Colour Space Transform & cDNG Workflow

I've been using cDNG since the DJI X5R and have continues to use it with the DJI X5R and the DJI X7.

Typically my work requires me to match sLOG3 which is pretty standard for broadcast in the UK. I'd been achieving this using technical LUTS from a site I now forget and haven't rally had much of a complaints in post with matching Sony cameras.
But, I would like to look at the Divinci colour managed/colourspace transform workflow but there's scant information about.

I've setup some footage with the below settings. If anyone could concur that this will push out a pretty solid sLOG3 match. It looks pretty good to my tired old eyes but would like to confirm this is the correct workflow.

I don't know the characteristics of D-log, but what you set up there isn't providing the correct input color space. Black Magic Design Gen 1 is for the early BMD cameras, and no others.

AFAIK, there's no current CST for DJI log/raw footage is available in Resolve. To get to slog3, you could try to normalize the d-log to rec. 709 (there must be third-party LUTs?) and then transform that to slog3 in Resolve. And hope for the best.

I don't know the characteristics of D-log, but what you set up there isn't providing the correct input color space. Black Magic Design Gen 1 is for the early BMD cameras, and no others.

AFAIK, there's no current CST for DJI log/raw footage is available in Resolve. To get to slog3, you could try to normalize the d-log to rec. 709 (there must be third-party LUTs?) and then transform that to slog3 in Resolve. And hope for the best.

Thanks for the reply John but cDNG isn't in any colourspace, DNG's are unprocessed RAW files. Which is pretty much the whole point of cDNG and all the newer RAW formats.

cNDG files from different cameras are not the same, any more than all log images are the same. You're dealing with D-log, not BMD color. Depending on what debayering options you have in the raw tab, it might work, but impossible to say from here.

Also, your use of Color Management, which I didn't notice before, could be a complication. In theory, you already transformed the files to rec. 709, for grading and viewing. Whether this in fact occurred (accurately) is another question....

If you provide a sample cNDG frame, more detective work might be possible.

The raw files have to be debayered, before you can view them. That process is unique and proprietary. cNDG files from different cameras are not the same, any more than log images are the same. You're dealing with D-log, not BMD color.

Nope, no d-log here lol. The point is there's no process that's the point of Adobe's DNG's. See the setting shows in the screen grab. There are only three setting in Resolve that cDNG's can put displayed in.

Attached is also what an unprocessed DNG looks like, and then what it displays like within Lightroom, or Resolve for that matter.

More info here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CinemaDNG

Your last screen shot (raw profile, etc.) has no effect on how the cNDG shot is actually processed. What actually happens to the clip, how it's debayered, etc., is determined in the raw tab.

It's possible Resolve Color Management is accurately reading the input color space automatically and transforming the footage to d-log and then rec. 709, despite your best efforts, but without a sample, impossible to know.

But you seem persuaded of your current course, and I have no experience of this dji cNDG format, so I'll leave it at that.

Your last screen shot (raw profile, etc.) has no effect on how the cNDG shot is actually processed. What actually happens to the clip, how it's debayered, etc., is determined in the raw tab.

It's possible Resolve Color Management is accurately reading the input color space automatically and transforming the footage to d-log and then rec. 709, despite your best efforts, but without a sample, impossible to know.

But you seem persuaded of your current course, and I have no experience of this dji cNDG format, so I'll leave it at that.

I appreciate you replies John. But, there’s no current course of action I’m pursuing. I’ve been shooting on cDNG since 2016 including on BMD cameras, there’s no ‘this DJI cDNG format’ cDNG IS the format standardise by Adobe regardless of the camera. I’m just wishing the get the workflow right using colour managed aspect of Resolve as I think it will give me more consistent results rather than the technical LUTS I’ve been using.

sLOG3 which is pretty standard for broadcast in the UK.

You guys actually broadcast flat, desaturated Log footage?!

sLOG3 which is pretty standard for broadcast in the UK.

You guys actually broadcast flat, desaturated Log footage?!

Lol no Jim. Programmes are typically shot in 4K 25p sLOG3 and graded in post to Rec709 and broadcast in 1080p.

S-Log3 or any other log encoding has nothing to do with broadcast.

Matching cameras has nothing to do with matching their log encodings.
Using the same rendering intent for multiple cameras is what gets you similar results but the sensor will remain however that sensor was engineered.

So I guess what you are aiming for is to get the same colormanagement ('technical' conversion) for both sources? If you enable DaVinci Color Managed your cDNGs should automatically be managed and converted to the chosen output colorspace. There is no point converting from BMD Film to S-Log3. Your S-Log3 footage should also automatically convert itself to Rec.709 unless it wasn't detected automatically in which case you can right-click them all and set the Input Color Space to it's log encoding.

I also don't think most current Sony cameras shoot S-Gamut3 but rather S-Gamut3.cine. You'll want to double check this if you need to do it manually.

This ^

S-Log3 or any other log encoding has nothing to do with broadcast.

Matching cameras has nothing to do with matching their log encodings.
Using the same rendering intent for multiple cameras is what gets you similar results but the sensor will remain however that sensor was engineered.

So I guess what you are aiming for is to get the same colormanagement ('technical' conversion) for both sources? If you enable DaVinci Color Managed your cDNGs should automatically be managed and converted to the chosen output colorspace. There is no point converting from BMD Film to S-Log3. Your S-Log3 footage should also automatically convert itself to Rec.709 unless it wasn't detected automatically in which case you can right-click them all and set the Input Color Space to it's log encoding.

I also don't think most current Sony cameras shoot S-Gamut3 but rather S-Gamut3.cine. You'll want to double check this if you need to do it manually.

I know sLOG3 hasn't nothing to do with broadcast. The vast majority of work I shoot is spec'd to shoot in sLOG3 as they are using Sony cameras. As I have said I have been happy transcoding the cDNG stacks using conversion LUTS to go from cDNG-BMD-sLOG3 using the LUTS and handing over the transcended footage typically in ProRes 422.
I'll will double check regarding the .cine with the DOP.

It seems my original question hasn't been lost in this thread. Are the setting post, except maybe the gamut, correct to transcode using BMD colour management to a final ProRes file in sLOG3.

If you enable DaVinci Color Managed your cDNGs should automatically be managed and converted to the chosen output colorspace.

"Should" or "will"? Do you know for a fact that without a profile for the dji footage, the cDNG footage will be correctly transformed? I'm asking, not actively disputing it.... I don't claim to know.

If you enable DaVinci Color Managed your cDNGs should automatically be managed and converted to the chosen output colorspace.

"Should" or "will"? Do you know for a fact that without a profile for the dji footage, the cDNG footage will be correctly transformed? I'm asking, not actively disputing it.... I don't claim to know.

As far as I know, and see my CinemaDNG setting panel screenshot above. If it's set to Black Magic Design and BMD Film Gamma it will be in that colour space. The requirement is to then push it into the required space from that.

If that's true -- I'd have to see it to believe it, but never mind -- then as shebbe pointed out, there's no reason to go to BMD film before slog3.

And as tried to point out before, the Cinema panel you presented doesn't affect the processing, at all. What happens to the clip is determined by the settings in the raw tab. Or, in the case of Resolve Color Management, by the pre-sets.

If that's true -- I'd have to see it to believe it, but never mind -- then as shebbe pointed out, there's no reason to go to BMD film before slog3.

And as tried to point out before, the Cinema panel you presented doesn't affect the processing, at all. What happens to the clip is determined by the settings in the raw tab. Or, in the case of Resolve Color Management, by the pre-sets.

This is what I'm trying to find out at what point does Resolve process the cDNG for the input space. by default Resolve pushes cDNG into either BMD, Rec709 or P3 depending on what's setup in the Cinema RAW panel for cDNG. Does colour management then disregard this as push it into some unknown colour space because it's shot on a particular camera?

For supported raw formats, RCM reads the input color space automatically and converts to whatever format you specify for timeline and output. But the question is, how is Resolve "reading" the DJI cNDG (and correctly)?.

I think you're saying your choices in the raw tab are limited to BMD, Rec. 709 or P3? Again, are those transforms accurate?

Assuming they are, you could select either BMD or Rec. 709 and then add a Color Transform to a node in the color page, going from BMD or Rec. 709 to slog3.

At this point, this mix of Resolve Color Management and raw tab settings (if that's what you're doing) is making things very complicated.....

Non BMD cDNG formats can be a bit weird yes. I do not know if Resolve can properly decode it. Definitely not all cDNG sources. Keep in mind that if you compare it to how Lightroom is showing it, that software is also using processing and tonemapping to bring it in to a 'display-able' result.

I still don't really understand why you need S-Log3/S-Gamut3.cine. If you are talking about delivering in that format because that is how the company you are handing it off to needs it to further process I get it, otherwise you can ignore it all together. I've never heard of any company that asks for such format as deliverable though. If you are the one grading it you might aswel grade it to Rec.709 and deliver as such.

If you are grading it but deliver in S-Log3/S-Gamut3.cine the part that converts it to display space can be different from whatever the (broadcast) company will use after your delivery. Using DaVinci Colormanaged will use DaVinciDRT as the output transform but the other company might use some kind of Sony vendor LUT. So it will look different.

If your purpose is to soley convert the footage from whatever source to S-Log3/S-Gamut3.cine and hand-off then there's no point of using Color Managed to begin with. Just keep it in Default YRGB and slap the CST on the timeline node tree.

I can't promise your setup is correct or not because there's not really a 'ground truth' when it comes to cDNG that is not BMD...

Maybe DJI has a tool to convert their cDNG files to DJI D-Gamut/D-Log into ProRes or similar. This would make the conversion process much more reliable because that color space and gamma is technically defined and present in Resolve for use.

For supported raw formats, RCM reads the input color space automatically and converts to whatever format you specify for timeline and output. But the question is, how is Resolve "reading" the DJI cNDG (and correctly)?.

I think you're saying your choices in the raw tab are limited to BMD, Rec. 709 or P3? Again, are those transforms accurate?

Assuming they are, you could select either BMD or Rec. 709 and then add a Color Transform to a node in the color page, going from BMD or Rec. 709 to slog3.

At this point, this mix of Resolve Color Management and raw tab settings (if that's what you're doing) is making things very complicated.....

This is exactly what I am doing John as as far as I have read this is what is suggested for video files. This is why it's confusing using colour managed and colour space transform with the cDNG standard. And Resolve shove cDNG in BMD I was working on the assumption and working from that in the colour space transform. I'm not even thinking if colour management is required with cDNG generally.

Non BMD cDNG formats can be a bit weird yes. I do not know if Resolve can properly decode it. Definitely not all cDNG sources. Keep in mind that if you compare it to how Lightroom is showing it, that software is also using processing and tonemapping to bring it in to a 'display-able' result.

I still don't really understand why you need S-Log3/S-Gamut3.cine. If you are talking about delivering in that format because that is how the company you are handing it off to needs it to further process I get it, otherwise you can ignore it all together. I've never heard of any company that asks for such format as deliverable though. If you are the one grading it you might aswel grade it to Rec.709 and deliver as such.

If you are grading it but deliver in S-Log3/S-Gamut3.cine the part that converts it to display space can be different from whatever the (broadcast) company will use after your delivery. Using DaVinci Colormanaged will use DaVinciDRT as the output transform but the other company might use some kind of Sony vendor LUT. So it will look different.

If your purpose is to soley convert the footage from whatever source to S-Log3/S-Gamut3.cine and hand-off then there's no point of using Color Managed to begin with. Just keep it in Default YRGB and slap the CST on the timeline node tree.

I can't promise your setup is correct or not because there's not really a 'ground truth' when it comes to cDNG that is not BMD...

Maybe DJI has a tool to convert their cDNG files to DJI D-Gamut/D-Log into ProRes or similar. This would make the conversion process much more reliable because that color space and gamma is technically defined and present in Resolve for use.

Firstly yes DJI do do the cDNG-dlog and Rec709 LUT. But, I may as well just record in ProRes on camera to d-log.

So mainly as far as delivered footage is concerned, and in this case it's the BBC. They typically shoot in slog3, edit in log, then they are graded and mastered from broadcast. I am purely delivery the files in ProRes 422HQ and in slog3. Although I have done the same for other projects using different cameras and log, BMD, Panasonic etc.

I think you are correct with not using colour managed as isn't that then contradicting itself using a colour space transform? As you said just going back to YRGB and CST to slog3/gamut3.cine. I'm just waiting on one of the series DoP'd to confirm if they are using .cine

Does colour management then disregard this as push it into some unknown colour space because it's shot on a particular camera?

No. Not unknown. When you use Color Managed you can view the pipeline as this.
Camera Input Space -> Timeline Space -> Output Space.
In the case of DaVinciDRT there is a tonemapping step in both Input to Timeline and Timeline to Output.
In the automatic SDR setting for managed the timeline itself is also SDR so no high dynamic range and wide colorgamut. The usual approach for grading is to choose a wide gamut log colorspace that is at least bigger than the current highest display standard (Rec.2020). Blackmagic came with their own space for that not too long ago called DaVinci Wide Gamut / Intermediate. But colorists like to use Alexa's or ACES' variants too.
The benefit of this is mostly to maintain as much color fidelity for archival purpose (saving it without the display conversion) and have the grading decisions not being based on a particular display because the mapping to that display is handled afterwards.

Bit of a sidetrack again but I thought it might help to give some context.
So in your case if you did want to have a color managed setup you could do it custom with timeline space set to S-Log3/S-Gamut3.cine and output space to Rec.709 (to see the image 'normalized'). Then on export disable the output space so the timeline space is what gets rendered. But as I said earlier, the manual setup is probably the easiest and cleanest approach.

EDIT: just read your last post. So yea I totally get the S-Log3 requirement now.
What you can do is shoot a clip in both cDNG raw and ProRes in D-Log D-Gamut. You should be able to compare the two and see if the conversion process yields similar if not the same results. That's the only way you can know if cDNG is handled correctly I guess.

Personally I think shooting ProRes for broadcast is totally fine if it's 422 or higher so it will save you a lot of disk space. But that's a personal pref of course.

If I were in your shoes I'd shoot ProRes. And then either just give BBC a LUT so they can convert DJI DLog/DGamut to Slog/Sgamut or if they insist on it already being that run the conversion myself in Resolve with a manual setup.

Does colour management then disregard this as push it into some unknown colour space because it's shot on a particular camera?

No. Not unknown. When you use Color Managed you can view the pipeline as this.
Camera Input Space -> Timeline Space -> Output Space.
In the case of DaVinciDRT there is a tonemapping step in both Input to Timeline and Timeline to Output.
In the automatic SDR setting for managed the timeline itself is also SDR so no high dynamic range and wide colorgamut. The usual approach for grading is to choose a wide gamut log colorspace that is at least bigger than the current highest display standard (Rec.2020). Blackmagic came with their own space for that not too long ago called DaVinci Wide Gamut / Intermediate. But colorists like to use Alexa's or ACES' variants too.
The benefit of this is mostly to maintain as much color fidelity for archival purpose (saving it without the display conversion) and have the grading decisions not being based on a particular display because the mapping to that display is handled afterwards.

Bit of a sidetrack again but I thought it might help to give some context.
So in your case if you did want to have a color managed setup you could do it custom with timeline space set to S-Log3/S-Gamut3.cine and output space to Rec.709 (to see the image 'normalized'). Then on export disable the output space so the timeline space is what gets rendered. But as I said earlier, the manual setup is probably the easiest and cleanest approach.

EDIT: just read your last post. So yea I totally get the S-Log3 requirement now.
What you can do is shoot a clip in both cDNG raw and ProRes in D-Log D-Gamut. You should be able to compare the two and see if the conversion process yields similar if not the same results. That's the only way you can know if cDNG is handled correctly I guess.

Personally I think shooting ProRes for broadcast is totally fine if it's 422 or higher so it will save you a lot of disk space. But that's a personal pref of course.

If I were in your shoes I'd shoot ProRes. And then either just give BBC a LUT so they can convert DJI DLog/DGamut to Slog/Sgamut or if they insist on it already being that run the conversion myself in Resolve with a manual setup.

Thanks that has helped get my head into the management side of it. I know my manual method isn't prefect but I've has quite a few grumblings about DJI d-LOG which started back when I was shooting on the DJI X5R. I jumped down the cDNG rabbit hole back then for that flexibility to camera match on projects. Several year later it still pays dividends as most drone companies just give the Prores or even in Rec709. Which I know is fine but I've aways tried to go that extra step. Just completed a Bollywood shoot doing this and they were over the moon that I could match for the shot colour space.

Hey, no problem glad it helped.
We use DJI footage occasionally on projects and I'm not really on top of their products/shooting side but I've seen vast differences in DJI material despite all of them being shot in DLog/DGamut. This presumably is mostly due to the sensor differences. Again you can easily convert a known colorspace to another but it is the sensor quality and engineering that decides whether the image actually looks good or not, provided the shooting conditions were perfect too of course.

If you want to dive a bit deeper into Resolve Color Managed on the side you can pretty much select any managed preset and then switch to Custom. You then see all the parameters that make up that setup. And there are plenty resources on Youtube etc.

I jumped down the cDNG rabbit hole back then for that flexibility to camera match on projects. Several year later it still pays dividends as most drone companies just give the Prores or even in Rec709. Which I know is fine but I've aways tried to go that extra step.

I totally get that. Just know that the image quality should be identical to that of shooting ProRes in DLog on the same camera aside from compression. So as long as you still convert to SLog for BBC you retain the same value but with lighter files.

I'm still curious to know if those cDNGs are giving you the same image as shooting ProRes when it comes to Resolve processing. Hope you can update us on that at a later point.

And if you can upload an actual cDNG frame to a file sharing service, you've likely got at least two people here who will try it, with both RCM and Davinci YRGB.

Hey, no problem glad it helped.
We use DJI footage occasionally on projects and I'm not really on top of their products/shooting side but I've seen vast differences in DJI material despite all of them being shot in DLog/DGamut. This presumably is mostly due to the sensor differences. Again you can easily convert a known colorspace to another but it is the sensor quality and engineering that decides whether the image actually looks good or not, provided the shooting conditions were perfect too of course.

If you want to dive a bit deeper into Resolve Color Managed on the side you can pretty much select any managed preset and then switch to Custom. You then see all the parameters that make up that setup. And there are plenty resources on Youtube etc.

I jumped down the cDNG rabbit hole back then for that flexibility to camera match on projects. Several year later it still pays dividends as most drone companies just give the Prores or even in Rec709. Which I know is fine but I've aways tried to go that extra step.

I totally get that. Just know that the image quality should be identical to that of shooting ProRes in DLog on the same camera aside from compression. So as long as you still convert to SLog for BBC you retain the same value but with lighter files.

I'm still curious to know if those cDNGs are giving you the same image as shooting ProRes when it comes to Resolve processing. Hope you can update us on that at a later point.

To be honest I did do side by side comparisons when the X5S came out with the Inspire 2, but that's nearly 5 years since. I just remembered why I ended up using cDNG as my workflow and that was 100% because that's what the X5R could only shoot in. So when the X5S came along which does shoot in ProRes I just stuck to the cDNG method, which as I said has been working well.

Just to mess with all this the X7 does ProRes RAW.... The editors (the use an out of house company) rejected the idea I supply them with ProRes RAW! See, that would do away with the transcoding. I'm still working on them to use it, they can set the LOG in Avid then.

I'm sure the differences are minimal for quality in 422 from either method. I'm just a stickler for not baking in the colour space

And if you can upload an actual cDNG frame to a file sharing service, you've likely got at least two people here who will try it, with both RCM and Davinci YRGB.

I can indeed John. Give me a minute.

And if you can upload an actual cDNG frame to a file sharing service, you've likely got at least two people here who will try it, with both RCM and Davinci YRGB.

Actually, even better. DJI have DNG shot samples on their product page https://www.dji.com/zenmuse-x7/info#downloads

Actually, even better. DJI have DNG shot samples on their product page https://www.dji.com/zenmuse-x7/info#downloads

That's funny. The files they have do get processed properly in Resolve.

Screenshot 2022-05-05 at 15.58.27.png (153.24 KiB) Viewed 4797 times

The ProRes variant were also different clips so hard to compare it. We'd need the same shot in both formats to really evaluate it.

I just discovered the same thing -- both RCM and Davinci YRGB have dji profiles. But the two cDNG shots I tried, transformed to rec. 709, look wrong to me, like incorrectly normalized log.

@Mark,
If your cDNG files can actually be set to DGamut/DLog and you wish to keep recording in that heavier format for less compression I'd just decode to that and use a CST to go from there to SLog. That route is a safer bet than BMD Film cuz their colorspaces are just messy. They have had so many iterations that you are never really sure if you're picking the right one. I also wasn't able to match any of the non DJI spaces with conversions after to the same result as having it set to DGamut/DLog so there are still some question marks there as to why that is and how Resolve decodes the data.

DGamut/DLog isn't available as project setting for decode but the DJI cDNGs should default to that if the project is set to read in the metadata for cDNG instead. You can also check and/or override them in the color page on the Raw Tab should you not know yet.

So I think your issue should be solved now.

Actually, even better. DJI have DNG shot samples on their product page https://www.dji.com/zenmuse-x7/info#downloads

That's funny. The files they have do get processed properly in Resolve.

Screenshot 2022-05-05 at 15.58.27.png

The ProRes variant were also different clips so hard to compare it. We'd need the same shot in both formats to really evaluate it.

How did you get them to be processed as D-LOG? I've seen that as an option. It's only BMD/Rec709 or P3?
Well I never. John is this what you was talking about earlier in the conversation? This maybe why I was getting confused over you mentioning D-log

If you look at the screenshot shebbe posted, you'll see the second field, "decode using" is set to 'clip' (in the raw tab, not the Cinema settings page). If the setting isn't 'clip', you won't see all the options, including DJI. Or they'll be inalterable.

The other issue is, when using Resolve Color Management, I found that the system does NOT assign the color input space correctly. You need to set it manually to the DJI option, otherwise what you'll get is d-log, because no transform is being performed.

The "correct" transform (to rec. 709) looks a bit pale to my eyes, but this could just be a characteristic of the Resolve implementation -- or dlog.

DLog is only selectable in the color page Raw Tab and automatically set to it if the project setting doesn't overwrite it. Have a look at your options when you switch the decode from project to clip on that tab in the color page. It should be there if the camera is the same.

I think the reason why it's only there is because DNG isn't really a dedicated format for specific cameras. Any vendor could use it and store it's own log encoding in it which is why BMD only includes the decode overwrite options for it's own cameras. They can't predict what others will put in it but they are able to read in the data properly in most cases.

Can you go from dji debayered straight to slog with a basic color transform? That seems the least amount of manipulation.

So, the whole reason I shoot in cDNG was when DJI brought out the X5R it would only record in cDNG, and H264 but the bitrate was terrible. So, it was all about pushing the limit of the M4/3 sensor using cDNG and transcoding to ProRes. Even though when DJI brought out the X5S I kept my workflow the same as I'd been using that for nearly two years already, and not baking in the LOG profile worked nicely with some of my clients, especially selling stock footage.
As I mentioned previously using the technical LUTS to convert to various LOG outputs to 422 has been great, but I was just looking at understanding the colour managed method, and/or the CST, hence this thread originally, which I now understand a lot better.

I've now moved onto the DJI X7 Super 35mm several months ago and I've been using the same workflow, plus transcoding on a M1 Max MBP has made this perfectly workable after a days shoot to transcode and hand the footage over. Then, it dawned on me, and it's because I've been stuck in the Resolve box and not thinking about ProRes RAW. The X7 shoot ppRAW so it's stupidly easy to flick the footage in a LOG of my choice.

@Shebble I still can't get resolve to use cDNG in DJI's log, never seen that. But it's fine, I think I've cracked it with the above. Probably not much much easier, although I think FCPX still can't export clips as individual files but got to look into that. It's 7 years since I opened FCPX.

Taking me nearly a year for that to dawn on me!

I personally wouldn't put too much faith in ProRes RAW. It is not an industry standard by any means.

Still curious as to why your X7 doesn't give you cDNG with DLog as option in Resolve when the samples from DJI do. Are there any other record settings when you set the camera in cDNG mode perhaps? Would you mind sharing a frame of non-client content from it?

I still can't get resolve to use cDNG in DJI's log, never seen that. But it's fine, I think I've cracked it with the above.

What workflow plan/solution have you decided on now?

I personally wouldn't put too much faith in ProRes RAW. It is not an industry standard by any means.

Still curious as to why your X7 doesn't give you cDNG with DLog as option in Resolve when the samples from DJI do. Are there any other record settings when you set the camera in cDNG mode perhaps? Would you mind sharing a frame of non-client content from it?

I still can't get resolve to use cDNG in DJI's log, never seen that. But it's fine, I think I've cracked it with the above.

What workflow plan/solution have you decided on now?

I've just downloaded the X7 samples and they do indeed show the DJI Colour Space and Gamma, how odd, never seen this before. I've uploaded some footage for my camera, link below. This hasn't been any different for the X5R, X5S and now the X7 not showing this previously within Resolve. But, DJI work in mysterious ways sometimes so I'll contact their support, just out of curiosity. It doesn't even mention this in their white paper on cDNG processing.

Currently, my new workflow will be record in ProRes RAW, pass it through FCPX and flick it into sLOG3 (.cine as confirmed by a DoP) and just output the clips. We are going to do a side-by-side comparison with a FS7 on a shoot next week so how matched they are for LOG.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/exgsf86aabvfs ... s.zip?dl=0

PS. So technically this would be the better way to move the footage into sLOG3 via the D-LOG

Can confirm no DJI space here. Very strange. Maybe it's firmware related. I hope DJI can help you on this matter so you don't need to use ProResRAW and FCPX but at least you have something solid now.

There's a workaround for this situation -- use RCM, which has a DJI input color space (to be set manually). Then output to slog3 (or anything else), again in RCM. I tried it with a rec. 709 output, looked to be correct.

Resolve apparently can't work with this version cDNG in the raw tab.....

gamut.JPG (47.91 KiB) Viewed 4407 times

There's a workaround for this situation -- use RCM, which has a DJI input color space (to be set manually). Then output to slog3 (or anything else), again in RCM. I tried it with a rec. 709 output, looked to be correct.

I already looked at this and I don't trust it's results. There is something wrong with conversion compared to having DLog/DGamut straight from the DNG file. Not sure what exactly but I mentioned this in a post of someone discussing a possible issue with DNG IDTs.

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=159870

If it did work as expected you could also not use management but set the file to P3-D60/Linear and convert from there. But that gets you the exact same issue as that managed setup.

Screenshot 2022-05-05 at 19.28.32.jpg (403.37 KiB) Viewed 4399 times

There's a workaround for this situation -- use RCM, which has a DJI input color space (to be set manually). Then output to slog3 (or anything else), again in RCM. I tried it with a rec. 709 output, looked to be correct.

I already looked at this and I don't trust it's results. There is something wrong with conversion compared to having DLog/DGamut straight from the DNG file. Not sure what exactly but I mentioned this in a post of someone discussing a possible issue with DNG IDTs.

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=159870

If it did work as expected you could also not use management but set the file to P3-D60/Linear and convert from there. But that gets you the exact same issue as that managed setup.

Screenshot 2022-05-05 at 19.28.32.jpg

Was seeing the same earlier. I’ve asked DJI reps see what’s going on. What I can see for cDNG is to set it to clip/rec709 and Linear, no mention of the D-log. I got a feeling the samples they issued are old in terms of processing maybe?

I'm not too sure. DJI does provide a guide for linearization using a LUT that only converts gamma but the guide is from the time of Resolve 12.5. I suspect DLog/DGamut cDNG wasn't yet there.
It doesn't really matter though because using the LUT or a CST is virtually the same.

There's definitely an incorrect interpretation of one of the two but the only way to know for certain is to compare the cDNG result in Resolve with the same shot recorded in ProRes(raw) set to DLog/DGamut.
We now have differences but no ground truth reference.

Throw us an update if you hear something from DJI

I'm not too sure. DJI does provide a guide for linearization using a LUT that only converts gamma but the guide is from the time of Resolve 12.5. I suspect DLog/DGamut cDNG wasn't yet there.
It doesn't really matter though because using the LUT or a CST is virtually the same.

There's definitely an incorrect interpretation of one of the two but the only way to know for certain is to compare the cDNG result in Resolve with the same shot recorded in ProRes(raw) set to DLog/DGamut.
We now have differences but no ground truth reference.

Throw us an update if you hear something from DJI

I've asked my contacts at DJI, see what they come back with. More of the mystery of it all now

I can confirm a lot of issues that are discussed in this thread. It boils down to Resolve v18 not giving me the proper colorspace option for the Zenmuse x7 raw files Ive been given. And l, yes, I can select BMD or Rec709 but it clearly looks wrong as a starting point. When I download dji sample footage it seems to work well and as expected, raw tab having dlog options. Strangely, I remember working on DJI raw when it first came out and it was working well in Resolve, can’t remember the version though.