Blackmagic Forum

Just bought the original Pocket and looking to get the most out of it......this seems the place to go!!

My first question concerns Luts. I tend to bring my footage into Resolve, balance it, then add a Lut. This tends to throw everything out, so I end up reducing the strength of the Lut and rebalancing again.

I doubt this is the best way of doing things and probably degrades my footage, so would just like to know what the correct way to do this. The Luts I use are the blackmagice ones in Resolve. I've noticed there is not a pocket 1080 dedicated Lut, should I buy some dedicated ones?

Many thanks.

Forget about LUTs and learn to grade by yourself. You'll be rewarded with better skills and prettier pictures.

The supplied LUTs are only useful if you:
– expose very precisely, but shoot log
– need to deliver something 'watchable' immediately to the client

Kinda makes sense as I have a nice picture, throw a Lut on it and looks awful.

Grading is obviously a huge skill with a massive learning curve. The only thing I do like about Luts is that they do seem to bring out colour well, rather than just adding saturation. I will keep experimenting

Thanks

Have a look at the Art of Color Grading section here.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/training

A LUT is: if I have value x, turn it to value y. Or in case of 3D LUTs, if I have value triplet rgb, turn it into xyz. There is a table of if > then pairs, values in between are interpolated.

It is all there is. Everything else related to LUT behavior can be deduced from this, but for some reason this simple thing is so misunderstood it looks like rocket science in some places.

I think it is a tad confusing. I have done mainly colour correction instead of grading with previous cameras. Blackmagic, and in my case, the original pocket, are completely different beasts. Obviously, when shooting RAW, mere correction is not enough, grading is needed to make footage 'pop'.

So, the advice given in...

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/pro ... e/training

Completely contradicts the advice given here...

http://data.pleintekst.nl/Blackmagic_Po ... Guide.html

which categorically states not to 'manually correct Log footage by just increasing contrast or playing with saturation/exposure curves.'

I understand that the tutor on the video is a professional, but she is providing a 'tutorial'. So should you, or , should you not take her approach?

I was testing some footage last night and went for the 'changing colour space with luminance mapping' approach suggested in the Pocket Cinema V1 Survival Guide. I got pleasing results, but should I be manually correcting the footage before adopting this method?

Sorry for all the questions. I, like the rest of you, are just trying to get the best footage as possible and am experiencing a steep learning curve!!! I haven't even started my thread about best upload settings yet!!!!

The normalizing of raw/log footage can be done 1) manually, 2) with BMD-supplied camera LUTs and 3) with color management (RCM or ACEs). As I recall, that BMD video features a colorist manually normalizing log footage. This is grand for those who can do it, but most, including many professional colorists, don't correct/grade that way.

The workflow you describe -- making manual adjustments to create what you consider a pleasing image and then applying a normalizing LUT -- is backwards. The results aren't likely to be pretty.

I suggest you forget LUTs and use color management instead. Color-managed transforms are usually more accurate than LUTs and the process isn't potentially destructive, as when LUTs are applied in the wrong node order.

Take the time to read the chapters on color grading basics and color management in the Resolve manual.

Thanks for that. Just been reading it tonight. Didn't even know about the colour management. I feel like I'm heading in a better direction.

What are the best colour management settings for the original Pocket raw files??

Sent from my moto g(7) play using Tapatalk

Color management will detect the correct color input space setting for BMPCC raw footage automatically, so you just need to set the timeline and output color space, typically rec. 709. You'll also want to read the sections in the manual on accurate external monitoring.

Many thanks John!

Learning more and more about this camera. I'm coming from a Panasonic G6! I have gone from flying a biplane to a Tornado...…...with no lessons!!

Uli Plank wrote:Forget about LUTs and learn to grade by yourself. You'll be rewarded with better skills and prettier pictures.

The supplied LUTs are only useful if you:
– expose very precisely, but shoot log
– need to deliver something 'watchable' immediately to the client

Hi, is there anything that can be replaced by LUTs, but at the same time I can still do most of the work myself? Thanks

You'll save yourself a lot of time by taking a good online course, such as one of these by Ripple Training: https://www.rippletraining.com/product- ... ning-path/

This is their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/rippleguy

Ripple frequently offers its courses for 25% to 40% off.

adamsmitt wrote:Hi, is there anything that can be replaced by LUTs, but at the same time I can still do most of the work myself? Thanks

You can look into third-party power grades, which create a node tree in DaVinci Resolve to apply a particular look. The nice thing about power grades is that they are user-adjustable and you can easily see what effects were applied in each node to achieve a particular look; it can be a useful learning experience.

A few sources for power grades include Jason Bowdatch's PixelTools (https://pixeltoolspost.com/products/pixeltools-volume-1) and Cinegrain's themes: http://www.cinegrain.com/color

This is a great watch, but don't know if it really applies to Raw or Log footage?? Would this approach be taken after changing the colour space to Rec709??