GH5 to Alexa Conversion

[katlis]

That looks great @deathly_twig, I had a similar idea recently. It turns out you can "hack" the GX85 to enable Cine-D which was hidden in the firmware. I originally wanted one as a backup camera for photography, but the video on this thing ain't too bad, albeit 8-bit. So I picked up a used one for 300 bucks. The 16mp sensor may give it an edge in low light too?

This is at 800 ISO. 8-bit PRE + Cine-D to V-Log PRE + GHa Main + luma adjustments:

 

[Sage]

9 minutes ago, katlis said:

That looks great @deathly_twig, I had a similar idea recently. It turns out you can "hack" the GX85 to enable Cine-D which was hidden in the firmware. I originally wanted one as a backup camera for photography, but the video on this thing ain't too bad, albeit 8-bit. So I picked up a used one for 300 bucks. The 16mp sensor may give it an edge in low light too?

This is at 800 ISO. 8-bit PRE + Cine-D to V-Log PRE + GHa Main + luma adjustments:

Oh damn, that's pretty good haha

Btw, you won't need the 8-bit PRE - the Cine-D (non Premiere) is all you need for 8 bit Cine-D in any NLE

I just did a test grade for someone's G9 - all the shots needed a bit of a different downward gamma curve to conform to cinema luminance, but it seemed to work pretty well:

On 11/6/2018 at 8:09 PM, deathly_twig said:

So I just got my Mavic 2 Pro today, and decided to try the GHA conversion on it, in 10 bit mode of course, to see what would happen. I used the Cine-D pre, and then Linear. I still have to dial in my Mavic settings a bit more, but the lut seemed to work! Obviously not perfectly, but not bad. Now to get some better footage and more practice with this drone!

That looks great!

Side note, for my old Mavic Pro (not 2) I found that +1 sharp in cam, and an Opacity of 85% on the 6.0 blur olpf seems to work well to give a smooth detailed image without the mush

[kye]

@Sage  I have shot a bunch of footage at night with HLG at various exposure levels (ETTR as well as ETTL to keep highlights) and I'm wondering how to pre-process the footage in post to get the right levels for the LUTs.

At what step in the Resolve node graph would you suggest adjusting the exposure back so skin tones are in the recommended 40-60 IRE, and which controls would you suggest (perhaps either the Gamma wheel or the Offset wheel?).

Thanks!

[Sage]

@kye This is best accomplished by swapping the luma curve layer mixer structure with the conversion node. This way, black level and gamma may be set ahead of the conversion.

Going forward, opt for moderate exposure, so that the luma stage may follow the conversion. Moderate exposure will allow substantial highlight range, while steering clear of the noise floor

[FinnChristianPeper]

Great work Sage! I have been using you're luts the last couple of weeks, and it just works perfectly. Im currently shooting on a gh5 with atomos ninja V 

 

Here are some stills. The video can be seen here 

 

 

[Sage]

7 hours ago, FinnChristianPeper said:

Great work Sage! I have been using you're luts the last couple of weeks, and it just works perfectly. Im currently shooting on a gh5 with atomos ninja V 

Here are some stills. The video can be seen here 

Wow, that's solid. Quite possibly my favorite V3 footage yet

[ykt.net]

@FinnChristianPeper I believe this not only GHa LUT applied ? 

[Ryley K]

Dumb question, but how do I comment on dvxuser? There's lots of good discussion on it, but I can't view any images.

[webrunner5]

44 minutes ago, Ryley K said:

Dumb question, but how do I comment on dvxuser? There's lots of good discussion on it, but I can't view any images.

You have to register.

[Ryley K]

9 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

You have to register.

I did but still no luck unfortunately.

[webrunner5]

It takes awhile at times. I guess they review all of the new applications one by one. I have heard of a month or more from some on here. Red forum same way. They must be owned by the same company?

Make sure you write down your Login name and password. They boot you off the forum all the time if you don't use it often.  And if you have to get back on a Horror show if you don't remember your password, name. You have like 5 tries and your done. I hate those 2 sites to be honest LoL. Pain in the ass.

[kye]

1 minute ago, webrunner5 said:

It takes awhile at times. I guess they review all of the new applications one by one.

I registered there in Jan this year, still haven't been approved.  I kept tabs on it for a couple of months, and people who registered after me became common around the place, I figured that they didn't want new users and gave up.

Having good moderation on forums is critical, and if you're so incompetent that you can't approve new users then your forum isn't worth any of my time.

[webrunner5]

I have been on them both for years. So I got on pretty quick back then. But man like I said if you forget your info Jesus what a pain. Stupid shit. I have no clue why you have to be logged in to see photos, videos on there?

[kye]

On 11/28/2018 at 4:15 PM, ykt.net said:

@FinnChristianPeper I believe this not only GHa LUT applied ? 

I would imagine there would be additional grading.

The GH5 + GHa LUT is equivalent to an Alexa with Rec709 LUT.   Most people would add a complete look after the rec709 conversion if they shot Alexa, so the same applies here I think.

2 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

I have been on them both for years. So I got on pretty quick back then. But man like I said if you forget your info Jesus what a pain. Stupid shit. I have no clue why you have to be logged in to see photos, videos on there?

To get you to sign up.  Everyone wants you to sign up because then they can market to you.  It's a PITA to sign up, so they have to offer some kind of reward.

[TurboRat]

I get some weird banding issue when using the lut preview on a GH5s, using the new version of GHAlex. So decided not to use it and stick with the old version instead. Havent tried using the v3 on Premiere though so not sure if this is just a preview issue

[Oliver Daniel]

19 minutes ago, TurboRat said:

I get some weird banding issue when using the lut preview on a GH5s, using the new version of GHAlex. So decided not to use it and stick with the old version instead. Havent tried using the v3 on Premiere though so not sure if this is just a preview issue

I've had the same issue, the LUT preview on the GH5 shows a lot of weird banding and blotchy colours. I stick with the Panasonic one instead for that. 

Applying the LUT in post though is a different story ?

[Sage]

@TurboRat Yes, the 17x .vlt format, interpolated by the GH5 internally, is not good enough for GHa (note is in the ReadMe next to the .vlts)

The actual 65x V3 is mathematically smoothed to have 'perfect 3D curves', so to speak (impossible to have artifacts from the conversion). In terms of smoothness, its on a whole new playing field from V2.

The GH5 footage can show the slightest banding in moving gradients (lens flares etc) with All-I (the best the GH5 can do internally), though that will be common to any color correction. The P4K will be different though

[TurboRat]

18 hours ago, Sage said:

@TurboRat Yes, the 17x .vlt format, interpolated by the GH5 internally, is not good enough for GHa (note is in the ReadMe next to the .vlts)

The actual 65x V3 is mathematically smoothed to have 'perfect 3D curves', so to speak (impossible to have artifacts from the conversion). In terms of smoothness, its on a whole new playing field from V2.

The GH5 footage can show the slightest banding in moving gradients (lens flares etc) with All-I (the best the GH5 can do internally), though that will be common to any color correction. The P4K will be different though

Thanks. Will just use V2 while shooting just for preview then use V3 when applying the LUT in Premiere or Resolve

[FreshGiant]

I love the lut but I only bought the daylight version at first. My lights are daylight so I thought the times when I'm shooting corporate events or something and I'm under tungsten that I can just adjust the color temp on the lut and get a good result. Yesterday I decided to buy the tungsten version for a gig I just shot and I'm shocked at how good it is. If anyone is wondering if you should buy both, I highly recommend it. 

Also, has anyone tried burned the lut into a recorder yet? I have some gigs where clients will hire me to do some interviews but they want raw footage. Some are very small companies that are just taking the raw footage to save money on my editing rates but I know they are not equipped to color the footage. So I fear giving them log files, but I also can't go back to GH5 color profiles once I used this lut. Has anyone baked in GHa into a Ninja V? I'm thinking about getting one just for these kinds of clients.

[Sage]

@FreshGiant Very cool. You can bake them in - just make sure to get the WB/exp right. I would recommend recording a backup internally in case you need to go back to VLog.

Alex Delfont pointed out to me that 2K Long was quite good, so I did my most demanding 'moving gradient' test of the different formats. Indeed, in both banding and smooth editability, 2K Long rivaled 2K All-I in this test. It was the 4k Long that really underperformed, with significant banding in moving gradients, and was barely editable. All-I may still have the edge with motion fidelity and noise texture (which this test did not quantify), but the 2K long is rich with bitrate, and an excellent backup option (most unlike 4K long).

2 hours ago, TurboRat said:

Thanks. Will just use V2 while shooting just for preview then use V3 when applying the LUT in Premiere or Resolve

V2 .vlts have the same limitation (try them in the same banding situation). An external monitor like the Ninja allows 33x previewing, which will be full fidelity in realtime