What’s the difference between Sony S-Log, Panasonic V-Log, and V-Log L?
Asked 9/21/2016
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I understand logarithmic encoding in general and how log profiles can preserve more highlight and shadow detail. What I’m trying to clarify is the difference between specific camera log profiles: Sony’s S-Log and Panasonic’s V-Log. Are they just different manufacturers’ versions of a log gamma curve, or do they behave differently in practice? I’ve also seen Panasonic’s “V-Log L” mentioned—what does the “L” indicate?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
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S Log is a proprietary light gamma curve used by Sony. V Log is a proprietary light gamma curve used by Panasonic. V log L is, according to Panasonic, a bit more:
VLOG-L is not just a gamma, it is a “mode” — in the Scene File menus, you’ll see it referred to as “VLOG-L Mode,” not “VLOG-L Gamma.” As you look through the Scene File menu, you’ll see that when you enable VLOG-L mode, almost every other function in the Scene File menu becomes disabled. In VLOG-L mode the camera bypasses all that internal processing, and delivers an image that is as close to the raw sensor image as this camera can get.
There's a lot of good additional information regarding using V Log L with a Panasonic camera in this Tech Brief for the Panasonic AG-DVX200 camera.
Here's a decent minimally technical explanation of what S Log is.
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
9y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
S-Log and V-Log are both manufacturer-specific log gamma profiles: S-Log is Sony’s, and V-Log is Panasonic’s. Broadly, they serve the same purpose—capturing a flatter image to preserve dynamic range for color grading later—but they are proprietary implementations, so they aren’t interchangeable settings or the exact same curve.
Based on Panasonic’s description, V-Log L is more than just a gamma curve on some cameras: it is a dedicated shooting mode. Enabling V-Log L can disable much of the camera’s normal internal image processing so the output is closer to the sensor data than the standard processed image.
So, in short:
- S-Log = Sony log profile
- V-Log = Panasonic log profile
- V-Log L = Panasonic variant/mode intended to give a flatter, less-processed image for grading
If you use any of these, expect footage to look low-contrast and low-saturation straight out of camera and usually require correction or a LUT in post.
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