GH4 Leeming LUT One – the best LUT for the Panasonic GH4

Doing some 10bit V 8Bit with both VLOG with Neumann LUT vrs CineD with Leeming V121.

You might just be surprised.
Gonna upload to YT and post a Dropbox link of ProRes after Youtube uploads.
 
dustylense said:
Doing some 10bit V 8Bit with both VLOG with Neumann LUT vrs CineD with Leeming V121.

You might just be surprised.
Gonna upload to YT and post a Dropbox link of ProRes after Youtube uploads.
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Are you following Neumann's instructions to apply a "Cineon Converter beneath the LUT" to get correct exposure? This makes me question if the LUT's were specially made for V-LOG L, or just something he repackaged.
 
joe12south said:
Are you following Neumann's instructions to apply a "Cineon Converter beneath the LUT" to get correct exposure? This makes me question if the LUT's were specially made for V-LOG L, or just something he repackaged.
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I don't need a cineon converter. I have the ability to fine tune the LUT within Color Finale using FCPX. I've spoken to him personally about this.
 
joe12south said:
Is that a confirmation that the "out-of-the-box" gamma response is inaccurate?
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No. His LUTs are in fact very well balanced for VLOG into a REC 709 space. Their Look up Tables. Starting points that Luke created to interpret VLOG. Thats what a LUT is. You can apply one and just leave it. You can apply one, then another on top and get creative with opacity and blending. You can apply one and adjust with lift/gamma/gain and then color treat. You can go into Davinci Resolve and create one that suits you as either a LUT or a LOOK. The possibilities are endless. You can even put a Canon LUT on a Panasonic capture if you so wish. There are no right or wrongs with LUTs.
 
dustylense said:
No. His LUTs are in fact very well balanced for VLOG into a REC 709 space. Their Look up Tables. Starting points that Luke created to interpret VLOG. Thats what a LUT is. You can apply one and just leave it. You can apply one, then another on top and get creative with opacity and blending. You can apply one and adjust with lift/gamma/gain and then color treat. You can go into Davinci Resolve and create one that suits you as either a LUT or a LOOK. The possibilities are endless. You can even put a Canon LUT on a Panasonic capture if you so wish. There are no right or wrongs with LUTs.
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Not to be pedantic, but there is a practical difference between LUT's that are intended to be used as creative "looks" and LUT's that are intended to normalize input as a starting point for further grading. I've got 800 billion of the former, I just need one accurate LUT of the latter.
 
joe12south said:
Not to be pedantic, but there is a practical difference between LUT's that are intended to be used as creative "looks" and LUT's that are intended to normalize input as a starting point for further grading. I've got 800 billion of the former, I just need one accurate LUT of the latter.
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I think most everybody understand that. But again, a LUT is a look up table. Hence the abbreviation. What do you want if to be accurate too? Rec 709? Rec 2020? A film stock? Your color checker? Skin? Blue sky and red roses?
 
dustylense said:
I think most everybody understand that. But again, a LUT is a look up table. Hence the abbreviation. What do you want if to be accurate too? Rec 709? Rec 2020? A film stock? Your color checker? Skin? Blue sky and red roses?
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Something. :happy: More specifically, the linear color space I am working in (709, sRGB, whatever), as opposed to the log space of the input.
 
Thanks for your patience all :) Although it was slow going, everyone who bought Leeming LUT One should now have their updated v121 LUT in their inboxes.

Major changes are in the realm of colorimetry and initial saturation. Colour should be really accurate now if I've done my job right :D

Remember that saturation in v121 is a lot higher than v105, so you may want to initially pull down saturation a bit to get a similar level to compare colours etc.

As always, enjoy your images!

Cheers,

Paul :)
 
visceralpsyche said:
Thanks for your patience all :) Although it was slow going, everyone who bought Leeming LUT One should now have their updated v121 LUT in their inboxes.

Major changes are in the realm of colorimetry and initial saturation. Colour should be really accurate now if I've done my job right :D

Remember that saturation in v121 is a lot higher than v105, so you may want to initially pull down saturation a bit to get a similar level to compare colours etc.

As always, enjoy your images!

Cheers,

Paul :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Paul! Version 1.21 is my favorite.
 
joe12south said:
Not to be pedantic, but there is a practical difference between LUT's that are intended to be used as creative "looks" and LUT's that are intended to normalize input as a starting point for further grading. I've got 800 billion of the former, I just need one accurate LUT of the latter.
Click to expand...

Nuemann's luts create a starting point for a more involved grade. Each are a stylistic approach divided by categories aimed to fit different scenes. I wouldn't call any of them accurate without a lot more tuning but they do accomplish a "style". In my experience a majority of these "styles" clash with existing rec709 luts in that you end up with an unpredictable look just by stacking.


The Leeming lut is something entirely different. It's what Andrew Reid was looking to accomplish with his "lut converter" and missed the mark with accuracy. You drag and drop the leeming lut and your timeline is essentially treated for any rec709 lut you prefer with minimal adjusting. The Leeming lut normalizes input the best I have seen. For me, I prefer knowing where my look is going when im shifting through a folder full of rec709 luts. Its quicker. Its more efficient. Its worth my 15.
 
OK here is a 10Bit recorded vrs 8bit internal for VLOG with Neumann "nothing crazy" LUT and CineD Leeming v121 LUT.

Clips go by scene:
10bit VLOG Nuemann LUT
8Bit VLOG Neuman
10Bit CineD Leeming
8Bit CineD Leeming

First set is nothing but the LUTS applied.

Then the same scenes with LUT applied and the black points matched and added saturation that resemble each other in scopes.

(you can decipher which is 10bit and 8bit by the audio. 8bit has more hiss to the audio).

VLOG and CineD expose differently so exposure was based off the brightest part of the scene judging by waveform and zebra.

Here is what I saw.

I picked three scenes (in my front yard).
A full range scene with northeastern sky to look at sky banding.
A high contrast scene with bright highlights and deep shadows and items that should show the magenta issue like the wall of the house, wood, Blah blah. (the one with the house in the background)
A lower contrast scene with specular highlights (Car shot).

For some reason VLOG is brighter, blacks are lifted, and highlights were more detailed in the 8bit vrs 10bit. Say what?!?!. Kinda weird.

10Bit is of course noisier as it's uncompressed to the recorder. Sometimes the noise looks alright and other times it looks NASTY.

Honestly, the 8bit shot with sky held up with the 10bit just fine. Even when chroma pushed I didn't see banding in the sky. (doesn't mean every sky shot won't band in 8bit but in this case they looked quite the same). Between the VLOG and Leeming version, the VLOG sky is cleaner. The Leeming version has some weird modulation looking artifacts in the sky going on.

The Leeming version is no less noisy than the VLOG versions. In fact, on the shot with the house in background, the wood in the shadows have a noisier pattern to them. But for this shot, I really had to struggle keeping the upper most highlight from clipping and it forced the rest of the scene to be underexposed. In other shots, all noise looks pretty darn identical. There is ZERO noise advantage to the CineD settings.

While I'm not surprised, the 10bit versions do not blow away the internal recordings. The 10Bit will record without the magenta blocking, but when I compare to the 8bit, it's not really night and day. Sure, the Magenta issue shows up in the 8bit. But the only reason I see it is because I'm pixel peeping really hard for it and looking for it multiple playbacks. The casual Kardashian viewer will never see it. And it you try to point it out to them, they will think you've lost your mind. We all understand that 10bit 422 is better. But to an external recorder, it's going to be noisier in lots of situations.

I did test the Varicam LUT placed on the 10bit recordings. Zero magenta blocking and the LUT does look nice. Wish it worked better for internal recording. Somehow, canny needs to create a nice LUT dedicated and optimized for internal VLOG.

Conclusions? There are none. Feelings about it? I do prefer the VLOG. I want to make it work more than the alternative. I feel like I have more options in post using VLOG. Like I can guide the picture more using different LUTS and combos of LUTs. I don't think you will see a huge night and day difference in external vrs internal recording. I'm not. I know the 10bit will stretch further, but it's not like shooting RAW. So for those that have no external recorder, you might wanna think about saving money at this time. You're not gonna see a huge difference. Piece of mind maybe concerning the Magenta blocking. But keep in mind, where is your work destined? The web? Broadcast (why would you use a Gh4 for that). A 25 foot screen? I'm thinking most of you are like me. 90% of your stuff goes on Youtube. 99% of the viewers are Kardashian brained and aren't gonna see the things pixel peepers see.

I've said it over and over and over here. Nobody but us geeks watch content with their noses pressed to the screen. I will pixel peep. But I also back of my 31 inch monitor far enough that I can't touch it with my toes and view stuff like a normal human. You will be surprised at how good any camera you own these days looks at that distance. So, I'll say it again. BACK UP OFF YOUR MONITOR PLEASE! You're gonna get hairy palms if you sit to close.

Here is the YT. I've decided there really is no reason to put it on dropbox. We're talking about a $1300 consumer camera that still rocks after two years that now has a LOG profile. Really? What do you expect more from it? If most if not all your stuff is destined for the internet, in which people mostly watch that content on an iPhone, why are you stressing over some pixels? Go out and shoot and stop bending your mind over it. Realize you're shooting with the Gh4 and not an Alexa or F65.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWE7QYgG2ls
 
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dustylense said:
For some reason VLOG is brighter, blacks are lifted, and highlights were more detailed in the 8bit vrs 10bit. Say what?!?!. Kinda weird.
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That's because the GH4 forces 0-255 levels on V-LOG L but sends out a 16-235 signal over HDMI - no way to change that. And honestly it means more bits are getting used on the recorder. You're not actually losing any highlight detail though (due to the low IRE highlights), what you need to do is add a level filter before applying the LUT, set your output black to 16 and your output white to 235. Then results should be identical (minus magenta and, as you said, plus additional, albeit finer, noise).
 
Brandon Freeman said:
That's because the GH4 forces 0-255 levels on V-LOG L but sends out a 16-235 signal over HDMI - no way to change that. And honestly it means more bits are getting used on the recorder.
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That's not what I see in the GH4 V-Log-L files I've examined. As Barry explained, V-Log-L H.264 encoding is limited to an 8-bit range of 32-192, which puts it well within the standard 16-235 HDMI signal range. Here's a frame grab that shows how those limits look on a vectorscope:

P1380386%20Waveform.jpg
 
Lpowell said:
That's not what I see in the GH4 V-Log-L files I've examined. As Barry explained, V-Log-L H.264 encoding is limited to an 8-bit range of 32-192, which puts it well within the standard 16-235 HDMI signal range. Here's a frame grab that shows how those limits look on a vectorscope:

P1380386 Waveform.jpg
Click to expand...

Right, but see, you have a signal that is in a 0-255 space. You take that 0-255 space and slice it down to 16-235 (not compress), and while nothing is being clipped or crunched, there is more contrast. This is true of any of the profiles - if you have the camera set to 0-255 internal space, the HDMI output will have more contrast because the ends are getting "snipped off". The difference between regular profiles and V-LOG L is you can change the space with the other profiles to 16-235 internally, and then the recorder gets all of the bits. You can't change the internal luminance space with V-LOG L.
 
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