Color mode & Dynamic Range

This video was shot using D-Cinelike and -1/0/-1 and then in PP I used 30 for sharpening and about 115 for saturation.

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I think the results are about as good as I could expect.

Also, sharpening in camera can't be fully undone in post and that's one of the main reasons you don't push the sharpening in camera. Sharpening basically increases local contrast at the edges and doing that in camera adds synthetic detail the compressor has to handle leaving less bitrate for actual detail. The one thing I feel fairly certain of is that DJI doesn't handle DR compression well so that's why I use a mild profile like D-Cinelike and I don't further tweak things with a minus 1 or 2 for contrast. So, running with a minus 1 or 2 for sharpening and saturation appears to be good and you don't need to add a lot of sharpening or saturation in post and that indicates to me that the values of minus 1 or 2 are about right.


Brian
Good video. So you think that D-Cinelike at -1,0,-1 is the best setting to go with so far? I've been shooting in none 0,0,0 and I can't add any sharpening in post without it looking over sharpened. I was going to drop it down to -1, but after seeing your footage I might have to switch profiles and settings.
 
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Good video. So you think that D-Cinelike at -1,0,-1 is the best setting to go with so far? I've been shooting in none 0,0,0 and I can't add any sharpening in post without it looking over sharpened. I was going to drop it down to -1, but after seeing your footage I might have to switch profiles and settings.

I have not done enough testing to say what the best settings are but so far I'm getting the best results with D-Cinelike and custom settings of -1/0/-1 to -2/0/-2. I did another video before this one that used D-Cinelike and -2/-2/-2 and that also worked out pretty well so I feel using minus 1 or 2 for sharpness and saturation should be usable. I tried a minus 2 for the contrast in that earlier video and it wasn't bad but I don't have confidence in DJI's handling of contrast so I've decided, at least until proven otherwise, that it's better to use a color profile that doesn't do heavy contrast compression like D-log does or to subtract contrast so that, at this time, leaves "None" or "D-Cinelike" and a zero for contrast.


Brian
 
Is that a joke or is that for real ? I haven't installed the new firmware yet.

EDIT : I didn't watched the other thread, there may be some improvements but will do my proper tests
To summarize, we now have usable range IRE 12-100 up from IRE 10-67 (estimate values).
 
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To summarize, we now have usable range IRE 12-100 up from IRE 10-67 (estimate values).
The lower end of 12 might even be a good thing, in an earlier test of None vs DCinelike the latter came out on top, only because the codec may be having trouble handling absolute blacks. This might be a blessing. Now we can create out own d-log luts! I am excited.
 
Will it give us more dynamic range is the question....
No, as the scopes show (other thread) maximum range is the same but the tonality is vastly improved (usage of available range). More absolute range is not possible if we compare with raw files (showing the exact same clipping points)
 
Switching from None to D-Log puts the EV meter + a whole stop! We need to test this thoroughly. Did low light shots just gain a whole stop more DR?
 
With the new firmware 1.02.0304, DJI has changed DLog profile. It's now way more interesting. Whites are no more clipped at IRE 75 but at IRE 100 so we can now use histogram and the overexposed indicator to get the exposure right. Let's see in details a comparison of the None, DCinelike and the new DLog profile (all exemple are shot in manual at f/5.6 iso 100 with sharpness/contrast/saturation at -1/0/0)


With correct exposure :

01_Correct_Exposure_-_None.jpg

02_Correct_Exposure_-_DCinelike.jpg

03_Correct_Exposure_-_DLog.jpg


With DCinelike, the histogram is a little higher (we loose some little info in the highlights and win some in the shadows)
With DLog, the histogram is flat, shadows are going even more higher, and highlights don't seem to change


UnderExposed picture :

04_UnderExposed_-_None.jpg

05_UnderExposed_-_DCinelike.jpg

06_UnderExposed_-_DLog.jpg

07_UnderExposed_-_None_+_3_ev.jpg

08_UnderExposed_-_DCinelike_+_3_ev.jpg

09_UnderExposed_-_DLog_+_0_ev.jpg

10_UnderExposed_-_DLog_+_0.5_ev.jpg

11_UnderExposed_-_DLog_+_1_ev.jpg


We see here all the interest of the DLog profile compared to None and DCinelike. Shadows are way higher in the histogram. When looking at the None and DCinelike + 3 ev and comparing them with DLog (with +0 to +1 ev), we can see than we win almost 3 ev in the shadows compared to None and around 2 to 2.5 ev compared to DCinelike. And I don't even talk about the difference in the noise after adding 3 ev to try getting back the small amount of info in the shadows with None and DCinelike (wich is a little better than None in the shadows)


OverExposed picture :

12_OverExposed_-_None.jpg

13_OverExposed_-_DCinelike.jpg

14_OverExposed_-_DLog.jpg

15_OverExposed_-_None_-_3_ev.jpg

16_OverExposed_-_DCinelike_-_3_ev.jpg

17_OverExposed_-_DLog_-_3_ev.jpg


In the highlights, there is less difference. DCinelike loose a little and DLog win almost nothing compared to None.


Conclusion :

DLog profile helps keeping a lot more info than over profiles like None and DCinelike with its flat profile, and the way it saves the shadows higher in the histogram. I would say that DLog has almost 3 stops more information in the shadows than None and around 2 to 2.5 stops more compared to DCinelike. From my point of view, we can even underexpose a little when shooting DLog in order not to burn the highlights and still keeping a lot of info in the shadows


Feel free to comment about all this, I'd like to know your point of view.
 
With the new firmware 1.02.0304, DJI has changed DLog profile. It's now way more interesting. Whites are no more clipped at IRE 75 but at IRE 100 so we can now use histogram and the overexposed indicator to get the exposure right. Let's see in details a comparison of the None, DCinelike and the new DLog profile (all exemple are shot in manual at f/5.6 iso 100 with sharpness/contrast/saturation at -1/0/0)


With correct exposure :

01_Correct_Exposure_-_None.jpg

02_Correct_Exposure_-_DCinelike.jpg

03_Correct_Exposure_-_DLog.jpg


With DCinelike, the histogram is a little higher (we loose some little info in the highlights and win some in the shadows)
With DLog, the histogram is flat, shadows are going even more higher, and highlights don't seem to change


UnderExposed picture :

04_UnderExposed_-_None.jpg

05_UnderExposed_-_DCinelike.jpg

06_UnderExposed_-_DLog.jpg

07_UnderExposed_-_None_+_3_ev.jpg

08_UnderExposed_-_DCinelike_+_3_ev.jpg

09_UnderExposed_-_DLog_+_0_ev.jpg

10_UnderExposed_-_DLog_+_0.5_ev.jpg

11_UnderExposed_-_DLog_+_1_ev.jpg


We see here all the interest of the DLog profile compared to None and DCinelike. Shadows are way higher in the histogram. When looking at the None and DCinelike + 3 ev and comparing them with DLog (with +0 to +1 ev), we can see than we win almost 3 ev in the shadows compared to None and around 2 to 2.5 ev compared to DCinelike. And I don't even talk about the difference in the noise after adding 3 ev to try getting back the small amount of info in the shadows with None and DCinelike (wich is a little better than None in the shadows)


OverExposed picture :

12_OverExposed_-_None.jpg

13_OverExposed_-_DCinelike.jpg

14_OverExposed_-_DLog.jpg

15_OverExposed_-_None_-_3_ev.jpg

16_OverExposed_-_DCinelike_-_3_ev.jpg

17_OverExposed_-_DLog_-_3_ev.jpg


In the highlights, there is less difference. DCinelike loose a little and DLog win almost nothing compared to None.


Conclusion :

DLog profile helps keeping a lot more info than over profiles like None and DCinelike with its flat profile, and the way it saves the shadows higher in the histogram. I would say that DLog has almost 3 stops more information in the shadows than None and around 2 to 2.5 stops more compared to DCinelike. From my point of view, we can even underexpose a little when shooting DLog in order not to burn the highlights and still keeping a lot of info in the shadows


Feel free to comment about all this, I'd like to know your point of view.
Love your work here.
 
DLog profile helps keeping a lot more info than over profiles like None and DCinelike with its flat profile, and the way it saves the shadows higher in the histogram. I would say that DLog has almost 3 stops more information in the shadows than None and around 2 to 2.5 stops more compared to DCinelike. From my point of view, we can even underexpose a little when shooting DLog in order not to burn the highlights and still keeping a lot of info in the shadows

Excellent test!
 
Nice work, Yannick.

I think it's interesting to note that when switching from NONE/DCINELIKE to DLOG in manual mode with locked exposure, the DJI Go app reports a +2EV exposure change. Basically, it seems DLOG is now designed to be underexposed about 2 stops compared to NONE/DCINELIKE because DJI is boosting the shadows by about this much before encoding the video file.

That's very similar to how SLOG2 works on my Sony cameras. It allows us to underexpose a little to preserve the highlight details while still retaining details in the shadows. Kudos to DJI -- looks like they got this one right finally. It also seems to overcome the otherwise poor detail compression in the shadows.

Since there is still hard clipping when the sensor is over-exposed regardless of the color profile, we should now err on the side of slight underexposure when shooting in DLOG.

I think more testing is needed to see how this effects the noise in the shadows, though. I've done some filming around sunset with the new DLOG implementation. It seems that even when keeping the ISO at 100, the shadow areas are quite noisy even though they appear properly exposed in DJI Go. Basically, if DLOG is boosting the shadows by about two stops, ISO 100 starts to look like ISO 400 in terms of shadow noise. Higher ISOs like ISO 400 then become incredibly noisy in low light when filming in DLOG.

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I did a quick comparison with Sony SLOG2:
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really not an expert on this, but i also think DLOG has significant issue.

This is a nice comparison. Any chance you might repeat it with the latest P4P firmware update and the changes to DLOG? I'm curious as to how the P4P's usable dynamic range compares with the RX100 now.
 
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I think more testing is needed to see how this effects the noise in the shadows, though. I've done some filming around sunset with the new DLOG implementation. It seems that even when keeping the ISO at 100, the shadow areas are quite noisy even though they appear properly exposed in DJI Go. Basically, if DLOG is boosting the shadows by about two stops, ISO 100 starts to look like ISO 400 in terms of shadow noise. Higher ISOs like ISO 400 then become incredibly noisy in low light when filming in DLOG.

For the nigh scene, if you tried to shoot in None or DCinelike, maybe you would have needed to shoot at ISO 1600 or even 3200 to get the same shot. It may be interesting to compare the noise in None and DCinelike at ISO 1600/3200 and DLog at ISO 400.

The other problem in DLog seems to be the banding due to the flat profile in 8bits (less values to save the gradient compared to None and DCinelike)
 
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I'm pleased to see so many folks here working on this to the betterment of everyone else -- we have some knowledgeable people and this helps. I have posted a number of videos on the P4P and been amazed the the range of comments I get. One of the ones that I've seen a number of times in the last few days is that with D-log you are supposed to over expose a bit. Of course, with 8 bit the DR is going to be on the low side so exposing to prevent the sky from blowing out at all would mean the mid tones and shadow detail would crush to black so with 8 bit you have to sacrifice a bit of highlight detail so that you can bring up the mids and shadows. If you have something more like 14 bits then you have more headroom to expose for the sky and then bring up the mids and shadow.

One other thing that's been commented on and I've seen this a number of times is that to counter banding you need to use a slow shutter speed. The mechanism for this isn't entirely obvious but it would appear that adding a little blurring can help with banding -- anyone care to comment on this?


Brian
 

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