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Color correcting DJI D-Cinelike in FCPX

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This is an article I wrote for Photofocus.com. I hope this is helpful!

Screen Shot 2018-08-18 at 8.09.55 AM.png

This is a follow-on article to Becoming a Better Drone Videographer: Setting up your DJI Drone Camera for Video Using Manual Mode and D-Cinelike. This article assumes that you set up your camera based upon that article.

In this video, I show you the basics of color correction of video shot in H.264 and D-Cinelike. I will be using Final Cut Pro 10.4 (FCPX). These basics can be applied to any other editing/grading software as well. The video also assumes that you know how to get your video into FCPX and onto the timeline. Its focus is on how to do basic color correction using D-Cinelike on your video footage.

You’ll find the full article here:
Becoming a Better Drone Videographer: Color correcting DJI D-Cinelike in FCPX | Photofocus
 
Is there some advantage to correcting in D-Cinelike vs D-Log? Or is that covered in the article?
 
The article doesn't address that. It is really just a basic look at how to use FCPX with D-Cinelike for someone who doesn't know how to deal with flat profiles.

The other part of the answer is that it depends on what I am doing. Most of the time I am shooting ProRes 442HQ and so I most often used D-Log. If I am shooting h.264 then I am finding that D-Cinelike is easier to work with in an 8-bit codec. It gives a flatter image with some wiggle room for highlights and I can tweak it a bit in post with fewer issues with banding. I also find that in trying to match clips from other cameras, it is easier for me to do with h.264/D-Cinelike than h.264/D-Log.
 
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The article doesn't address that. It is really just a basic look at how to use FCPX with D-Cinelike for someone who doesn't know how to deal with flat profiles.

The other part of the answer is that it depends on what I am doing. Most of the time I am shooting ProRes 442HQ and so I most often used D-Log. If I am shooting h.264 then I am finding that D-Cinelike is easier to work with in an 8-bit codec. It gives a flatter image with some wiggle room for highlights and I can tweak it a bit in post with fewer issues with banding. I also find that in trying to match clips from other cameras, it is easier for me to do with h.264/D-Cinelike than h.264/D-Log.
It's imposible to keep up with all these formats and wrappers or containers whatever you want to call them, it's to the point where I don't know what is what.
 
h.265 is 8bit so I use D-Cinelike with it. My experience with it is that I get as good if not better quality with it than h.264 and smaller files sizes than h.264. That being said, it is more demanding in post-processing because of the compression, so your computer needs to be able to handle it. Best thing is to try it and see how your computer handles it. Again this is just my experience.
 
h.265 is 8bit so I use D-Cinelike with it. My experience with it is that I get as good if not better quality with it than h.264 and smaller files sizes than h.264. That being said, it is more demanding in post-processing because of the compression, so your computer needs to be able to handle it. Best thing is to try it and see how your computer handles it. Again this is just my experience.
Thanks for the explanation, do you have any experience with the X5R camera and it's cinema DNG output?
 
I don’t. If you haven’t already done so, you might try asking that questions in the X5R section of the forum?
Yeah, I've done some of that, however you show very good knowledge when it comes to the video world and hoped I could pick your brain.
 
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