This scene is nearing the limits of what your camera is capable of in terms of dynamic range and the shadows are getting noisy.

Here's an example using the input lut vlog l to REC 709 and then the y slider (luminance) for lift and gamma. Remember to change it to 32-bit full/ view transform off before rendering.

Alternatively use ACES color management.

Set the color space to vlog/ vgamut

Others swear by it but I have trouble getting acceptable results with ACES, I think in part due to color spaces that aren't great matches for consumer cameras.

@Matthew-Comstock 3D Lut Creator is often my Lut filter of choice. Does everything all in one.

RogerS I attempted to replicate what you did by applying the LUT in Color Grading and then setting the Lift and Gamma to match what you have in your screen shot (which seemed to be close to what I was trying to achieve), but this is what I get

My project properties were initially set to 32 bit full range, gamma 1, ACES 0.7, ACES color default, and Transform Off. I did try applying the ACES color management (which I had never used before) and matched your settings, but looked about same to me as result depicted in screen shot. The media properties for color management seem to be context sensitive to what was set in the project properties.

Going back to original settings, with Panasonic LUT I find that the Lift has tremendous impact on the image, if I apply -0.03 along with 1.7 Gamma then I get this.

Steve_Rhoden, I will check out 3D Lut Creator. Looked at website but will need to wait till weekend to look through the information there.

@Matthew-Comstock Could you please share the entire screen for applying the LUT in the color grading panel (change to gamma 2.2 to match 8-bit full). You can use the print screen key or windows + shift + s to take a screenshot. You should be able to get the same results as I did.

3D LUT Creator OFx plugin is great- you can preview the effects of many LUTs instantly. For this I don't think it's as helpful as you're just doing a technical conversion using the OEM or VEGAS conversion LUT.

RogerS, thank you for looking into this. Here it is as best I can approximate based on what you have shown.

If I make further adjustments to get closer to what I am looking for with respect to luminance distribution then this is what I see and the shadows are very noisy.

As reference, this is unmodified standard profile screenshot.

And here is standard profile with some adjustment.

When I have another sunny evening and can replicate above video I will see what happens when I adjust exposure (both up and down). I would like to achieve a combination of the VLOG highlights with the standard profile shadows, but as you say that may not be possible with the camera. This was an experiment to figure out what I would do in a cave setting, as usually spotlights highlight the cave features with rest of cave in deeper shadow. Right now I am leaning toward standard profile with exposure set lower to preserve highlights.

I think you can't make the image into something it's not. The log image is exposed to protect the highlights but that comes at the expense of shadows (I assume you had zebras set to get the bright highlights as bright as possible without clipping. You need to expose to the right with log).

In the CGP I set the input lut to VLOG to Rec709.

Starting with the biggest problem first- exposure- I changed gamma to 1.534. Then to bring in the shadows a bit lift to -.078. Then slightly tweaked the curve's slope by dragging the shadow yellow tangent down a little bit and highlight up a little bit (while lengthening it).

Most of the image detail is in the shadows which are green so I tweaked the overall white balance. Temp -32, tint -6.

Overall contrast is still low so I added a bit creating another curve point in the middle and adjusting the tangents.

Then I noticed the shadows are quite green so used the RL color wheels and dragged the center away from green slightly and brought down the shadow limit to only affect shadows.

It's not bright but I think it's filmic for a grainy soft indoor feel.

If the noise is still too much you could run it through a program like NeatVideo.

(The noise reduction is applied within the box area for this example)

Resulting image:

It's possible to push the image a little more thanks to noise reduction.

If there is high contrast in the cave I'd shoot V-log. Don't expose for the lights, expose for the subject.

Perhaps experiment in your home at night with the lights off and only the type of light you'd be using in the cave.

After investigating online and with my own testing I found that vlog is prone to more noise than other profiles. I also found that the Natural and Cinelike D profiles have less aggressive contrast than the Standard profile and preserve more dynamic range from shadows to highlights. I think the less saturated look would also help in the cave.

It isn't prone to noise, it just isn't hiding shadow noise the way higher contrast profiles do. It's all the same sensor.

I've used Cinelike D in the past as it's easy to expose for.