Yesterday I tried the new V-Log color profile on the GH4. Ya, I know, Panasonic is about a year late on this one. A7S had it from the get go, but for double the price. Like they say, better now than never. The lack of a Log type profile on the GH4 has been a pain in the a** for some videographers out there wanting to do advanced grading, camera matching or simply fix those strange skin tones on the GH4.

The only option available was Cinelike D and CineLike V, which were interesting. But for some reason we could never get the color absolutely right on those profiles. I must say that CineV is much better in this regards, but too contrasty for proper grade… well, it is pre-graded anyway.

Now, the V-Log is supposed to bring the GH4 in the 12 stop territory, a boost of about 1 stop if we consider the GH4 dynamic range test from Cinema 5D last year.





I wanted to test that in 3 different scenarios with similar settings real quickly:



Indoor





Outdoor high contrast





Outdoor high contrast 2





Here is the test video of Panasonic GH4 VLog-L vs CineLike V vs CineLike D dynamic range test, play in full screen for a better perception.

LUT V-log to rec709 ( from VariCam 35) was applied to match levels.

Lens used: Lumix 12-35mm f2.8

Some notes after the test:

V-Log L lowest ISO setting is 400, 200 disapears

With V-Log you can ONLY set noise reduction and sharpness V-Log seems to have 1 to 1.5 stop more DR in highlights indeed as advertised

Noise level a bit higher than Cine Profile

Color science is different with VLog… I’ll do an other test with skin tones

I will definitely need to test skin tones to see if they did a better job at that this time. This test was recorded internally at 8 bit, I will need to try at 10 bit with an external recorder as well.

But for now I think that 99$ is worth it for a firmware upgrade to the GH4. Available in the firmware 2.4, yes, you can get it with the 2.3 hack, but it’s better to buy the real thing from B&H or Panasonic if you want 100% compatibility.

Another question I have in mind is, what is the difference between the V-Log in the VariCam 35 and V-Log L in the GH4… Why L? Light? Panasonic claims it’s the same. Different sensor might change the color a bit. If someone has a GH4 vs VariCam 35 don’t hesitate to share it!





Cheers,

Tested by Ntchi at Great Things Studios: http://514gt.com