Want to shoot N-Log with a Z9 and edit/grade in Resolve?

[HeyMikeRiley]

Hard to tell with that clip, it being mostly a "white out". Are you saying that when you brought that clip into the timeline it came in way overexposed before you did anything to it? That's very odd...I almost always have to bump the gain and contrast a little bit, sometimes color boost, as well...as with the clip I just posted above. I could send a short NLog clip for you to try and see if your system responds the same way. It's a mystery!

You got it, if I look at the Log image or import it without using automatic colour, then it looks like a normal, flat image. Whether using the Lut on a node as per usual or using the automatic colour process, it really cranks up the exposure. I’ve only had the z9 a few weeks so haven’t had a ton of examples yet, but it does seem to consistently overexpose when converting. I read something somewhere that the Lut can brighten the image but I’m surprised it’s so far. Next time I’m editing, I’ll upload a screen recording of it.

 

[Wes Peterson]

LOG has its place.... but N-RAW has more flexibility and since its a larger resolution stabilizing in post comes without a penalty. 8.3k RAW will give you perfectly usable TIFF stills to edit. Dont lock yourself into shooting just one way all the time. I tend to use whatever seems best for the scenario.

 

[agrumpyoldsod]

Hi all -- I am in the field with my MacBookPro -- and have forgotten how to turn the videos shot in 8K N-RAW N-log into natural looking output.

The best result I have obtained are with the following project settings:
Colour Science - DaVinci YRGB Colour Managed with Automatic Color Management ticked
Color processing mode - HDR
Output color space -- HDR HLR

NO LUTs selected - Both Nikon LUTs are dreadfully over saturated and frankly horrible.

 

[Calson]

According to Nikon their N-Raw produces files about half the size of ProRes Raw so not as big a hit as one might expect. They are using TicoRaw compression code from intoPIX much as with the HE Raw NEF files.

 

[Wes Peterson]

Hi all -- I am in the field with my MacBookPro -- and have forgotten how to turn the videos shot in 8K N-RAW N-log into natural looking output.

The best result I have obtained are with the following project settings:
Colour Science - DaVinci YRGB Colour Managed with Automatic Color Management ticked
Color processing mode - HDR
Output color space -- HDR HLR

NO LUTs selected - Both Nikon LUTs are dreadfully over saturated and frankly horrible.

I fail to see a reason to shoot both LOG AND RAW. Seems to be a good way to make things more difficult while limiting your ISO options. LOG is generally used to expand DR in lower bit depth formats. 12 bit RAW is pretty damn flexible on its own.

 

[MotoPixel]

Hi all -- I am in the field with my MacBookPro -- and have forgotten how to turn the videos shot in 8K N-RAW N-log into natural looking output.

The best result I have obtained are with the following project settings:
Colour Science - DaVinci YRGB Colour Managed with Automatic Color Management ticked
Color processing mode - HDR
Output color space -- HDR HLR

NO LUTs selected - Both Nikon LUTs are dreadfully over saturated and frankly horrible.

Andy,

Not sure why you might be selecting any HDR modes unless you've got an actual HDR display to grade with. Try these settings in your Colour Management tab in Project Settings:

With these settings, you can bring your NRaw, N-Log clips into the timeline without dealing with any LUT's manually. Depending on the exposure of your clip(s), you will likely have to make a few minor adjustments, but you should be able to get a good look without having to deal with anything other than Offset, Contrast and Pivot on your Color Page. Those three controls work very smoothly when you're working with in a DaVinci Wide Gamut Intermediate Timeline, which is what we set up with the settings below. You may have to make some minor tweaks to Lift, Color Boost, Saturation, but avoid those until you get things looking as good as you can with the three controls I noted above.

All this assumes you're working with only NRaw, N-Log clips for whatever you're putting together. If you're bringing in non-raw, but N-Log clips, that would work ok, but not if you bring in any non-log clips...those would have to be transformed into DWGI color space...easy ways to do that, but outside the scope of this comment...that's where Automatic Color Management would come in.

Let me know how this goes for you.

 

[JoelKlein]

What is the difference between H log and N log?

 

[Nimi]

What is the difference between H log and N log?

Assuming you mean HLG? A high dynamic range display format, so it'll do a better job than SDR at highlights and shadows and doesn't require grading. Nlog will give you higher dynamic range once graded, but requires a little work.

If you're going to do editing anyway, I'd stick with Hlog. Much more flexibility. If you're doing short-form video for social media and go straight to phone, HLG does a great job.