Panasonic recently announced they will have a firmware update with a new VLog-L Profile for the Panasonic GH4. I loaded up a 'sample' of this for a test drive. Unfortunately it was slightly overcast on the day I went out. so I did not get to simulate many high contrast scenes, but I did what I could trying to shoot random scenes that shared both bright and dark areas.
The 'sample' VLOG-L that was installed is not the official release, so there seems to be some bugs. Especially problems with the histogram meter, so it was very hard to gauge how to properly expose. In any case here's a few samples of my first day out with the new VLOG-L on the GH4 + 12-35mm.
The base ISO for VLog-L is ISO 400. So outdoors on a bright day, you'll need to either stop down the aperture, crank up your shutter speed, or carry around an ND Filter. To make life easier I used the XUME Magnetic Filter Adapters paired with a set of Tiffen Static ND Filters.
I only had a few hours of practice, but from what I can tell, it might be good to keep your ISO under 1600 whenever possible. To add some color and contrast back to the VLOG-L footage, I started by applying the Varicam 35 LUT and then fine tuning the exposure from there. You can download the Panasonic Varicam LUT (here).
From just my early tests, I can say that when the new VLOG-L update is officially released, it's worth the $99 dollar upgrade. By then, hopefully they will fix some of the bugs with the histogram.
I know that the results would be much different on a bright sunny day, so i'm going to go out and try again this week when I have some free time. So far though, it does feel like the camera has added dynamic range and will be a great addition to all GH4 shooters.
