I bought Mavic2 Pro recently and was happy to know that it offers 10-bit DLOG recording mode. So I decided to try.
I shot a short video of a room against a bright window using Normal and Dlog modes. Then I post-proc'ed the latter in Davinci resolve as recommended. After that both normally shot video and Dlog graded one looked mostly identically. I could not get any more dynamic range for 10bit DLOG

Has anyone else tried and got better results or the DLOG mode is just another marketing trick of DJI?

Can you post the footage on here to see.

Could you post both 10 and 8 bit videos for comparison

Would be interesting to see. Post please

I did post processing in free version actually and there are watermarks. I will try on my main computer that has Davinci Resolve Studio installed and will attach results a bit later
Did  anyone else try to process DLOG footage and get better results that Normal settings?

I asked the same thing a week ago.  Here is the video someone sent to me, which was pretty eye opening.  If you open the video in 2 seperate windows side by side the difference is pretty obvious.  

RickThePoolGuy Posted at 11-4 06:41
I asked the same thing a week ago.  Here is the video someone sent to me, which was pretty eye opening.  If you open the video in 2 seperate windows side by side the difference is pretty obvious.  

on the posted video increased dynamic range is clearly seen. That looks promising!

RickThePoolGuy Posted at 11-4 06:41
I asked the same thing a week ago.  Here is the video someone sent to me, which was pretty eye opening.  If you open the video in 2 seperate windows side by side the difference is pretty obvious.  

did the author reveal post processing steps? how different they are from the recommended steps?

utkin Posted at 11-4 06:55
did the author reveal post processing steps? how different they are from the recommended steps?

No, unfortunately I have no idea if the "normal" footage was completely untouched and could have been improved upon, or if it is also graded, just didn't turn out as well.  May be able to go to the Youtube video and ask the author.  

Obvious differences, was it graded with dji lut?

El Diablo Posted at 11-5 00:15
That is not true, 10Bit has obviously improved dynamic range. The problem is neither our eyes will see it, neither a monitor will show this easily...!
Please let me explain, 10Bit will be noticiable better than 8bit when 'heavy' color grading is needed. this means you will not see the typical BANDING when pushing the slides around ;)

this does not add any clarity to whether DLOG is useful in Mavic2 or not

El Diablo Posted at 11-5 01:19
Perception and intellect aren't granted I guess... What do you mean by USEFUL?

Is your footage going to look considerably better? NO, if you don't know how to work with 10Bit. YES, if you are an advance user familiar with (expensive) editing software.

I do have enough knowledge regarding video editing and I do have like you said 'expensive' editing software.
No matter what math is behind but the video is intended for human eyes and if I don't see much difference then I ask id DLOG mode practically useful in Mavic2.
Even on Panasonic GH5 it is not recommended to use LOG because 100mbps is not sufficient for good compression of 10bit video. Why would Mavic2 be an exception here?

El Diablo Posted at 11-5 23:54
I wrote already that 10Bit color grading possibilities give a much bigger gammut and prevent banding. Again, you are basing your comments in 1 video, there are hundreds of videos out there. 10Bit 100Mbps is more than sufficient for 99% of folks using a drone. For anything better than that you need to get an Aspire II (or hte new P5P?).

Actually Panasonic is advising people to use 100Mbps instead of 200Mbps, I thing you got things a little messed up there.

The purpose of my post is to hear from people with real LOG grading experience rather than reading statements that grass is green and sky is blue. Dou you have an example demonstrating that Mavic 2 video shot in LOG mode is graded and look better compared to normal mode? Better if you can share grading steps.

you clearly have to understand how to correct, grade and post-process these clips to benefit from the increased dynamic range and the bit-depth.
The video won't "break" as easy when youre doing a hard grade and you can already see the dynamic range when looking at the blank dlog-m. Its a dream.

El Diablo Posted at 11-6 02:03
"I shot a short video of a room against a bright window " Settings?
"Then I post-proc'ed the latter in Davinci resolve as recommended" Who is recomending Davinci Resolve?
...and probably you don't know what color grading is in the 1st place that's why you are asking that question.

totally correct - also - it really depends on the monitor he graded it on. If his monitor cant display the dynamic range or he crushed everything to look similar to the 8bit file than its obvious that he doesnt see any difference.

utkin Posted at 11-5 05:03
I do have enough knowledge regarding video editing and I do have like you said 'expensive' editing software.
No matter what math is behind but the video is intended for human eyes and if I don't see much difference then I ask id DLOG mode practically useful in Mavic2.
Even on Panasonic GH5 it is not recommended to use LOG because 100mbps is not sufficient for good compression of 10bit video. Why would Mavic2 be an exception here?

yeah its not recommended for the GH5, which is why they increased it to 400mbps, which is still to less - but more bps need more processing power and storage.
Please keep in mind that the Mavic doesnt shoot 10bit 4:2:2, it "only" shoots 10bit 4:2:0, which helps with the bit rate a bit.

utkin Posted at 11-6 00:38
The purpose of my post is to hear from people with real LOG grading experience rather than reading statements that grass is green and sky is blue. Dou you have an example demonstrating that Mavic 2 video shot in LOG mode is graded and look better compared to normal mode? Better if you can share grading steps.

actually there are plenty of professional filmmakers that say mostly good things about the DLOG profile - especially if you take a look at similar cameras in that price range and what they support.
The main problem with DLOGM in general is that its mostly made to be delivered in 10bit for HDR displays. Theres no real benefit of outputting it in 8bit. Thats why you wont see any real difference on YouTube or with screenshots, since you need an HDR capable monitor to display the full range of the colors and dynamic range.
Also a big part is that people forget to export HDR or even don't grade and correct in the right color space in the editor (for example most LUTS will convert back into Rec.709 colorspace, while you should work in Rec.2020).

rarevfx_official Posted at 11-7 07:28
actually there are plenty of professional filmmakers that say mostly good things about the DLOG profile - especially if you take a look at similar cameras in that price range and what they support.
The main problem with DLOGM in general is that its mostly made to be delivered in 10bit for HDR displays. Theres no real benefit of outputting it in 8bit. Thats why you wont see any real difference on YouTube or with screenshots, since you need an HDR capable monitor to display the full range of the colors and dynamic range.
Also a big part is that people forget to export HDR or even don't grade and correct in the right color space in the editor (for example most LUTS will convert back into Rec.709 colorspace, while you should work in Rec.2020).

I would not agree with you. It's HLG mode that  is intended to be used on 10-bit TV while D-LOG mode is supposed to be graded and final video to be converted to normal 8 bit and played back on normal devices.

rarevfx_official Posted at 11-7 07:23
yeah its not recommended for the GH5, which is why they increased it to 400mbps, which is still to less - but more bps need more processing power and storage.
Please keep in mind that the Mavic doesnt shoot 10bit 4:2:2, it "only" shoots 10bit 4:2:0, which helps with the bit rate a bit.

That's good to know but I cannot find in official spec subsampling mode. Where did you get the info from?

i totally agree cant get on with it at all.

rarevfx_official Posted at 11-7 07:28
actually there are plenty of professional filmmakers that say mostly good things about the DLOG profile - especially if you take a look at similar cameras in that price range and what they support.
The main problem with DLOGM in general is that its mostly made to be delivered in 10bit for HDR displays. Theres no real benefit of outputting it in 8bit. Thats why you wont see any real difference on YouTube or with screenshots, since you need an HDR capable monitor to display the full range of the colors and dynamic range.
Also a big part is that people forget to export HDR or even don't grade and correct in the right color space in the editor (for example most LUTS will convert back into Rec.709 colorspace, while you should work in Rec.2020).

you say:
"Also a big part is that people forget to export HDR or even don't grade and correct in the right color space in the editor (for example most LUTS will convert back into Rec.709 colorspace, while you should work in Rec.2020)."

I think this is an important point you raise, as I am counting myself under "those".  Sorry for my ignorance, but how do you get (back) to Rec.2020 after having put a Rec.709 LUT? When rendering or before?  I use FCPX. Thanks for you answer on this.

rarevfx_official Posted at 11-7 07:28
actually there are plenty of professional filmmakers that say mostly good things about the DLOG profile - especially if you take a look at similar cameras in that price range and what they support.
The main problem with DLOGM in general is that its mostly made to be delivered in 10bit for HDR displays. Theres no real benefit of outputting it in 8bit. Thats why you wont see any real difference on YouTube or with screenshots, since you need an HDR capable monitor to display the full range of the colors and dynamic range.
Also a big part is that people forget to export HDR or even don't grade and correct in the right color space in the editor (for example most LUTS will convert back into Rec.709 colorspace, while you should work in Rec.2020).

coming back to this with additional question:

I use an iMac 27" 5k 2017 and I set the monitor display to "Rec.709". I guess when viewing Dlog-M videos, one should consequently change the monitor setting to "Rec.2020" if possible, right?  Otherwise, my few left brain-cells tell me that viewing a graded Dlog video on a Rec.709 monitor does not give the right output?  

utkin Posted at 11-7 07:41
I would not agree with you. It's HLG mode that  is intended to be used on 10-bit TV while D-LOG mode is supposed to be graded and final video to be converted to normal 8 bit and played back on normal devices.

i think you get something wrong here.

poetoe Posted at 11-7 08:10
you say:
"Also a big part is that people forget to export HDR or even don't grade and correct in the right color space in the editor (for example most LUTS will convert back into Rec.709 colorspace, while you should work in Rec.2020)."

Before. Is mostly correct and grade my footage in Lumetri from Premiere Pro, which has a separate option to enable HDR grading, if i enable it it automatically disables the option to apply stylistic luts. You can for sure apply some log to rec luts, but no stylizing luts.
Its best to grade these clips, if you want to deliver the final video in HDR, fully manual - doing the first correction and than the grading using the wheels and the curves, because different to the luts these use all the information and adjust them instead of luts that "convert" one color to another.

poetoe Posted at 11-7 08:19
coming back to this with additional question:

I use an iMac 27" 5k 2017 and I set the monitor display to "Rec.709". I guess when viewing Dlog-M videos, one should consequently change the monitor setting to "Rec.2020" if possible, right?  Otherwise, my few left brain-cells tell me that viewing a graded Dlog video on a Rec.709 monitor does not give the right output?

I'm not that familiar with iMacs and what they can and cant display. If you want to grade 10bit, you can do this on a normal monitor and also on a HDR one. The problem here with the "normal" monitor is that it cant display the full dynamic range, meaning things will look blown out or under exposed then they're not - you might be able to grade and correct using the wavefroms but you wont be able to see the end result with your eyes on screen.
Thats why i use an atomos monitor as a reference monitor to check the grade since my ultrawide isnt a HDR display.

I would suggest you to check the specs and clarify if your iMac can display HDR. The Monitor itself should always show HDR when there is HDR, not sure how it works exactly in Final Cut - you might find some HDR grading tuts on Youtube for the editing software.

To clarify:
If you don't want to deliver in HDR you can for sure use the 10bit footage to grade the footage, which will work and look better than 8bit (since there are many more colors available). Even if you dont see the full range on an 8bit display you can still push the colors and stuff, but after exporting you might have a video with banding etc, since all this graded 10bit information will be pusched in 8bit, meaning out of 1billion colors will be 16million.

utkin Posted at 11-7 07:50
That's good to know but I cannot find in official spec subsampling mode. Where did you get the info from?

its not listed in the official specs but you can investigate the file details and it will show that its not 4:2:2

rarevfx_official Posted at 11-7 21:58
I'm not that familiar with iMacs and what they can and cant display. If you want to grade 10bit, you can do this on a normal monitor and also on a HDR one. The problem here with the "normal" monitor is that it cant display the full dynamic range, meaning things will look blown out or under exposed then they're not - you might be able to grade and correct using the wavefroms but you wont be able to see the end result with your eyes on screen.
Thats why i use an atomos monitor as a reference monitor to check the grade since my ultrawide isnt a HDR display.

thanks man, extremely helpful, also your answer on my other point.  much appreciated.

rarevfx_official Posted at 11-7 21:43
i think you get something wrong here.

what do I get wrong? Even DJI official document describes steps how to grade 10 bit DLOG to Rec.709 video.

After playing a bit more with Normal and DLOG video I found that the latter performs much better in shadows. It has considerably less noise and more details. However even after applying official grading steps for DLOG mode I find that video shot in Normal overall has more natural colours. Also DLOG video is still softer than Normal even after sharpening.

I expect DJI to continue to improve official LUT and grading recommendations

utkin Posted at 11-8 08:02
After playing a bit more with Normal and DLOG video I found that the latter performs much better in shadows. It has considerably less noise and more details. However even after applying official grading steps for DLOG mode I find that video shot in Normal overall has more natural colours. Also DLOG video is still softer than Normal even after sharpening.

I expect DJI to continue to improve official LUT and grading recommendations

The DJI Lut is not very natural; there are several other free ones out there.  Using a lut is not the only or probably the best way to grade D-log.  I usually start grading manually to get some basics close to how I want it to look and then apply a Lut and then do some minor final adjusting as desired.

Just slapping a Lut on is not going to do it for some.

Sharpening can be increased both at time of shooting D-log and in post.

If you are pleased with Normal then keep using it.