Inazuma Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 I have been shooting with the Panasonic GX7 for the last 11 months . Having used a variety of mirrorless and DSLR cameras in this price range, I can say I've found the usability and video quality of this one to be superior in most respects. The colours and tonality felt like they popped, but there was always something about them that I felt was strange. This didn't bother me really until about two months ago when I tested the camera against the Nikon d5300 and when I started looking at a lot of Blackmagic footage soon afterwards. What I've found is that the colours on the GX7 (and other Panasonic cameras) lack a certain harmony. It's as if each is vying for our attention. I believe this is what contributes to the "video" look that people keep going on about. Colours don't desaturate evenly when you dial the picture profiles flat. The main issue being that colourful objects in the midtones stay colourful whilst everything else goes comparatively grey. This applies particularly to greens, reds and oranges. The green of trees and plants don't quite have a natural hue to them in relation to other coloured objects in the scene. I still struggle to quantify why. The best I can do is to say they look somewhat neon. Reds often dip into orange territory. It's subtle but it's there and can be distracting to trained eyes. Yellow is probably the worst offender here. It becomes very prominent when you add LUTs. I would not say these things are reasons not to get a Panasonic camera. They are just characteristics of the camera and don't necessarily equate to it being better or worse than others. You just need to understand and take the differences into account when shooting and grading. Every camera has its strengths and weaknesses. So having observed the differences, I took to Adobe SpeedGrade again to see what I could do. I called the resultant LUT, the "Balancer". Click the image below to enlarge it. Please note that the Sigma lens used on the d5300 is naturally less contrasty than the Olympus lens used on the GX7, which may account for why the girl's face is a more washed out there. As you can see, the changes might look rather subtle at first, but it makes a huge difference when applying other LUTs afterwards. The changes I made pretty much "fix" all the issues mentioned above. Skin tone connoisseurs might especially love this LUT as it pushes oranges more towards red territory and reduces the contrast there too. The download includes two LUTs. One is marked as "Less Red" meaning that it doesn't push skin tones into the red as much.Download Here More examples can be seen on the original blog post here: http://sebcastilho.com/journal/2014/10/19/a-study-on-panasonic-colours-and-a-lut-to-balance-them/ Tim Fraser and Musty 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Musty Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 Brillliant work! I for one have always agreed, no matter what you do to the GH4 in camera settings and in post, something was always wrong with the colour chemistry making it always look like 'video'. It might look that you've cracked it, although I'm seeing a bit more noise in the shadows with your LUT. I'll give these a go soon. Thanks for your hard work! Adrian Inazuma 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inazuma Posted October 19, 2014 Author Share Posted October 19, 2014 Thanks, I look forward to seeing how it performs on the GH4's different profiles :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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