with H264 encoding, especially when that encoding throws away 14% of the available 8 bit range by using the restricted TV range!   Reducing the saturation is even worse since H264 stores the image using YUV instead of RGB so the saturation information is stored separately from the grey scale, if you store the image significantly desaturated then you have lost a huge amount of colour information which you can never get back, better to record it over saturated to use the full range available and turn the saturation down in processing.

Like I said, there is no right or wrong answer. I still prefer DLOG over normal profile for the video I want to grade and get maximum detail in highlight and shadow. There's always a trade off. DLOG does compress the image, and gives you more dynamic range after expansion, but at a cost. For my eye though, I find highlights and shadows the most interesting.