Wrong leves of GH5 V-Log L footage and saturation issue

[DMMax]

I have a lot of Panasonic GH5 video footage I took in 4K V-Log L 10-bit 4:2:2. First when I import it into AE, it displays the black and white levels wrong. I have read other posts with people having this issue when importing videos, but I haven't been able to find a fix for it so it will display the correct levels. Anyone know what to do?

Next, when I want to increase the saturation so the colors look right to me, strong reds, bright pinks, bright oranges and I noticed that in one instance I had a shot with someone with a bright blue tee shirt and I have issues with these over saturating easily, while everything else (skies, greens, browns, greys etc...) look normal and if I lower the saturation to where those colours are not over saturated, the rest of the colours become too under saturated.

My workflow is as follows:

Color depth: either 16-bit or 32-bit (float)

I don;t change the working space color as this changes how the colors look and don't want that.

I import the video and put it in the timeline. I want to use the VariCam 35 3DLUT V-Log to V-709 LUT, so at first I was using the Apply Color LUT to to this then the Hue/saturation adjust. The I tried Lumetri color and it worked better, I could apply the LUT and had better control over the colours, however I have not been able to fix the wrong levels or over saturated colors.

After playing around, I think that possibly the colours over saturating are in the mid tones but not certain of that. Anyone know what I can do to fix both of these issues? I can't really start correcting the footage until I can get AE to display the right levels.

I am using AE CC 2017 version 14.0.0.207

[ToolfarmJP]

Hello,

You mention "VariCam 35 3DLUT V-Log to V-709 LUT," Did you download it from the link below?

RESOURCES | VariCam 35 | VariCam | Panasonic

[DMMax]

I should have posted the link, but yes that LUT, its the same one that comes built into the camera as a monitor LUT when you use V-Log L and turn on view assist to see the LUT on the GH5 screen.

[ToolfarmJP]

Hello,

Thank you for the update. I should say It is hard to judge which size is affected wrongly (Panasonic or After Effects). Another option I have found is to use Da Vinci Resolve, not After Effects. It accepts the same LUT. It would be worth trying ACES color space. I find out other solutions.

[DMMax]

Hi

I have tried Resolve. You can set the correct levels with Resolve and when I import videos I always set the video to full levels and they will display the correct white and black levels. However, only the Studio version can import the GH5 10-bit videos directly but I only have the free version which can't and I have to convert them first, and I prefer to use AE, not only as I don't have to convert the videos to open them, but it gives me more control over the corrections than Resolve does and I can do other things with the videos that I want, which cuts down my workflow time.

As for the over saturation, I think its to do with the GH5 footage as when I try and adjust the footage in Resolve after converting it to ProRes HQ first, I get the exact same issue. The Varicam LUT when applied does add a reddish tinge, and this also makes red colours already in the video a little stronger in colour and easier to over saturate. I think the over saturation may be a compression issue as I have read that some compressed videos can have a saturation issue with reds and make them easier to over saturate compared to shooting in RAW which doesn't have this issue, but my camera doesn't shoot RAW video.

I forgot to mention that I am using a Dell UltraSharp monitor that is calibrated and set to sRGB and my final output will be in sRGB as I am going to eventually upload these to Youtube, but I want to export the videos to high quality versions of the videos in DNxHR first, but to do that I need to fix the wrong levels and saturation issue.

I did try to set the working color space to sRGB in After Effects, which does remove the reddish tinge the LUT adds, but not the saturation or levels issue.

I also have Magix Vegas Pro 14 but I have to convert the footage first as it also won't import the 10-bit videos. It has limited color corrections, no highlight/shadow adjustments or LUTs without a plugin. I does have a saturation adjust plugin which you can set to "reduce over saturated colors" which can work, but only on unedited footage first as my footage that already has been corrected in After Effects won;t correct properly as it does lower the saturation on the over saturated colours but can make them look messed up.

Here is the codec information on one of my recorded videos if that helps (taken from a program called MediaInfo which tells you codec information on a file)

ID :	1
Format :	AVC
Format/Info :	Advanced Video Codec
Format profile :	High 4:2:2@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC :	Yes
Format settings, ReFrames :	1 frame
Format settings, GOP :	M=1, N=12
Codec ID :	avc1
Codec ID/Info :	Advanced Video Coding
Duration :	4 min 26 s
Bit rate mode :	Variable
Bit rate :	150 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate :	180 Mb/s
Width :	3 840 pixels
Height :	2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio :	16:9
Frame rate mode :	Constant
Frame rate :	25.000 FPS
Standard :	Component
Color space :	YUV
Chroma subsampling :	4:2:2
Bit depth :	10 bits
Scan type :	Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) :	0.722
Stream size :	4.64 GiB (99%)
Encoded date :	UTC 2017-08-27 18:14:51
Tagged date :	UTC 2017-08-27 18:14:51
Color range :	Full
Color primaries :	BT.709
Transfer characteristics :	BT.709
Matrix coefficients :	BT.709

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi DMMax,

Did you resolve your issue yet? If not, please file a bug here.

Thanks,
Kevin

[DMMax]

Kevin-Monahan  wrote

Hi DMMax,

Did you resolve your issue yet? If not, please file a bug here.

Thanks,
Kevin

I haven't solved the issue but, submitted a bug for the wrong levels issue I was having.

You mention you have used Lumetri color. How did you set VariCam 35 3DLUT V-Log to V-709 LUT with it? Did you try to browse and set it from the menu of Lumetri Color > Creative > Look > you choose your LUT.

Yes that is how I was applying the LUT. Here is a shot video clip (1.73GB) from the GH5, in V-Log L 4K 10-bit 4:2:2. Download link: Dropbox - P1022555.MP4

Download it with the link at the top right of the page.

This is not ideal for showing the over saturation issue since you can only see the reds slightly when I move the camera, but when I tried to increase the saturation after applying the LUT, the woman's red Jacket you can see slightly at times when I moved the camera around, gets  easily over saturated where the rest of the image doesn't tend to. This video also as has the issue with the wrong levels being displayed in AE.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi DMMax,

Thanks for submitting the bug. I'll keep an eye on this issue.

Regards,
Kevin

[ToolfarmJP]

Hello,

You mention you have used Lumetri color. How did you set VariCam 35 3DLUT V-Log to V-709 LUT with it? Did you try to browse and set it from the menu of Lumetri Color > Creative > Look > you choose your LUT.