shooting in HLG

[christangey]

I'm very late to the game as a mavic Pro 2 owner as I had already invested in 2 of the originals as a commercial operator so it was hard to justify a third!
I'm sure most subjects have been well and truly covered but haven't seen much on HLG format so thought I'd give it a quick overview. Notes are on the actual vimeo page.

 

[brett8883]

I'm very late to the game as a mavic Pro 2 owner as I had already invested in 2 of the originals as a commercial operator so it was hard to justify a third!
I'm sure most subjects have been well and truly covered but haven't seen much on HLG format so thought I'd give it a quick overview. Notes are on the actual vimeo page.

Ok you win my first and only follow on this forum. That’s absoultly ******* awesome! Perfect color grade. We need you to give us more tips and advice my friend. I have so many questions!

So how to you export HLG? It sounded like you could only output HGL with the drone connected to a TV? Did you have to play the footage back and capture the feed? Did you have to do any additional color adjustments/color LUTs? Can you apply a typical color LUT to HGL? I know in FCPX it gives you the option to go from HGL to rec. 709 or vice versa did you have to do this before other edits to see what you were doing?

You said you kept it in HVEC the whole way through but I thought FCPX usually renders in ProRes, is there a reason you didn't transcode to ProRes first? Can you make a Proxy of HGL footage to edit with a computer with a little less "grunt" then I am sure you have?

At :29 seconds there's an aqua gradient in the sky that looks great no criticism here, but looks less natural than the rest of the footage, is that something you added in post to deal with the overexposure issue? Or was that just how it looked?

Sorry for all the questions!

 

[christangey]

Brett, Will answer what I can as I'm about to head into town (Saturday morning here) Yes the cyan banding is an issue in the second shot and I can only presume that it was caused by the Polar Pro PL/ND filter being at right angles to the light, in the meantime I am only shooting with ND as I did with the "other" location with the trees and jagged rocks. But let's not blame Polar Pro just yet, I'll keep checking it out.

In terms of my workflow I should have said it went in and out as HEVC, HEVC to the timeline then went to prores after grade and then went back to HEVC (H265) via "Handbrake", the fastest little encoder I've ever come across! I never use LUTs so can't comment there. When you get the HLG to the timeline (in FCPX anyway) it looks very "log". Typically you will bring highlights and blacks down and shadows up, but it is a bit of a "one thing affects the other" as each lever will not only affect the overall color but in some cases even the hue etc.

To explain my reasoning on Rec 709 and Rec 2020, yes you can create a library and project in Rec 2020 and I had a play with grading like that but for me it's unnecessary. For my purposes I need to archive two versions 1. as an HLG straight off the card which is the format Broadcasters will want. Of course I want to edit these down as I don't want to waste drive space. I can't put it into FCPX to cut down the footage but the simple answer is , I don't have to! I just trim it directly with Mac preview and save it back to the drive as a shorter file, then it stays in HLG as shot all the way. 2. The other version is that I compile as normal on the FCPX timeline in Rec 709 as that will work for 95% of my projects and is color graded-ready for me to use at short notice. Of course if I ever need the HLG files I still have those too. I hope that is all slightly clearer than mud!

 

[brett8883]

Brett, Will answer what I can as I'm about to head into town (Saturday morning here) Yes the cyan banding is an issue in the second shot and I can only presume that it was caused by the Polar Pro PL/ND filter being at right angles to the light, in the meantime I am only shooting with ND as I did with the "other" location with the trees and jagged rocks. But let's not blame Polar Pro just yet, I'll keep checking it out.

In terms of my workflow I should have said it went in and out as HEVC, HEVC to the timeline then went to prores after grade and then went back to HEVC (H265) via "Handbrake", the fastest little encoder I've ever come across! I never use LUTs so can't comment there. When you get the HLG to the timeline (in FCPX anyway) it looks very "log". Typically you will bring highlights and blacks down and shadows up, but it is a bit of a "one thing affects the other" as each lever will not only affect the overall color but in some cases even the hue etc.

To explain my reasoning on Rec 709 and Rec 2020, yes you can create a library and project in Rec 2020 and I had a play with grading like that but for me it's unnecessary. For my purposes I need to archive two versions 1. as an HLG straight off the card which is the format Broadcasters will want. Of course I want to edit these down as I don't want to waste drive space. I can't put it into FCPX to cut down the footage but the simple answer is , I don't have to! I just trim it directly with Mac preview and save it back to the drive as a shorter file, then it stays in HLG as shot all the way. 2. The other version is that I compile as normal on the FCPX timeline in Rec 709 as that will work for 95% of my projects and is color graded-ready for me to use at short notice. Of course if I ever need the HLG files I still have those too. I hope that is all slightly clearer than mud!

It is thanks so much!

 

[Cirrus]

Chris, thanks for starting this thread. Believe it or not I've been thinking there should be an HLG thread on the Mavic 2 Pro forum. I have experience shooting HDR with ProRes Raw and editing with FCPX; this is for showing directly on a HDR TV in Rec 2020. Recently I decided to try HDR with the Mavic 2, and first tried D-Log to simulate the ProRes Raw workflow - which turned out to not work well; D-Log doesn't cover the bt.2020 range well. Then I tried HLG, and got very good results. After you've seen your drone video on a large HDR screen you'll never want anything else!

But shooting HDR and HLG is new territory, and a thread on this topic for those interested could be very useful.

First, if you just load HLG clips from the Mavic 2 Pro on a portable drive and plug this into an HDR TV, the clips play fine. Select mp4 format when you shoot, not mov, since TVs tend to recognize Windows formats, not Mac.

The clips can be edited in FCPX. Set up the Library for Wide Gamut HDR, and the Project for HLG. After editing export with Compressor in 10 bit HEVC. The format extension will be m4v, and just change the extension to mp4 and it will play on a HDR TV.

Although they both cover Rec.2020, HDR10 and HLG are very different formats, and can't normally be edited on the same timeline. FCPX has a way to do this, using HLG "Compound" clips, which is useful for anyone that shoots in both HDR and HLG.

I expect the editing can be done in Premiere Pro and Davinci Resolve as well, but I don't have any HDR experience with these. But I'd be happy to tackle any FCPX questions about displaying directly on an HDR TV.

 

[christangey]

Excellent information Cirrus, I was a bit bamboozled with the m4v thing so nice to know you can manually change it. So are you saying you can play good looking HLG master clips on an HDR TV without color grading?

 

[brett8883]

Chris, thanks for starting this thread. Believe it or not I've been thinking there should be an HLG thread on the Mavic 2 Pro forum. I have experience shooting HDR with ProRes Raw and editing with FCPX; this is for showing directly on a HDR TV in Rec 2020. Recently I decided to try HDR with the Mavic 2, and first tried D-Log to simulate the ProRes Raw workflow - which turned out to not work well; D-Log doesn't cover the bt.2020 range well. Then I tried HLG, and got very good results. After you've seen your drone video on a large HDR screen you'll never want anything else!

But shooting HDR and HLG is new territory, and a thread on this topic for those interested could be very useful.

First, if you just load HLG clips from the Mavic 2 Pro on a portable drive and plug this into an HDR TV, the clips play fine. Select mp4 format when you shoot, not mov, since TVs tend to recognize Windows formats, not Mac.

The clips can be edited in FCPX. Set up the Library for Wide Gamut HDR, and the Project for HLG. After editing export with Compressor in 10 bit HEVC. The format extension will be m4v, and just change the extension to mp4 and it will play on a HDR TV.

Although they both cover Rec.2020, HDR10 and HLG are very different formats, and can't normally be edited on the same timeline. FCPX has a way to do this, using HLG "Compound" clips, which is useful for anyone that shoots in both HDR and HLG.

I expect the editing can be done in Premiere Pro and Davinci Resolve as well, but I don't have any HDR experience with these. But I'd be happy to tackle any FCPX questions about displaying directly on an HDR TV.

Thanks! This is all great info and much needed!

One thing I’m confused about is the difference between HDR10 and HLG. You mentioned that they are very different formats but reading the Mavic 2 product details they make it sound like it’s the same.
I’m also confused why the video direct from the Mavic to a 4K HDR TV would not have to be color graded but HLG would be. Is it just that HLG is like a “Log” profile for HDR? So that it can be edited if you do want to edit?

 

[Cirrus]

.... So are you saying you can play good looking HLG master clips on an HDR TV without color grading?

Yes, the HGL clips really look good on a HDR TV right from the camera. They seem to conform well with Rec 2020.

Like all clips they can use a little tweaking if you have them on a timeline.

 

[Cirrus]

One thing I’m confused about is the difference between HDR10 and HLG. You mentioned that they are very different formats but reading the Mavic 2 product details they make it sound like it’s the same.

I’m also confused why the video direct from the Mavic to a 4K HDR TV would not have to be color graded but HLG would be. Is it just that HLG is like a “Log” profile for HDR? So that it can be edited if you do want to edit?

HDR comes in several flavors. HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HLG. They are all HDR, and conform to the Rec 2020 profile. Licensed production studios work with Dolby Vision. The rest of us work with HDR10, which is what FCPX supports, and HDR10+ is just evolving. HLG is a very interesting format, as christangey discussed. It is designed so it captures Rec 2020, but it can also be edited as Rec 709 (standard TV). It is sort of a crossover format. As christangey mentioned he is producing in Rec 709, but keeping the clips in case he eventually wants to produce in Rec 2020 (HDR).

The HDR from the Mavic 2 is in the HLG format, and it can be used many ways. The clips play nicely directly on a HDR TV. Or they can be edited for Rec 709, or for Rec 2020. Or, as I mentioned FCPX has a way to bring them into a HDR10 timeline where they can be combined with HDR10 clips.

All in all HLG is a very good format for the Mavic 2. In my opinion it is much more useful than DLog-M. By conforming to Rec 2020, by definition it has good color balance, and the dynamic range seems better. And no LUT or extensive color grading is required.

 

[brett8883]

HDR comes in several flavors. HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HLG. They are all HDR, and conform to the Rec 2020 profile. Licensed production studios work with Dolby Vision. The rest of us work with HDR10, which is what FCPX supports, and HDR10+ is just evolving. HLG is a very interesting format, as christangey discussed. It is designed so it captures Rec 2020, but it can also be edited as Rec 709 (standard TV). It is sort of a crossover format. As christangey mentioned he is producing in Rec 709, but keeping the clips in case he eventually wants to produce in Rec 2020 (HDR).

The HDR from the Mavic 2 is in the HLG format, and it can be used many ways. The clips play nicely directly on a HDR TV. Or they can be edited for Rec 709, or for Rec 2020. Or, as I mentioned FCPX has a way to bring them into a HDR10 timeline where they can be combined with HDR10 clips.

All in all HLG is a very good format for the Mavic 2. In my opinion it is much more useful than DLog-M. By conforming to Rec 2020, by definition it has good color balance, and the dynamic range seems better. And no LUT or extensive color grading is required.

Thanks for the very easy to follow and through explaination! Much appreciated.

Wow so it seems to be that’s like the biggest feature of the M2Pro. I can’t believe that it’s not the most widely used format for videographers using M2Pros. I wonder if people look as good in HLG? Maybe that’s a whole other can of worms.

 

[Bobby Brown]

Great pictures [emoji106]

 

[Cirrus]

Wow so it seems to be that’s like the biggest feature of the M2Pro. I can’t believe that it’s not the most widely used format for videographers using M2Pros. I wonder if people look as good in HLG? Maybe that’s a whole other can of worms.

People should look okay in HLG. (I haven't seen faces with Mavic 2 HLG, I don't shoot people close ups with drones.) But Sony HLG has been used for faces quite a bit and it grades well.

If you put HLG on a normal timeline (not HDR) it grades like any other video.

But there are a couple of issues when grading HDR. First there are no generally affordable HDR monitors, so you can't see much color detail with a standard monitor when you are grading (big problem). So you need to depend on the scopes in the editor, which don't help too much for fine color grading. FCPX has a mode that shows video with HDR raw values which is good for balancing the output levels but no help for color. So the typical editing HDR workflow is to make initial adjustments using the scopes, and then render the video and see how it looks on the TV, and then repeat with minor adjustments. This brings up the second issue; 10 bit HEVC renders very slowly compared to something like 8 bit h.264. The reason is that our newer computers have hardware acceleration for the common codecs, but still don't have this for 10 bit HEVC. So this rendering is done in software (very slowly). If you get into HDR editing it is best to practice first with short clips until you get a good feel for the process.

 

[4wd]

At this time the HDR aspect is largely irrelevant.
You can use it as a form of LOG footage, the results are quite good but not entirely convinced it's in anyway better.
Recently I'm mostly recording in HLG3 with a Sony A7iii, there are plenty of LUTs available for that and can be used with the Mavic HLG.
Leeming Luts do a package for Sony which is very good.

 

[ariber]

I'm very late to the game as a mavic Pro 2 owner as I had already invested in 2 of the originals as a commercial operator so it was hard to justify a third!
I'm sure most subjects have been well and truly covered but haven't seen much on HLG format so thought I'd give it a quick overview. Notes are on the actual vimeo page.

Hi Chris! I am a new user of M2P, editing regularly with Davinci Resolve. I can not see clearly whether to use DLOG or HLG. Have you done tests on both before deciding on HLG or do you use it mainly for being an industry standard? On the other hand I would like to see your video "HLG format - Yes or No" as well as the notes that you have put on the page, but on Vimeo it appears as a private video and it does not allow me to visualize it. How could I see it? Thank you!

 

[brett8883]

Hi Chris! I am a new user of M2P, editing regularly with Davinci Resolve. I can not see clearly whether to use DLOG or HLG. Have you done tests on both before deciding on HLG or do you use it mainly for being an industry standard? On the other hand I would like to see your video "HLG format - Yes or No" as well as the notes that you have put on the page, but on Vimeo it appears as a private video and it does not allow me to visualize it. How could I see it? Thank you!

He must have changed it as the video is different now. Better actually if you can believe that but I can’t see it on Vimeo now either. Only on the forum

 

[ariber]

Thank you for your answer Brett. Could you please help me with this? I want to edit from DLOG or HLG to later do the editing and color in DV Resolve. I have an M2P with little use and the first tests with DLOG do not look very good, to be honest.. but maybe it's me! If you have tried both formats, could you give me your point of view? I do not have any special requirements, nor clients. I have been landscape photographer for many years now and I just like to make a good and rigorous color grading, for what I use Resolve. All the information or tips that you can give me are very welcome! Thank you very much in advance!

 

[brett8883]

Thank you for your answer Brett. Could you please help me with this? I want to edit from DLOG or HLG to later do the editing and color in DV Resolve. I have an M2P with little use and the first tests with DLOG do not look very good, to be honest.. but maybe it's me! If you have tried both formats, could you give me your point of view? I do not have any special requirements, nor clients. I have been landscape photographer for many years now and I just like to make a good and rigorous color grading, for what I use Resolve. All the information or tips that you can give me are very welcome! Thank you very much in advance!

You know I’m not a professional like Chris but I would say that D-log seems a little bit easier to work with. I think done right HLG looks better but it’s easy to blow it when filming and can’t be recovered in post. So for that reason I’ve been filming in D-Log just because I don’t want to mess up a good shot which is easy to do with HLG.

Here is the Mavic2 D-logm camera LUT from DJI. They use to have this on the website but it’s been taken down or buried in there somewhere. Mavic2_Dlog-M_LUT.3dl

This will help as a starting point for your grading but will still require edits on top of to get the look you want. It won’t work for all footage but will for most of them.

I think you really just have to experiment with different things and find what works for you and your style. There’s no right or wrong answer to your question it’s just which one gives you the better starting point to get the look you want.

 

[ariber]

Thank you very much for your feedback, Brett! I appreciate

 

[christangey]

Sorry to everyone, I've been on a very remote location scout (overview here

) so hope to get back to some of these comments soon when I catch my breath!

 

[christangey]

Ok you win my first and only follow on this forum. That’s absoultly ******* awesome! Perfect color grade. We need you to give us more tips and advice my friend. I have so many questions!

So how to you export HLG? It sounded like you could only output HGL with the drone connected to a TV? Did you have to play the footage back and capture the feed? Did you have to do any additional color adjustments/color LUTs? Can you apply a typical color LUT to HGL? I know in FCPX it gives you the option to go from HGL to rec. 709 or vice versa did you have to do this before other edits to see what you were doing?

You said you kept it in HVEC the whole way through but I thought FCPX usually renders in ProRes, is there a reason you didn't transcode to ProRes first? Can you make a Proxy of HGL footage to edit with a computer with a little less "grunt" then I am sure you have?

At :29 seconds there's an aqua gradient in the sky that looks great no criticism here, but looks less natural than the rest of the footage, is that something you added in post to deal with the overexposure issue? Or was that just how it looked?

Sorry for all the questions!

Brett, just to revisit your query on aqua banding in a blue sky. Turns out it is nothing to do with filters. It happens when you color grade in the normal Rec 709 and actually is a very good indicator of overexposure. Pull your highlights down and the aqua band will gradually come down too turning into normal sky blue. Then if you need to brighten it up again use your midtones (not highlights) and the blue should stay intact.