(5D3 only for now)It gives me great pleasure to announce the imminent arrival of ML-Log, a DCP log profile for Magic Lantern DNGs. Those of you who enjoy the benefits of using Adobe Camera Raw over other methods (superior debayering, colour rendition and noise control) might like to give this profile a whirl.
DOWNLOAD:https://bitbucket.org/hyalinejim/ml-log/downloads/Key features:1. Maps RAW linear to a logarithmic curve with blacks at 9.3 IRE, 18% grey at 46 IRE and 90% white at 72.6. This gamma is very close to Cineon or RedLogFilm
2. The profile is fairly colorimetrically accurate. All you need to do is apply a curve to restore proper contrast and colours should look good. In this screengrab the outer area of the patches is a CR2 shot of a ColorChecker with ML-Log applied, followed by a curve to match the gamma to that of the chart values. The inner squares are an RGB visualisation of a typical ColorChecker. You can see it's not a perfect match, but it's close.
3. I've included two options for de-logging footage based on an old paper on the relationship between Cineon and film. One of these curves has a colour cast, and the other is clean. They are included as Adobe curves, and as .cube luts. That paper is here, and it is interesting
http://www.digital-intermediate.co.uk/film/pdf/Cineon.pdf You should get some nice results with this, but do try other luts as well.
How the profile was constructed:With Danne's help, I used LutCalc to generate a linear to log curve. I then incorporated this into Lumariver Profile Designer, which is a GUI for DCamProf - a DCP designer. The matrix and HSV tables were derived from a CR2 shot of an X-Rite Colorchecker using Lumariver's inbuilt colour calibration function. If you are interested in seeing what's going on inside you can use DCPTool to peek at the contents.
What's next?I'd like ML users to test this profile for usability. Any comments, questions and criticisms are very welcome. If it proves useful, we should be able to generate similar profiles for other Canon cams. Not only that, but there's no particular reason why we need to be locked into this particular curve. It should be possible to generate curves to match, for example, Sony's S-Log, Canon's C-Log, Panasonic's V-Log or Arri's Log-C
So will this turn my camera into Alexa / C300 / Varicam / etc.?
That would be nice but, no. This profile does two things: it changes the gamma of the RAW output so that it matches a particular curve (in this case Cineon / RedLogFilm) and it slightly tweaks the colours so that they are more accurate. The advantage of this is that you can apply this profile to your DNGs, render to a lossless intermediate codec, save on hard drive space, make editing smoother and defer decisions on colour correction until after editing. But it won't make your Canon look like an Arri.
Are there any disadvantages to using ML-Log?If colours are very saturated, there is a chance that one channel will clip at the lower end of the scale. I can avoid this by globally lowering saturation across the profile, but this hurts overall colour accuracy so I decided not to do that. It's probably not a big deal.
How do I install the profile for Adobe Camera Raw?Put the DCP file here:
MAC User Library>Application Support>Adobe>CameraRaw>CameraProfiles
PC C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles
What's the best workflow?Bring in your DNG sequences to After Effects.
Set white balance in Adobe Camera Raw if necessary. It will behave a little differently to Adobe Standard. So Daylight will look different, for example. Choose either "As Shot" if you set it close to correct in camera, or tweak manually and trust your eyes.
Leave everything else at the default, including exposure. You might also like to turn off noise reduction if you will do it later with Neat Video.
Export to an intermediate codec. At the minimum 10bit 422, and preferably 444. Cineform, ProRes and DnXHD are your choices here.
When grading, simply add one of the included curves or luts. Before this curve or lut, tweak exposure. Try using a curves effect here, using only the midtones. The curve is likely to make things a little dark but it shouldn't clip too much in the shadows and highlights. If you need more or less contrast play with the white and black points as well.
Finally, I'd like to thank Danne for his support, encouragement and advice in making this. I hope it's useful to you. Here are some pics with the film curve:
