(playful music) (chalk writing) (distorted speaking) - F-Log! (upbeat music) - [Chris] Hi everyone,
welcome to Pal2tech. Fujifilm cameras offer
an amazing collection of professional video features. And, one in particular, the
ability to shoot an F-Log is something that everyone
should be familiar with. So, what exactly is F-Log? Well to answer that,
let's return for a second to Still Photography, and
talk more about color space. On your Fujifilm camera you can choose the color space you want to work with. You do this right in the
IQ section of your menu, where it says Color Space, you can choose one of these
two color spaces right here. A color space is the total range of colors that can be represented in an image. Think of these color
spaces as two separate, but independent boats going down the river that you can pick one of them to ride on. Adobe RGB is a larger color space, and has a wider range of
color variations than sRGB. And, because of this,
it's often better suited if you're going to be printing (paper waving) your photos. SRGB on the other hand has
a smaller range of colors, and that's what's used by many monitors, and phones, and tablets, et cetera, to display the full sRGB gamut of colors. Now, I dint know if you know this or not, but there is a third color
space that's used for video. A third boat of color space
that's going down the river that you need to catch a ride on, if you're gonna be shooting video. This color space is called Rec. 709, and it's used by video display, such as computer monitors,
HD TVs, and other devices. And, because of this, Rec. 709 is the color space used when you're camera records video. So, for example, if I put
the camera, say in Eterna, film simulation mode, and hit record, that's the color space the boat, that is, that's being used, and
it's called Rec. 709. Therefore, the colors that
you see in the view finder, and on the back of the camera should be fairly accurately represented
when someone else watches your video back on their monitor. Now, without getting too technical, let me just say that shooting video, just like life, is made up of compromises. When you shoot video in
the Rec. 709 color space, you give up some dynamic
range flexibility, as the camera adds more color processing at the time you shoot your video. For most situations, this is fine. When you choose a color profile, also known as a film sim, on your camera, and you
start shooting video, the camera does a spectacular
job in color rendering, and color dynamic range,
for the most part. But, what happens in situations where you're shooting a scene that contains a very wide dynamic range. For example, shooting
someone outside walking with the sun behind them, or perhaps, seated next to an open window that is much brighter than
the rest of your scene. Under some of those conditions, if you shoot regular Rec. 709 video, you will have far less flexibility in post-production later on to fix some of those dynamic range problems, before you start color grading. So, to help solve this problem, Fujifilm gives you a
setting on your camera called F-Log. The Log in F-Log stands
for Logarithmic Curve. And, this curve functions very similar to the curve's adjust tool that you may be familiar with in Lightroom, or in Capture One. It's basically taking the shadows, and pushing them up toward the mid tones. And, here's the major take
away I want you to remember, it's doing this before the
camera processes the video to your SD card, and
because of this, guess what. Just like a raw file, you can get back more dynamic range in your
video in post-production. Good stuff, right? Hold on a second. First, we gotta go over
some F-Log settings. The settings for F-Log
can be found in your menu under the video camera, right here. There are some restrictions
when shooting in F-Log. First off, there is a minimum ISO of 640. More on this in a second. Also, in some cases,
like in mix and match, 60 frames per second is not allowed. What do I mean by mix and match? Here you have shoot
Rec. 709 to the SD card, and Rec. 709 to HDMI. Here you have F-Log to both, but here you have shoot
Rec. 709 to the SD card, and F-Log to HDMI. This is mix and match. And, if you choose this
particular setting, you cannot shoot at 60 frames a second. It'll show you at the
bottom of the camera, what the restrictions are. You will also notice at the bottom, a setting for HLG. We will not be covering that one here. I have a one weird acronym
limit per video, okay? We're already covering F-Log, we're not gonna get into HLG. But, I'll tell you just to tell you, HLG stands for Hybrid Log Gamma, and that is a HDR, High
Dynamic Range, video format that requires very specific
HDR reference monitors in order to edit the footage properly. In fact, it also uses the
new Rec. 2020 color space, which is a much larger
color space than Rec. 709. It's no where near as often used as F-Log, so we will continue to focus on F-Log for the remainder of this video. Here are some important points to know about shooting in F-Log. Number one, shooting in
F-Log is not the same thing as shooting in raw format. Just like a JPEG, when you shoot in F-Log you are baking in your
exposure, and color information right into your image
right into your movie. Number two, shooting in F-Log requires a minimum ISO of 640. This is a big deal, not because of the noise,
Fujifilm does a great job with noise at ISO 640, but rather, but because you will
absolutely need and ND filter when shooting in bright
lighting conditions, such and outdoors in sunlight. A variable ND filter is best. Which means, you're gonna have to carry another piece of gear with you. - Did someone say gear? It's all about the gear! - Gear Iguana, give me that! This is the best ND filter I like to use. A variable ND filter, because if you have it on your camera... Right? Then, you can just turn
the ring a little bit, and control the intensity of
the light hitting the lens. Remember that when you're
shooting video at say, 24 frames per second, and then you apply the
180 degree shutter rule, so now your shutter speed
is one 48th of a second. Well Pal2tech, I hear you say. What's the problem with that? Well, if you're shooting outside, and now you have a
minimum ISO value of 640, and you're shooting at
one 48th of a second, and you wanna have nice depth of field, let's say F/2.8, your scene is gonna be
completely washed out, because you're letting too
much light into the camera. So, like Gear Iguana says, you know... - It's all about the gear! - You need to use a variable
ND filter for those situations. It's basically like
sunglasses for your camera. Number three. When you're shooting in F-Log, you are getting a more
of a flat looking image that contains more image data in the highlights and in the shadows. But, it's a flat-looking image, and therefore, the catch to all of this, you must work with it in post-production to add that color back, and
fine-tune your exposure. In that case, it's actually, yeah, kind of like working with a raw file in Lightroom or Capture One. A really good way to thing of this is that when you set your camera
to shoot in F-log, you're telling your camera, don't worry too much about
the colors in this scene, just use all of your
brain, and your processing, and your dynamic range to get
me the best possible coverage for my highlights and my shadows, okay? (Chris sighing) (Chris chuckling) Let's take a look at some footage, and I'll show you what I mean. Here's a video I shot on a Fujifilm X-T4 using the F-Log setting. So, the first thing you need
to do in post-production when you shoot in F-Log
is apply a Lookup Table. You might hear this referred to as a Lut. Now, there are some wonderful Luts online. And, I made do a video in the future where I review some of them, but for now, you can go
right to Fujifilm's website, and download the official Fujifilm Lookup Tables for their cameras. Once you have those files, you can then apply the Lut to that F-Log footage that you shot. And, the process of adding a Lut depends on what post-production
software you're using. For this file, I'm using Final Cut Pro. You see it right here. XT4 F-log Gamut to Eterna Rec. 709. Right here. This one right here. There, you see that? Have a look at that. Now, it looks very similar
to the one that was shot straight out of camera. Now, I'm gonna correct my exposure, and this is where shooting
in F-Log really pays off. I'm going to turn my midtones way down, and increase my highlights a little bit. Now, the idea obviously is that you're doing this in post-production, and you're using most
likely a waveform monitor, and you wanna go no higher than
100 IRE for the highlights, and no lower than zero for the shadows. So, I will turn up my
highlights just a little bit, an have a look at that. You see how I can adjust
it just like this, I don't wanna go above 100. Ah! You see how it's clipping the highlights? So, I just kind of move it to maybe, I don't know, right around there is good. Then, I'm gonna bring my shadows down just a little bit like there,
so it touches the zero. Now, the big kicker is the midtones. Have a look at this. I'm gonna bring down my
midtones, look at that. Not too much, maybe right there is good. Okay, here I'm zoomed in at 150 percent. The F-Log footage that's
now had the Lut applied, and exposure corrected is on the left. The Eterna is on the right. When I try and add some
additional exposure correction to my Eterna version, watch what happens. Look at what happens when
I adjust the midtones to the paint on the barn, and the sign. If I try and turn down my highlights, overall it gets muddy. Now, if I switch to my F-Log, look at how far down I was
able to pull my midtones in the F-Log, and I can
pull them down even further, and look at how nice
and even it goes down. You see that? You see how nice and even that comes down? Look at the trees, look at the sky. But, if I try and do the same thing in the Eterna version
with my mid tones, watch. You see the sky? It's more muddy. Look at the barn. Yeugh. So, you get much more flexibility when you are adjusting your mid tones in post-production in Log footage. Here's another example
of shooting a color chart in both F-Log, and then
a version in Eterna. Obviously, looking at the F-Log, it's nice and flat, and you can even see in
the waveform monitor, how even the white
area, the whitest whites are no where near 100. F-Log has fulled those down. And, look at the shadows. Look how high up they are. This is supposed to be pure black. It's supposed to be way down to zero. But, see how it pulled it
all the way up, all right? And, here's the version
shot with Rec. 709, or Eterna, straight out of the camera. You see how it's more where
it should be initially. So, what do you do? Well, I am first going to apply a Lut, and this time, instead
of using the Eterna Lut, I will use the Wide Dynamic
Range Lut from Fujifilm. They make another one as well. And, these Luts are all free by the way. I'll have a link where you
can download them below. So, okay. So, I just added that, and if you compare the F-Log footage here with the Eterna footage here, see. Have a look at that, you see that? So, now I need to make
some exposure adjustments to the F-Log footage. I'm going to bring up my
highlights right there, until it gets to about 100. Now, here's the kicker. The shadows, are you
can see here and here, are almost at zero. I'm gonna bring 'em down just a little bit, there you go. The key is in the midtones. I am now gonna bring down
the midtones, you see that? Bringing down... Look how much flexibility I have. There we go. And, I'll turn up the
saturation just a little bit, so you can see it. So, look at these two now, side by side. Notice on the left, in the F-Log version, I have more detail in the table. You see that? And, if I try and go
to the Eterna version, and perhaps turn up my
midterms a little bit, look at how it starts to
wash out the color chart. You see that? There's just less overall to work with. Whereas, here in my F-Log,
I can do all kinds of stuff. You see that? And, another thing you can do
in F-Log, which is awesome, is suppose you're sick
of the Eterna one day, and you wanna have a different look to it, you can add a different Lut. All you have to do is go back to your original F-Log footage. Let's choose a third-party, I don't know, classic chrome, say. And, there we have a
more Classic Chrome look. You see that? And obviously, you can go
back into your exposure, and make some additional adjustments as needed to your footage. All right, here are my thoughts on whether or not you should use F-Log, and some important tips if you do decide to go
down the F-Log path. First off, do not use F-Log
unless you really need it for high-dynamic range scenes. Most of the time, you will not wanna be
using F-Log at night, or in scenes where you can
carefully control the lighting. Think of F-Log as more of a Band-Aid tool, in case you can't control
the dynamic range, and it happens to be very wide,
or a great tool you can use if you really wanna get
creative with you color grading. When you are using F-Log,
you must be very careful in judging your exposure when shooting. This is because the highlights
are less highlighty, right? And, the shadows are less shadowy. Basically everything
is flat in your scene, and, you know, if you're
looking at the display on the back of the camera
trying to judge your exposure, that can be difficult. So, to help with this, you can either use an external monitor, load it up with the Lut
that you're gonna use, or the X-T4 actually has a
special feature to enable a preview of the film sim
while you're shooting in F-Log. Check this out. Say I'm shooting in F-Log, I look through the viewfinder,
and I have a flat profile. Very hard to judge exposure, you see that? Without blowing stuff out. But, if I go into my camera settings, it's in the wrench under screen set-up, F-Log View Assist. If I turn that on... Look, and now you know what this means! You see what it says right there? Display tone corrected image BT 709. Rec. 709. You know what that means, now. My mission here is almost finished. If I turn that on, you
get all of the color and the normal film sim look, but I'm still shooting in F-Log. You see that? So, it's recording F-Log to the SD card, but I can judge my exposure
on the back of the screen. I'm seeing it more what it would look like, when a Lut is applied to it
later in post-production. I recommend using an eternal monitor, if your budget will allow that. If I had to pick my favorite
video accessory on Earth for Fujifilm camera video shooting, it would be this Atomos
Ninja Five monitor. You can load a Lut right
up onto the monitor, which is great to judge your exposure. What's wonderful is that you
can set the Fujifilm camera in dual-mode so that you
are saving your, say, Eterna Rec. 709 film simulation
version onto the SD card, but you are sending F-Log
to the external monitor to record and to keep that. So, now you have both copies in case you need one or the other. You will want to use Zebras at all times when you're shooting in F-Log. Zebras show you exactly what
highlights you're blowing, and will give you the
opportunity to fix them, before it's too late. Zebras can be turned on
by going into the camera and looking for the Zebra setting. You can choose either left
or right, it doesn't matter. Now, Zebra level for shooting F-Log, I recommend you set it
to either 100 percent, or 95 percent. I some times go back and
forth between the two. Let's set it at 100 percent right here. 100 percent means that
the Zebras will appear at the point at which your highlights are so overblown, that
they are pure white, and there's no color information,
and you cannot fix it. So, here's what it
looks like with them on. You see that? Have a look at that. Now, if I turn down my aperture,
if I stop down my lens, they're staring to go away. You see that? But, I'm now at F/16, and they're not all gone away. This is why you need to have an ND filter. Now, you slap an ND filter on, see? Continuing with exposure, you generally want to be careful
with underexposing as well. I would avoid underexposing any footage that you're shooting, by more than one stop. Rather, I would expose
all the way to the right, up to the point where I'm
just beginning to clip a few highlights. And then, pull back a bit,
and experiment from there. And, that's really what
shooting in F-Log is all about, more flexibility with dynamic range, and more flexibility to change the look, and the color grading of your footage. Well, I hope you found this video helpful! And, if you did, be sure to
give it the Like and Subscribe. This is one of my many
videos I plan on doing in my series on videography,
for the Fujifilm camera. In the mean time, I will
see you in another video again real soon. Take care. - [Chris] Get as many as you can. - [Woman] Okay.
- [Chris] No big deal, that's great! All right, now go out. Leave the room. Okay, and cut!
