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There's no proof, any tests (that I'm aware of), showing that Cinelog-C is better than free alternatives.
I do not claim MLVProducer is more precise and I'm not affiliated with any people or product. I just can't see how it's different from AlexaLog, since the author itself said Cinelog-C is based on it. Note that Cinelog-C is paid, while AlexaLog is not. I don't want people spreading false information just to sell it's product here.
This place should be a community without astroturfing and without marketing people trying to fool others. I'm not against selling anything here, just say it explicitly.
I'm not saying Andy600 is one of those people (yet). What I'm asking for (on the other thread) is to prove it. And, as I have said in this thread, I'll be one of the folks (like you) that advocate for Cinelog-C if it really proves to have perceptible advantages. I have no problem admitting I was wrong and apologize.

Well, why not buy it and try it?

Athough we may not have posted the results of the tests, there are reasons why numerous ML users for years now have been advising that Cinelog through ACR offers the best image quality available of all the post workflow options.

These have to do with dynamic range preservation, noise suppression and reproduction of pleasing colour.

But why should we test this for you? If you're not willng to cough up the money to do your own tests, then please stop banging on about it.

The advanced lut is a bit wacky. You need to play with the tonality before (and after) the lut using controls that will alter the whites, midtones and black levels... such as levels, curves or lift-gamma-gain.

It gives unexpected results - sometimes it's a nice surprise and sometimes... not as nice. I promised earlier to make more luts and I still plan to do that. I'm shooting a roll of Fuji 400H at the moment and have shot a Wolf Faust IT8.7 target with it at various exposures. I'll do up a lut based on that in the next month or so.

Such a thorough and thoughtful reply from Andy reflects the care he's put into Cinelog. And as Danne mentioned this becomes clear when you look at the results from ACR and Cinelog.

I'm not sure that Cinelog for Resolve adds much compared to debayering to LogC, but maybe I'm wrong about that Andy? Even if so, ACR Cinelog is worth it for ultimate highlight reconstruction, low noise and colour separation.

Check out the link in the first post:

http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/24803-improving-gh5-colour-comparison-with-5d3-raw/

Nice!

That's a nice looking cat!

Ektar ADVANCED 02 gives terrible results at first, but then gives very filmic results once you fine tune how the signal enters and exits the lut.

Check out these saturation control luts. One of them rolls off saturation in the highlights and shadows. The other pulls back on rampant reds or anything that's going to blow out (particularly useful for the TWISTED lut). There are two versions of each - medium and strong - and they should be the final luts in the chain.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1exEpCRAfgFWWFoNzBQSEd1MVU

By the way, I've been busy creating lots of looks for the GH5. I'm still in the process of deciding which are working well and which are a bit crap. When I do, I'll convert the best of them for Magic Lantern and post them here. Here's a preview of what's coming down the line:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/149046938@N02/albums/72157680842293914

I'm beginning to see that some of them might have very specific uses.... just like real film!

I don't own a X-Rite Colorchart but at where I work there's a few of these DSC Labs ColorBar/GrayScale charts. Should still be able to do this, right?

For the best results, you want one with lots of colour chips like this:
http://cdn.filmtools.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/17f82f742ffe127f42dca9de82fb58b1/1/6/16912-inset.JPG

This one doesn't have enough different colours to get a close match:
http://dsclabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Camette-Handy.jpg

If you do have the one with not so many different colours, you could try loading this up on your screen and shooting it instead (WB to the screen's white, and defocus to avoid pixels and moire).
https://s16.postimg.org/3tsurs1sj/Colour_Ramp-1.jpg
You won't be able to match all of the squares perfectly.

However, I think the ColorChecker is really good because it has a range of different saturations as well as hues. The chips on that were well chosen. Remember, you don't have to do the matching before the wedding. You can just shoot Cinelog and C-Log, do a manual white balance to match both cameras during the shoot, and do the nitty gritty later.

I'm assuming the Base ISO for the C100II would be 850 and 200 (or 400) for the 5D3

100 for the 5D3.

Once I get these done and open the squared PNG's in Resolve. I'm assuming this can only be done with this software and none of the Adobe products because I am to export this as a LUT for me to use in Post, correct?

You can use Adobe software to create a lut if you apply your correction to a HALD and use IWLTBAP lut generator. However, Resolve gives nicer results. If you PM me the two colour bar shots I can do this for you pretty quickly.

You'll have good luck with the GH5. Here are some luts for you to try:

GH5 CineD to Cinelog gamma and colour
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1exEpCRAfgFZ19TLVpBOWQ3bGc
This should work well. It's designed for 10bit CineD using full levels 0-1023. However, you need to recover superwhites and superblacks (32 bit colour space in After Effects or Luma Corrector in Premiere... Lumetri can't recover the info)

GH5 VLOG to Cinelog gamma and colour
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1exEpCRAfgFSWFPWWRHLXQ5SU0
This definitely works great and was the basis for my Ektar matching video that you saw.

For both luts, you'll need to play with the levels going into them to get a good exposure match.

Base ISO for GH5 VLOG is 400. For Cine D it's 200. ISO 3200 should be fairly clean. 6400 is still usable according to many. Haven't really tested it at length yet.

Awesome - thank you! That's a hell of a lot of easier than building it from scratch in AE.

Hey Gutterpump - great to see the Ektar lut being used! Here are some great resources that you might enjoy as an inspiration for grading:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/996705@N24/
https://vimeo.com/walknyc

Quick question - is there a tutorial somewhere on how to do those transitions? I think some of my clients would appreciate that sort of thing and it would be a good skill for me to have.

Hi Sean, this is a really interesting project - to match 5D3 Cinelog C with C100 colour and gamma and it's totally doable. Here's what I would do:

Gamma:

1. At night, load up a 100% white image on your monitor.
2. White balance each camera to that white.
3. Slightly defocus the lens so that the monitor pixels become blurred and moire disappears
4. At base ISO, shoot a series of clips that start about a stop or two above clipping and go 12 stops down from actual clipping in 1/3 stop increments. Use shutter speed first, and if you can't get dark enough - aperture.
5. Import the files from both cameras into your NLE and look at the waveform. Check if the 2 cameras clip white to 100% IRE (C100 may have superwhites to 109 in WideDR?) at the same point. If so, you can expose them the same. If not, you might want to overexpose one to preserve maximum DR.
6. Export the central portion of each shot from clipping down to almost pure black (let's say 36 shots - 12 stops - 1/3 stop increments). The central portion is best because it avoids vignetting.
7. In Photoshop combine these central squares into a linear wedge. (Bridge>Tools>Photoshop>Load files into PS layers)
8. Put both step wedges into one document and use the info panel to identify the values of adjacent squares and write them down.
9. Use curves to match the gamma of one camera to another. Just keep on adding points and type in the input (camera 1) and output (camera 2) values. There are only so many points you can add so just get a good spread.
10. Save this curve from PS and load it up in After Effects, or convert to a lut using IWLTBAP lut generator by applying the curve to a HALD.



Colour:

1. Shoot a ColorChecker with both cameras at the same exposure. (Or at different exposures if you know one clips before another and plan to compensate for this). The 4th grey square from the white one is 18% grey - which is 111 RGB in Cinelog.
2. Denoise and blur the shots.
3. Cut out the squares and make PNGs
4. Bring both of them into Resolve and put one over the other.
5. Apply the gamma lut to match the gamma of one camera to the other
6. If necesary, put the exact same temporary node on both cameras to boost contrast and saturation so that black / white / chroma fill the waveform and vectorscope.
7. On a new node use Hue v Hue and Hue v Sat to line up the points on the vectorscope.
8. Disable the temporary contrast and saturation node.
9. Export the correction as a lut. This will match the cameras much more closely.
10. Go do a test shoot, check it out.

You might need a pot of coffee or bottle of wine to see you through this process but it's very satisfactory. There are some images in this post which might make the colour matching clearer:

http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/24803-improving-gh5-colour-comparison-with-5d3-raw/

Using this method I've successfully matched my XC10 and GH5 to ML Cinelog. Of course, it's better to match Cinelog to the other camera because it's RAW or 444. But if you want to use the Ektar lut you should try to match the C100 to the 5D. If it works with the XC10 it should work with C100.

Good luck, have fun and post your results! 

Well, I don't have any Sony cameras so can't help you out there. The lut is designed for ML Cinelog footage. However, if you'd like to use it with your Sony I would suggest first making a lut to match SLog2 to Cinelog in terms of tonality and colour. Then apply the Ektar lut. I did this with my XC10 and now I can match that easily to my 5D3.

Here's how I did it:

1. Load up a white image on your monitor
2. Colour balance each camera against the white image and slightly defocus
3. Find the point at which each camera clips highlights 100%
4. Take a series of videos, lowering by 1/3 stop each time until you get down to 12 stops (36 videos)
5. Denoise and blur each clip
6. Separate them out into individual squares, arranged horizontally. Now you have a map of the tonality of each
7. Use curves to match one to the other (split-screen one on top of the other and match the curve on the waveform)

That's the first step. Once tonality is matched, it's time to match the colours. See my post above on how to do that. All of this takes time, of course, but it's a great skill to develop as you will be able to match cameras fairly closely. Here's how my Ektar luts look on the XC10:

https://vimeo.com/215240765

When I shoot it side by side with my 5D I can slap a lut on the XC10 and it matches pretty closely. Looks like you got a close match from your screengrab - maybe you can use that correction in future?

Is that an early Canon from the Paleolithic era?

Great job Paul - nice light touch on the grading. I find FilmConvert to be a bit heavy handed at times - how did you work around this?

How are you getting higher than 1320 vertical resolution to get 2.35 aspect ratio at 3.5k?

Hey, that's looking damn good! @Tom_LS

It's not always easy to get a good look out of ADVANCED 02, but it's very versatile. Have you tried to use TWISTED? It's a little bit less powerful, but a lot more straightforward.

I was thinking about what DeafEyeJedi wrote earlier and if TWISTED = CANDY, then I think ADVANCED = WHISKEY!

Sláinte!

Hi megapolis, I've added my Cinelog DCP profile to the folder as you suggest, but all it seems to do is change the saturation:



Here is what it looks like in ACR:

@deadcode
The 2.5 exposure boost is to get the image to match the output of Cinelog-C from Adobe Camera Raw, which is what the luts are designed for, as ML DNGs come in quite a bit underexposed in Resolve. This is certainly necessary in 12.2 as you can see above with Resolve and AE workflows, but maybe it's different in 12.5 with the recommended settings.

@Tom_LS
That looks right - I think you're good to go!

Okaj, we are getting closer, bit still not that good looking like what you have posted before:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9d46mzo8guUTUc3eHdoUFd5aVU/view?usp=sharing

Yeah, you have to work at it a bit!

For reference, I found this great series of photo-video-essays shot on Ektar:

https://vimeo.com/walknyc

Here are some frame grabs from those, plus some similar looking compositions I took today, given the ADVANCED treatment:

Looks like both of you are getting the same results using my settings. I'm on version 12.2 - maybe that's the reason? If you guys are on 12.5 there might be something different going on with the colour management settings.

I'm no expert on this. Baldavenger or Andy600 would know the answer to this.

What happens if you make a new project from scratch using the settings I posted?

EDIT: does this post help?

https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=10151.msg166250#msg166250

Hmmm... maybe check everything again. Especially that Camera Raw is decoding using project settings.

I think I see the problem! You're stuck on a Rec709 gamma for input out and output colour spaces but they both should be set to bypass. You should switch these settings and it should be ok:

I tried follow your tips (change exposure, and saturation, etc.), but my result wasn't good. What I do wrong or maybe it is too difficult for beginners?

First of all, make sure your project settings are exactly the same as what I posted above (except for output lut - just leave that blank as we'll add the lut in a node for each clip for more precise control, rather than setting it as an output lut)

So here's a DNG debayered into Log-C using the project settings posted above


Add the lut to a node


This is the result


Not too bad in this case but maybe a bit too bright and contrasty. So let's try a curves node before the lut. I'm going to bring down the whites and raise the midtones


Here's a similar approach using gamma and gain instead of curves


OK. I'm happy with the tonality but want to cool it down a bit so I "unlock" the Camera Raw controls by setting Decode Using to Clip and White Balance to Custom


Now I add a node after the lut to tweak the blacks


And add a small amount of saturation


Voila! And this is the same process using ACR Cinelog-C to After Effects

There's something about the ADVANCED 02 that gives the a really nice filmic contrast... if you can get it to work right!

I guess my question is, for anyone who is using Arri Log C as a Cinelog C substitute in Resolve - how are people able to export with the grade intact?

Try these settings to get a close-ish match to Cinelog-C from ACR:




The colour won't be exactly the same (ACR just has nicer colour) but the gamma should match more or less.

EDIT: Or you can leave the output lut blank and add whatever lut you want as a node. This way you have control of the image after the lut.

How exactly did you get ahold of this photo? Very nice, indeed!

I just googled "colorchecker ektar" or something similar.

ADVANCE version is rather tricky to work with

Absolutely! I went out this morning and took a lot of photos to test out the lut. It works well out of the box about 10% of the time  Try this version 02 instead:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1exEpCRAfgFaGpDOTh4VVQxSWs/view?usp=sharing

In the first version of ADVANCED I was trying to make it work a bit better by adding a curve before the lut to raise blacks and lower the whites a little. But I see now that it doesn't work too well as the blacks get murky. ADVANCED v02 is actually the pure lut itself without any of my fiddling. It's even more contrasty, but I think I'm beginning to see how to get good results fairly easily in the first exposure adjustment. Here's the order of operations:

1. Colour temperature & tint
2. First exposure adjustment
3. LUT
4. Second exposure adjustment
5. Saturation

So in step 2 here's how to get quick results for normally exposed footage:

Option A: Curves - bring down the whites until highlights sit at around 80 to 90 IRE. Now grab the middle of the curve, raise it and wiggle it around. Blacks should be OK but if they get lifted you can bring them down again later.

Option B: Classic exposure adjustment (lift-gamma-gain or similar) - lower the gain and raise the gamma. For example, in After Effect's Offset effect, exposure -0.75 and gamma 1.15 is a good starting point.

Let me know how this works out! I'm really intrigued by the ADVANCED lut as it just looks so goddamn like film!

I apologise for the wall of images, but it was quite quick for me to get this range of results using the above method:

Thanks Danne, I'm just happy to be able to give something to the ML community.

IWLTBAP lut generator is great for creating luts from any application that can load and export a JPEG or PNG. Of course, in Resolve you can right click on a clip and export its corrections as a lut. I'm using a combination of both here.

PS: This technique also works pretty well for matching cameras. You don't even need to buy a chart - just do up some colour and greyscale squares on your monitor and shoot that.

Bless you hyalinejim, this is fantastic work. Can't wait to give it a try.

Hope you get results that you like!

How do you build you 3D lut?

I'm learning all the time. This is what I did to build these luts

Find a photo of a colour chart taken on film:



Take a photo of the same chart



Crop, reduce noise, blur and extract squares.

Ektar:


Cinelog C:


Use curves in Photoshop to match gamma (colour picker on the grey squares for each photo, write it down and manually type in the values for input and output)



Bring both images into Resolve and overlay one over the other. We want to match the ML with the Ektar



Use https://generator.iwltbap.com/ to convert the Photoshop curve to a lut and add that as a first node



Use hue v hue to match hue, using the vectorscope angles as a reference



Use hue v sat to match saturation, using the vectorscope lengths as a reference



So, for the first few versions of the Ektar lut posted, I didn't match the gamma... only the colours. This is because I had independently found a nice gamma that's easy to work with. For the twisted luts I actually created 3 luts - highs, midtones and shadows. Then I applied those to three HALD files, as per the IWLTBAP link above, and used "blend if" in Photoshop to merge the 3 luts together. The last lut I posted, ADVANCED, has a different curve and colour response in the highlights, midtones and shadows.