I'm very new to the concept of color grading video, and have some "newb" questions I hope that peers here can answer.

I have the LUT from DJI for the D-LOG videos off the M3.  I've done some limited experimentation in Premier, and DJI's LUT seems to do the job well.  But there's lots that I don't know.

Should we ONLY use DJI's LUT for color grading the D-LOG videos (because it's optimized for the job)?  Or can we use other LUTs?  I've seen a lot of free LUTs and a lot of LUTs one can purchase.  It looks like there are LUTs for specific moods, jobs, tasks and goals.  If in fact there are good reasons to have a large library of LUTs, are there any recommendations for LUTs to use (free or commercial)?

you can use any luts you want but as a "newb" my opinion is you should learn and practice color grading and color correction techniques mostly on your own so you can try to understand and master it.  maybe the lut can get your started but i haven't found any lut which can be called "excellent."  (have not seen or used the m3 lut).  to be clear, i've never seriously engaged in the whole lut environment with making them, trading them, buying and selling them, etc.  there are at least several dozen already in dv and i'm sure they have their legitimate uses.

I understand you're using Premiere, but I believe the lesson on color grading from DR17 Beginner's Training will help with understanding and improving.
I agree with Saint, LUT alone would not cook your dinner, it would just "get" you there.
Consider LUT being a base camp. You'd still need to climb to the summit on your own.

Hi Charles - question for you, where did you get the M3 LUT?  Do you have to buy it from DJI?

TonyPHX Posted at 12-31 16:30
Hi Charles - question for you, where did you get the M3 LUT?  Do you have to buy it from DJI?

Mavic 3 downloads from DJI site.  On phone now or would post direct link.

Charles Adams Posted at 12-31 16:34
Mavic 3 downloads from DJI site.  On phone now or would post direct link.

Thank you! No need to send link, you steered me to it.  I guess I just missed that before.

Very cool!  Something new to work on!

I have not attempted dlog yet as I’m a newbie to color grading video as well. Does anyone know if final cut can be used for this and is it a hard process. I may try to find some online tutorials for it

Look at this site, lots of free LUTS as well.
https://freshluts.com/luts/185

Just try Normal - M3 has a great Hasselblad color magic in it - I like it so much - I completely diched D-Log for now

alex_markov Posted at 2021-12-31 23:14
Just try Normal - M3 has a great Hasselblad color magic in it - I like it so much - I completely diched D-Log for now

There's been a lot of comments by a lot of people that the normal (non D-Log) video output from Mavic 3 is THAT GOOD!  But something I learned from my growing experience in post-production photo editing, is that RAW (equivalent of D-LOG for photos) gives the user so much more creative flexibility in post.  I think it's worth learning to exercise that creative capability even if the normal video output doesn't require it.

Charles Adams Posted at 1-1 08:45
There's been a lot of comments by a lot of people that the normal (non D-Log) video output from Mavic 3 is THAT GOOD!  But something I learned from my growing experience in post-production photo editing, is that RAW (equivalent of D-LOG for photos) gives the user so much more creative flexibility in post.  I think it's worth learning to exercise that creative capability even if the normal video output doesn't require it.

I completely agree with you. Shooting RAW has a lot of advantages.
The only reason I haven't started shooting in D-Log myself is that I see no reason to suffer before DJI comes up with the promised FW update, which would at least make shooting in D-Log a more pleasant experience.

DarthSLR Posted at 1-1 11:02
I completely agree with you. Shooting RAW has a lot of advantages.
The only reason I haven't started shooting in D-Log myself is that I see no reason to suffer before DJI comes up with the promised FW update, which would at least make shooting in D-Log a more pleasant experience.

What are the promised feature updates that impact D-Log?  Might be worth waiting, rather than learning how to adjust an inferior format.

Hi, there are lut to convert log to a specific color space and there are LUT to give a look on your footage. This is 2 differents things.

Generally, you apply a lut for example the one provided by dji to convert Log to rec709 color space. After you can grade the footage with custom setting or by applying a look lut.

However I highly recommend to play with cursors to understand abs to test the grading concept

D-log is not RAW, don't merge both concept.

Xavier1984 Posted at 1-1 12:45
Hi, there are lut to convert log to a specific color space and there are LUT to give a look on your footage. This is 2 differents things.

Generally, you apply a lut for example the one provided by dji to convert Log to rec709 color space. After you can grade the footage with custom setting or by applying a look lut.

Shows what I know (and don't know).  I thought D-Log was equivalent to RAW.  Apparently not.  And the provided LUT just converts the output to rec709.  Still, it's a better format to work with than the "normal" output, is it not?  Or it will be?

Charles Adams Posted at 1-1 12:55
Shows what I know (and don't know).  I thought D-Log was equivalent to RAW.  Apparently not.  And the provided LUT just converts the output to rec709.  Still, it's a better format to work with than the "normal" output, is it not?  Or it will be?

Hi, raw is raw footage like raw image, uncompresssed format, with full possibility of post treatment.

The dji lut is a good start. Yes in rec709 space it is better to grade as generally you will deliver the video in this space. The dlog footage give you manually or via a lut the chance to obtain the max of the dybamic range of the video so it will be possible to use the max of the shadow and the highlight. You have too more possibilities to adjut the exposure. When these steps are done you can tweak the color to give a look on your video. There are 2 differents steps (and many more if you add some visual fx, denoise, sharp, stab etc..).

With nornal mode the clipped highlight are not recoverable same for the shadow so the dlog formst is a big advantage but it is very more complex to deal with

Charles Adams Posted at 1-1 12:03
What are the promised feature updates that impact D-Log?  Might be worth waiting, rather than learning how to adjust an inferior format.

Supposedly there will be LUT applied real-time, which would make shooting in D-Log more or less equal to Normal mode. Most of the beta testers published their vids with this feature enabled, but us mere mortals have not seen it yet.