Category Archives: final cut pro

The definitive guide to hdr with the panasonic gh5/s1 in final cut pro x

First of all the requirements for HDR at home are:

  1. Log or HLG footage
  2. Final Cut Pro X 10.4.8
  3. Mac OS Catalina 10.15.4
  4. HDR-10 Monitor with 10 bit gamut

It is possible to work with a non HDR-10 monitor using scopes but is not ideal and only acceptable for HLG and in any case 10 bits is a must.

Recommended reading:

HDR Footage

In order to product HDR clips you need HDR footage. This comes in two forms:

  1. Log footage
  2. HLG

Cameras have been shooting HDR since years the issue has been that no consumer operating system or display were capable of displaying it. The situation has changed as Windows 10 and Mac Os now have HDR-10 support. This is limited for example on Mac Os there is no browser support but the Tv app is supported, while on windows you can watch HDR-10 videos on YouTube.

You need to have in mind your target format because Log and HLG are not actually interchangeable. HLG today is really only Tv sets and some smartphones, HDR-10 instead is growing in computer support and is more widely supported. Both are royalty free. This post is not about what is the best standard is just about producing some HDR content.

The process is almost identical but there are some significant differences downstream.

Let me explain why this graph produced using the outstanding online application LutCalc show the output input relationship of V-LOG against a standard display gamma for rec709.


Stop diagram V-LOG vs Rec709

Looking at the stop diagram we can appreciate that the curves are not only different but a lot of values differ substantially and this is why we need to use a LUT.

Once we apply a LUT the relationship between V-LOG and Rec709 is clearly not linear and only a small parts of bits fit into the target space.

Output vs Input diagram for V-LOG and Rec709

We can see that V-Log fills Rec709 with just a bit more than 60% IRE so there will need to be a lot of squeezing to be done to fit it back in and this is the reason why many people struggle with V-Log and the reason why I do not use V-Log for SDR content.

However the situation changes if we use V-Log for HDR specifically PQ.

Stop Table V-Log to PQ

You can see that net of an offset the curves are almost identical in shape.

This is more apparent looking at the LUT in / out.

LUT in/Out V-Log to Rec2100 PQ

With the exception of the initial part that for V-Log is linear while PQ is fully logarithmic the curve is almost a straight line. As PQ is a larger space than that V-Log can produce on a consumer camera we do not have issues of squeezing bits in as PQ accommodates all bits just fine.


Similar to V-LOG HLG does not have a great fit into an SDR space.

Stop Table HLG to Rec709

The situation becomes apparent looking at the In/Out Lutted values.

HLG to Rec709

We can see that as HLG is also a log gamma with a different ramp up 100% is achieved with even less bits that V-Log.

So really in pure mathematical terms the fit of log spaces into Rec709 is not a great idea and should be avoided. Note with the arrival of RAW video we still lack editors capable to work in 16 bit depth space like photo editors do and currently all processes go through LOG because they need to fit into a 10/12 bits working space.

It is also a bad idea to use V-Log for HLG due to the difference of the log curves.

V-Log vs HLG

And the graph demonstrates what I said at the beginning. You need to decide at the outset your output and stick to a compatible format.

Importing Footage in Final Cut Pro X 10.4.8

Once we have HLG or LOG footage we need to import it into a Wide Gamut Library, make sure you check this because SDR is default in FCPX.

Library Settings

HLG footage will not require any processing, but LUTs have to be applied to V-LOG as this is different from any Rec2100 target spaces.

The most convenient way is to go into Organise workspace select all clips than press the i button and select General. Apply the Panasonic V-Log LUT to all clips.

Organise View the LUT option is not available in the Basic view so make sure you select General

Creating a Project

Once all files have been handled as required we create our HDR-10 project which in final cut means Rec2020 PQ.

For HLG project change colour space to HLG

The following screenshots demonstrate the effect of the LUT on footage on a PQ timeline.

LUT not applied footage looks dim as values are limited to 80%

With the LUT applied the V-LOG is expanded in the PQ space and the colours and tones come back.

LUTed clip on PQ timeline

We can see the brightness of the scene is approaching 1000 nits and looks exactly we we experienced it.

Once all edits are finished and just as last step we add the HDR Tools to limit peak brightness to 1000 Nits which is a requirement of YouTube and most consumer displays. The Scope flex slightly with an automatic highlight roll-off.

Exporting the Project

I have been using Panasonic AVCI 400 mbps so I will export a master file using ProRes422 HQ if you use a lower bitrate ProRes 422 may be sufficient but don’t go lower as it won’t be HDR anymore.

Export in ProRes 422 HQ

YouTube and other devices use default settings for HDR-10 metadata so do not fill the mastering display nor content information it is not required and you would not know how to fill it correctly with exception of peak brightness.

Converting for YouTube

I use the free program handbrake and YouTube guidelines for upload to produce a compatible files. It is ESSENTIAL to produce an mp4 file otherwise your TV and YouTube may not be able to display HDR correctly avoid any other format at all costs.

The finished product can be seen here

Home HDR Video HDR-10
HLG Documentary style footage

SDR version from HDR master

There are residual issues with this process one is the production of an SDR version. This currently works much better for HLG than HDR-10 which is interesting because HLG is unsupported on any computer so if you produce HDR HLG you are effectively giving something decent to both audiences.

For HDR-10 YouTube applies their own one fits all LUT and the results can be really bad. You may experience oversaturated colours in some cases, dark footage in others, and some clips may look totally fine.

At professional level you would produce a separate SDR grade however it is possible to improve the quality of YouTube conversion using specific techniques I will cover in a separate post.

Final Remarks

Grading in HDR is not widely supported the only tools available are scopes and Tone Mapping of your display. There is no concept of correct exposure for skin tones, in one scene those have a certain brightness and in another this changes again because this is not a 0-100% relative scale but goes with absolute values.

If you invested in a series of cinema LUT you will find none of them work and compresses the signal to under 100 nits. So there is less headroom for looks. There are other things you can do to give some vintage look like adding grain but you need to be careful as the incredible brightness of the footage and the details of 10 bits means if you push it up too much it looks a mess. Currently I am avoiding adding film grain and if I add it I blend it to 10%-20%.

One thing that is interesting is that Log footage in PQ does have a nice feel to it despite the incredible contrast. After all Log is a way to emulate film specifically Cineon, this is true for almost all log formats. Then you would have the different characteristics of each film stock, this is now our camera sensor and because most of them are made by Sony or Canon the clips tend to look very similar to each other nowadays. So if you want to have something different you need to step in the world of Red or ARRI but this is not in the scope of what I am writing here and what you my readers are interested in.

Am keeping a playlist with all my HDR experiments here and I will keep adding to it.

YouTube HDR Playlist

If you find this useful please donate using the button on the side and I will have a drink on you…Cheers!

Colour Correction in underwater video

This is my last instalment of the getting the right colour series.

The first read is the explanation of recording settings

This post has been quite popular as it applies generally to the GH5 not just for underwater work.

The second article is about getting the best colours

And then of course the issue of white balance

Am not getting into ambient light filters but there are articles on that too.

Now I wanted to discuss editing as I see many posts on line that are plain incorrect. As it is true for photos you don’t edit just looking at an histogram. The histogram is a representation of the average of the image and this is not the right approach to create strong images or videos.

You need to know how the tools work in order to do the appropriate exposure corrections and colour corrections but it is down to you to decide the look you want to achieve.

I like my imaging video or still to be strong with deep blue and generally dark that is the way I go about it and is my look however the tools can be used to have the look you prefer for your materials.

In this YouTube tutorial I explain how to edit and grade footage produced buy the camera and turn it into something I enjoy watching time and time again.

I called this clip Underwater Video Colour Correction Made Easy as it is not difficult to obtain pleasing colours if you followed all the steps.

A few notes just to anticipate possible questions

  1. Why are you not looking to have the Luma or the RGB parades at 50% of the scale?

50% of the IRE scale is for neutral grey 18% I do not want my footage to look washed out which is what happens if you aim at 50%.

2. Is it important to execute the steps in sequence?

Yes. Camera LUT should be applied before grading as they normalise the gamma curve. In terms of correction steps setting the correct white balance has an influence on the RGB curves and therefore needs to be done before further grading is carried out.

3. Why don’t you correct the overall saturation?

Most of the highlights and shadows are in the light grey or dark grey areas. Saturating those can lead to clipping or noise.

4. Is there a difference between using corrections like Vibrancy instead of just saturation?

Yes saturation shifts equally the colours towards higher intensity vibrancy tends to stretch the colours in both direction.

5. Can you avoid an effect LUT and just get the look you want with other tools?

Yes this is entirely down to personal preference.

6. My footage straight from camera does not look like yours and I want it to look good straight away.

That is again down to personal preference however if you crush the blacks or clip the highlights or introduce a hue by clipping one of the RGB channels this can no longer be remediated.

I hope you find this useful wishing all my followers a Merry Xmas and Happy 2020.

Choosing the Appropriate Frame Rate for Your Underwater Video Project

I think the subject of frame rates for underwater video is filled with a level of non-sense second to none. Part of this is GoPro generated, the GoPro being an action cam started proposing higher frame rates as standard and this triggered a chain reaction where every camera manufacturer that is also in the video space has added double frame rate options to the in codec camera.

This post that no doubt will be controversial will try to demistify the settings and eliminate some fundamental misconception that seem to populate underwater videography.

The history of frame rates

The most common frame rates used today include:

  • 24p – used in the film industry
  • 25p – used in the PAL broadcasting system countries
  • 30p – used in the NTCS broadcasting system countries

PAL (Phase Alternating Line) and NTSC (National Televion System Committee) are broadcasting color systems.

NTSC covers US South America and a number of Asian countries while PAL covers pretty much the rest of the world. This post does not want to in the details of which system is better as those systems are legacy of interlaced television and Cathodic Ray Tubes and therefore are for most something we have to put up with.

Today most of the video produced is consumed online and therefore broadcasting standards are only important if you produce something that will go on Tv or if your footage includes artificial lighting that is connected to the power grid – so LED does not matter here.

So if movies are shot in 24p and this is not changing any time tomorrow why do those systems exist? Clearly if 24p was not adequate this would have changed time ago and except some experiments like ‘The Hobbit’ 24p is totally fine for today use even if this is a legacy of the past.

The human eye has a reaction time of around 25 ms and therefore is not actually able to detect a moving object in the frame at frame rates higher than 40 frames per second, it will however detect if the whole room moves around you like in a shoot out video-game. Our brain does a brilliant job of making up what is missing and can’t really tell any difference between 24/25/30p in normal circumstances. So why do those exist?

The issue has to do with the frequency of the power grid and the first Tv based on Cathodic Ray Tube. As the power of the grid runs at alternate current with a frequency of 60 Hz in the US when you try to watch a movie on Tv that has been shot at 24p this has judder. The reason is that the system works at 60 cycles per second and in order to fit your 24 frames per second there is a technique called Telecine. To make it short artificial fields are added each 4 fields so that this comes up to 60 per second however this looks poor and creates judder.

In the PAL system the grid runs at 50 Hz and therefore 24p movies are accelerated to 25p and this the reason the durations are shorter. The increased pitch in the audio is not noticeable.

Clearly whey you shoot in a television studio with a lot of grid powered lights you need to make sure you don’t have any flicker and this is the reason for the existence of 25p and 30p video frame rates. Your brain can’t tell the difference between 24p/25p/30p but can very easily notice judder and this has to be avoided at all costs.

When using a computer display or a modern LCD or LED Tv you can display any frame rates you want without issues therefore unless you are shooting under grid power artificial lights you do not have to stick to any broadcasting system.

180 Degrees Angle Rule

The name is also coming from a legacy however this rule establishes that once you have set the frame rate your shutter speed has to be double of that. As there is no 1/48 shutter 24/25p are shot at 1/50s and 30p is shot at 1/60s this makes sure also everything stays consistent with possible flicker of grid powered lights.

The 180 degrees angle rule gives each frame an amount of motion blur that is similar to those experienced by our eyes.

It is well explained on the Red website here. If you shoot slower than this rule the frames look blurry if you choose a faster shutter speed you eliminate motion blur so in general everybody follows this and it works perfectly fine.

Double Frame Rates

50p for PAL and 60p for NTSC are double frame rates that are not part of any commercial broadcasting and today are only supported officially for online content.

As discussed previously our reaction time is not able to detect more than 40 frames per second anyway so why bother shooting 50 or 60 frames per second?

There is a common misconception that if you have a lot of action in the frame then you should increase the frame rate but then why when you are watching any movies you don’t feel there is any issue there even if you are watching Iron Man or some sci-fi movie?

That is because those features are shot well with use of a lot of equipment that makes the footage rock steady, the professionals that do it follow all the rules and this looks great.

So the key reason to use 50p or 60p has to do with not following those rules and not being that great of shooting things in a somehow unconventional manner.

For example you hold the camera while you are moving for example a dashboard cam, or you hold the camera while running. In this case the amount of changes in the frame is substantial as you are moving not because things around you are moving. So if you were still in a fixed point it will not feel like there is a lot of movement but if you start driving your car around there is a lot of movement in the frame.

This brings the second issue with frame rates which is panning again I will refer to Red for panning speed explanation.

So if you increase the frame rate from 30 to 60 fps you can double your panning speed without feeling sick.

Underwater Video Considerations

Now that we have covered all basics we need to take into account the reality of underwater videography. Our key facts are:

  • No panning. Usually except some cases the operator is moving with the aid of fins. Panning would require you to be in a fixed point something you can only do for example in a shark dive in the Bahamas
  • No grid powered lights – at least for underwater scenes. So unless you include shots with mains powered lights you do not have to stick to a set frame rate
  • Lack of light and colour – you need all available light you can use
  • Natural stabilisation – as you are in a water medium your rig if of reasonable size is floating in a fluid and is more stable

The last variable is the amount of action in the scene and the need of slow motions – if required. The majority of underwater scenes are pretty smooth only in some cases, sardine runs, sea lions in a bait ball there really is a lot of motion and in most cases you can increase the shutter speed without the need to double the frame rate.

When I see video shot at 50/60p and played back at half speed for the entire clip is really terrible and you loose the feeling of being in the water so this is something to be avoided at all costs and it looks plain ugly.

Furthermore you are effectively halving the bit rate of your video and to add more usually the higher frame rate of your camera is not better than the normal frame rate of your camera and you can add more frames in post if you wanted to have a more fluid look or perform a slow motion.

I have a Panasonic GH5 and have the luxury of normal frame rates, double frame rates and even a VFR option specifically for slow motions.

I analysed the clips produced by the camera using ffprobe to see how the frames are done and how big they are and discovered a few things:

  1. The 50/60p recording options at 150 Mbps have a very long GOP essentially a full frame is recorded every 24 frames while the 100 Mbps 25/30p records a full frame every 12 frames. So the double frame rate has more frames but is NOT better at managing fast moving scenes and changes in the frame.
  2. The VFR option allows you to set a higher frame rate and then slows down recording to the frame rate of choice. For some reason the 24p format has more options than all the others and the 25p does not even have a 50% option. As the footage is recorded at 100 Mbps the VFR footage at half speed conformed to 30p is higher quality than 60p slowed down to 30p (100 Mbps vs 150/2=75 Mbps) in terms of key frames and ability to predict motion this is better as it has double the amount of key frames per second see this explanation with details of each frame look for the I frames.
  3. The AVCI all intra option has actually only I frames and it will have 24/25/30 of them per second and therefore it is the best option to detect fast movement and changes in the frame. If you need to slow this down this still has 12 key frames per second so other frames can easily be interpolated.
  4. Slow motion – as the image will be on the screen for longer and it is slowed down you need to increase the shutter speed or it will look blurry. So if you intend to take a slow mo you need to make that decision at time of your shot and go for a 90 or 45 degree angle. This remains through if you use VFR or if you slow down AVCI clips in post
  5. If you decided AVCI is not for your the ProRes choice is pretty much identical and again you do not need to shoot 50/60p unless you have specific situations. In general AVCI is equal or better than ProRes so the whole point of getting a recorder is highly questionable but that is another story.

For academic purposes I have compared the 3 different ways Final Cut Pro X does slow down. To my surprise the best method is the ‘Normal Quality’ which also makes sense as there are many full frames.

Now it is interesting to compare my slow motion that is not ideal as I did not increase the shutter speed as the quality of AVCI is high the footage looks totally fine slowed down

Various slow motion technique in FCPX with 1/50s shutter

Looking at other people example you get exactly the wrong impression you take a shot without increasing the shutter speed and then slow it down. The reason why 60p looks better is for the shutter speed not for the image quality itself it is also completely unneeded to slow down a whale shark as it glides through the water.

The kind of guidance you get

So taking this kind of guidance blindfolded is not a good idea.

Key Take Aways

  • Unless you shoot using main grid powered lights you can choose any frame rate you want 24/25/30 fps.
  • Shutter speed is important because it can give a motion blur or freeze motion in case of a slow motion clip
  • You need to choose what scenes are suitable for slow motion at time of capture
  • Slowing down systematically your footage is unnatural and looks fake
  • Using formats like AVCI or ProRes gives you better option for slow down than 50/60 fps implementation with very long GOP
  • VFR options can be very useful for creating purposes although they have limitations (fixed focus)

How do I shoot?

I live in a PAL system country however I find always limitations with the 25 fps options in camera. The GH5 VFR example is not the only one. All my clips are shot 24 fps 1/50s, I do not use slow motion enough and if I did I would probably keep using AVCI and increase the shutter speed depending on the effect I want to give to the scene, this is also the most natural and easier way to shoot underwater as you do not have to continuously change format. Having all intra frames gives me all the creativity I need also for speed ramps that are much more exciting than plain slow motion see this example.

The importance of Underwater white balance with the Panasonic gh5



Panasonic GH5 advanced user manual


Grey card Auto White Balance 8mm
Grey card Custom White Balance 8mm




More info on the whibal here


Custom white balance with the 8mm fisheye










the GH5 has around 113% over saturated colours




The previous clip now with the CineLike D Leeming LUT applied


For the whole read please look at Leeming Lut website



Turte detail the highlights appear blown out
Turtle detail with Leeming Lut applied






  • Set the right picture profile and exposure when shooting
  • (Recommended) Use appropriate filters for the water conditions


Short clip that applies this blog tips


Panasonic GH5 Demystifying Movie recording settings




  1. 100 Mbps 420 8 Bits Long GOP 25p
  2. 150 Mbps 420 8 Bits Long GOP 50p
  3. 150 Mbps 422 10 Bits Long GOP 25p
  4. 400 Mbps 422 10 Bits All-Intra 25p


Within a Group of Pictures there are different type of frames:

  • I (Intra coded) frames containing a full picture




Incorrect example here:






AVC All-Intra explanation









Link to Panasonic documentation


100 Mbps 420 8 Bits Long Gop 25p Deep Dive


So each Group of Picture is made like this

IBBPBBPBBPBBP before it repeats again.




150 Mbps 420 8 Bits Long GOP 50p Deep Dive


So each Group of Pictures is made like this

IBBPBBPBBPBBPBBPBBPBBPBB before it repeats again.



150Mbps 422 10 Bits Long Gop 25 fps


IPPPPPPPPPPP before it repeats again.




Codec Ranking for Static Image Quality UHD











100,000 visits – In Depth into Sharing Videos on the Internet





The answer lies in two words video compression.









or a Panasonic GH4


So why is that?












Between the two services which one has the best quality?











This video from ikelite is my absolute favourite















  1. LAME for Mp3 encoding (mandatory)
  4. Growl
  5. Clearpipe automator Action
  6. Automator FFmpeg action
  7. MTS2MP4 automator agent


Then install growl version 1.2.2





