@shian that blue light concept reminded me of the Arri D-20 launch where they stated the sensor was a native 5600 kelvin and therefore would look better when lit to daylight (and no 85 filter). Worth investigating.

wondering if anyone has or is willing to test the 10 bit out to see if it still has the magenta cyan macroblocking issues? I'm assuming it doesn't, but I'd like to know. I'd do it myself but I don't have an external recorder.

@zakforsman I'm not really seeing anything on the 10 bit so not disappointed? Any chance I can see the original clips?

The plot thickens... I took some footage in an event yesterday in v-log and I found two things: 1. The color are great in the high lights red spot lights are red and blue are blue, not white. 2. Very little macro blocking, because lack of green lights maybe...

Hypotesis for testing will the greengel technique @shian suggested help or would just recording in an offsetted WB do the trick. Should one offset green down or up? Testing this WB trick later.

This one was shot in iso 800 and tungsten wb. Interesting...

@shian are you saying that you tried that and it works, or just a hypothesis?

That causes camera to compensate recording more green, right? Then you take it down in post? As long as we don't saturate green channel...

Maybe camera has assimetric color sensibility...

That makes be remember the 1st Dolby analog noise deduction systems here treble was enhanced during recording and attenuated with the same curve during playback, thus reduction high frequency tape hiss with it.

@tedbrah I read your explanation on bits, and I kinda get what you're saying, but the 5 bit argument just doesn't add up (pun intended!) because that means there are only 32 values from pitch black to full white, and we know that's not the case. Of the 160 discrete values that are captured, that is per color.

I do agree that mapping V-Log across the entire 8 bit range and to hell with Varicam LUT compatibility would have let the GH4 shine, but maybe a bit too bright for Panasonic's executives taste.

Bitrate seems to be a far more significant factor in macroblock artifacts. Look at the stressed structure of the image by adding 5 or 10 times the normal maximum saturation you would use. You may need to stack filters or nodes. You get a wild mosaic of large brightly multicolored blocks on the 100Mbs image. Go to the standard Prores format of over 500Mbs and there is a dramatic reduction. Raise that to HQ at over 800Mbs and the further improvement is quite pronounced but that may still not be the limit of what the GH4 is capable of. I exported a lut of the highly exagerated saturation and ran in through my external recorder and also passed through to a 24" 4k monitor. The image right out of the HDMI had none of the large colorful blocks, still a click or 2 improved over the 800Mbs image.

Here's one more point of comparison. estarkey7 sent me these. Both images were processed in ACES, with color balancing, exposure compensation, and a straight Rec.709 rendering. The GH4's Standard and Natural photo styles are manipulating the colors in ways that I can't fully undo. Maybe I can with a Cinelike photo style.

Standard, unprocessed:

Standard, processed in ACES:

V-Log L, processed in ACES:

Sounds promising Shian, which minus green / magenta filter are you testing?

Edit..I might have a flourescent correction filter somewhere :)

@shian I have been getting nasty banding/blockiness on creamy yellows and mid to dark brown colours. Mostly on low saturation colours like on painted walls. I have not had many issues with neutral whites or greys. Try some soft pastel colours and see what happens.