Understanding the Panasonic G85 Colour Profiles

Panasonic G85 Color Profiles Explained

Understanding the Panasonic G85 Colour Profiles

The Panasonic GH5, G7, and G85 has a number of great colour profiles for tweaking the video image.  Having built in colour profiles will save time modifying the colours in post.  You can also use a flatter profile to “grade” in post if required or you can just pick from a number of great profiles as listed below.

Do you need V-Log?

One of the small limitations of the G85 (and G7) is the fact you will not have access to V-Log.  V-Log is a paid upgrade for the GH5 and now comes stock on the GH5.  If you have your heart set on grading footage or testing and trying LUTs you’re still in luck.  From my experience you can get great results grading Cine-D and the Natural Profile.

Today I am going to cover each of the colour profiles and what I like or dislike about them and how they can be used.  Please remember – this is my personal experience and preference and you’re free to do it as you please but this is how it best works for me.

Panasonic G85 Color Profiles Explained

Panasonic G85 Color Profiles Explained

Standard

The Standard colour profile is actually quite good.  Nothing about it is unique but it looks vibrant enough to get the job done. If you want to keep your footage pretty consistent then choose standard.

Natural

The Natural colour profile is a great choice for getting great skin tones as well as a slightly more pleasing image than Standard.  One of the great things about this profile modifying it also looks great. I have used it with the contrast up +1 and the Hue +1 and I don’t need to tweak it in the computer on the most part.

Scott put a great video together using the Natural profile and its what inspired me to give it a try.  Scott is using the GH5 in this video but it also works well on the G85/G80

Cine-V

Cine V has a great out of camera colour profile.  It has a richer colour profile overall than standard.  It has more contrast/levels and it really pops.  If you like the look of standard with some tweaks in post to the levels and contrast then you’ll love Cine-V. I use Cine-V a lot for my own YouTube videos and I find it to be a really reliable option.  My only small tweak to Cine-V is to drop the green down slightly in-camera so there’s no green overtones in the skin and you’re done.  This is a great profile definitely worth giving a shot.

Cine-D

Cine-D is my go-to profile anytime I am doing paid work and also when I want to grade the footage.  There’s a lot of opinions about dropping the Cine-D contrast, dropping the sharpness, and modifying it to “look better”.  To my eye the standard Cine-D works great for grading.  If you do customise the Cine-D colour profile that’s all good but for me I like the stock one.  I really love the look of Cine-D straight out of camera with the contrast up +1 and the hue -1 if I don’t want to grade it.

This video below is one I sot using the Cine-D profile and grading it using some free LUTs I found online.  The footage was shot using Cine-D on my GH5 and G85.

Portrait

The Portrait colour profile to my eye looks very similar to Natural but with even less contrast.  I think you could get very similar results between portrait and natural by customising one or other.  For this reason portrait colour mode is not something I use at all but if you like the look of it go for it.

Scenery

I shoot mostly indoors.  Anytime I shoot outdoors I am either using Cine-D (for grading) or Cine-V because it looks so great out of camera. Scenery is another mode that I don’t hear too many people talking about.  Scenery looks like a low contrast colour profile that may require some tweaking if you’re not just pointing it at some hills in the distance.

Overall the Panasonic G85 has great colour profiles built in. Unless you’re a working on set and it requires V-Log then don’t worry, you probably don’t need it.  If you don’t know what LUT’s are or what colour grading is then you definitely don’t need it.  Cine-D and a modified Natural profile grade really well and you have what you need at your disposal without having to spend extra on something you’ll never use.

I hope this has shed some light on the different colour profiles on the camera and how you can use them.  There’s no right or wrong so give these options a shot and let me know how you go.  The colour science in the G85 is slightly better (to my eye) than the GH5.  The G85 has less of a green tint and more of a magenta tint to it very reminiscent of the GH5s. If you white balance the camera properly you won’t have to do a lot of tweaking with the majority of the colour profiles in post production.

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