How to convert log to Rec.709 in DaVinci Resolve (S-Log3, Canon Log, V-Log, Apple Log)

You shoot log, drop it into DaVinci Resolve and get a grey, washed-out shot with no contrast. It is not badly exposed and the camera is not broken: that is exactly what is supposed to happen. Log keeps far more highlight and shadow information than a standard profile, and in exchange you have to convert it before grading.

Here is how to do it properly with the tools Resolve already has, and the mistakes that make a conversion look wrong.

Before you start: two things you need to know

One: exactly which log you shot. “Sony log” is not enough. You need two things: the curve (S-Log3, S-Log2, Canon Log 3, V-Log…) and the colour gamut (S-Gamut3.Cine, S-Gamut3, Cinema Gamut, V-Gamut…). Both are in the camera’s picture profile menu. Get the gamut wrong and the colours will shift even if the contrast looks right.

Two: how your project is set up. This guide assumes Resolve’s default settings: DaVinci YRGB colour management with a Rec.709 Gamma 2.4 timeline. Check it under File › Project Settings › Color Management. If you use DaVinci YRGB Color Managed or ACES, the project already does the conversion and you must not add another one on top.

Method 1: Color Space Transform

It is the most accurate option and it comes with the free version.

1. On the Color page, create a new node for the conversion.
2. Open Effects and drag Color Space Transform onto that node.
3. Set Input Color Space to your camera’s gamut (for example, Sony S-Gamut3.Cine).
4. Set Input Gamma to the curve (Sony S-Log3).
5. Set Output Color Space to Rec.709 and Output Gamma to Gamma 2.4.
6. Set Tone Mapping Method to DaVinci. Without it, highlights clip abruptly instead of rolling off smoothly.

Method 2: the manufacturer’s official LUT

Sony, Canon, Panasonic, Fujifilm, DJI and the rest publish free conversion LUTs on their websites.

1. Download the LUT for your exact profile (curve and gamut).
2. In Resolve, go to Project Settings › Color Management and click Open LUT Folder. Copy the .cube file there and click Update Lists.
3. On the Color page, right-click the node › LUT › find the one you just added.

It works, but with a limit: a LUT is built for one particular exposure. If the shot is overexposed, highlights that were already at the edge clip inside the LUT and cannot be recovered in a later node.

Where each thing goes

Node order matters more than it looks:

• Before the conversion: exposure and white balance. You are working with all the log information there, and exposure behaves like it does in camera.
• The conversion: in its own node, touching nothing else.
• After the conversion: the look, saturation, skin, grain. Everything creative goes after.

If you fix exposure after the conversion, highlights the curve has already compressed end up flat and grey.

The usual mistakes

The image looks blown out and far too contrasty. It is almost always a double conversion: you applied a camera LUT and a Color Space Transform, or the project was already colour managed. Keep only one.

Colours lean green or magenta. You picked the wrong gamut. S-Gamut3 and S-Gamut3.Cine, for example, are not interchangeable.

Blacks look milky or crushed. Check the clip’s data levels: right-click the clip › Clip Attributes › Data Levels. It should usually be Auto.

I shot on my phone. iPhone 15 Pro and later record Apple Log, which shows up in Color Space Transform as Apple Log with a Rec.2020 gamut. If your phone has no log profile, there is nothing to convert: the footage is already Rec.709.

My drone is a DJI with D-Log M. DJI has not published the D-Log M formula, so Resolve does not include it in Color Space Transform. Use DJI’s official LUT for your model.

After converting: the look

Once converted you have a correct but neutral image. The step that makes it cinematic is the look: colour in the shadows, a way of treating skin, a bit of grain.

If you do this on every project

All of the above is perfectly doable with Resolve’s built-in tools, and worth understanding at least once. What wears you down is repeating it shot after shot: the correction node, the conversion node with its five drop-downs, the look node, the grain node… and building it all again on the next project.