Nikon N-RAW Gamut Issue
With the release of the Nikon Z9 and the later Nikon Z8, we got the functionality to film video in RAW internally. The quality of Nikon N-RAW is great, especially compared to H265 recording, and on par with Apple ProRes HQ capture, with the main advantages of smaller file sizes and the ability to change camera metadata during the editing stage.
We are almost exclusively using N-RAW, however, there’s an issue with specific colors that hasn’t been fixed with firmware updates. When filming deep saturated colors in blue or red channel, it clips after a certain threshold showing ugly-looking artifacts. See the example below:
There’s no such problem in Apple ProRes, which means that the issue is with how N-RAW handles color information rather than the camera sensor itself. Notice the difference in blue chips on the color chart and the blue nose on the toy between N-Raw and Apple ProRes HQ.
However, the same problem in N-RAW exists no matter which color space and gamma are selected.
The issue is fixed in our Cinema Tools Nikon N-Log pack, and you can see the result of a Cinema Tools Base N-Log LUT applied to N-RAW processed with N-Log gamma and REC 2020 color space.
If you’re working in Davinci Resolve, you can also fix it using the built-in Color Space Transform plugin. You need to set up N-RAW to N-Log gamma and convert it to Davinci Intermediate color space and then copy the effect to the second node, and add REC 709 conversion. You can also set up your Resolve project for automatic conversion.
