F-Log, F-Log2 & RAW Editing — X-T5 Workflow

Camera specifics verified against the X-T5 Owner's Manual (F-Log/HLG RECORDING p.194, DATA LEVEL SETTING p.195, F-Log VIEW ASSIST p.287, specifications pp.~470+). Claims not from the manual are marked.

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1. F-Log vs F-Log2: which to shoot

	F-Log	F-Log2
ISO range (manual)	500 – 12800	1000 – 12800
Dynamic range	~12 stops	13+ stops (Fujifilm's claim, not in the manual)
Best for	Most work; easier grade	High-contrast scenes, heavy grading, HDR finish
Cost	Slightly less shadow latitude	Noisier shadows; needs 10-bit and real light control

The decision rule: F-Log2 buys latitude you only get to keep if you grade properly and shoot 10-bit. If the footage is going out fast, or lighting is controlled, F-Log is the better tool, less noise, faster grade, fewer ways to go wrong.

⚠The biggest practical gotcha: the ISO floor. F-Log2 cannot go below ISO 1000. In daylight at 1/50 s and a wide aperture, that is wildly overexposed. You must carry ND filters (a variable ND, or fixed 3/6-stop). This single constraint catches more people than anything else in the log workflow. F-Log's floor of ISO 500 is one stop friendlier but still needs ND outdoors.

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2. Shooting settings on the X-T5

• Codec: H.265, 10-bit 4:2:2. Never shoot log in 8-bit. Log stretches tonality across fewer code values and banding appears the moment you grade. The X-T5 records 10-bit 4:2:2 internally (H.265, ALL-I or Long GOP, up to 360 Mbps).
• ALL-I for heavy grading / lots of cuts (bigger files, easier on the timeline).
• Long GOP for longer takes and smaller files.
• DATA LEVEL SETTING (p.195): the silent killer. Options:
• VIDEO RANGE, 10-bit 64–940 (8-bit 16–235)
• FULL RANGE, 10-bit 0–1023 (8-bit 0–255)

Pick one and make your NLE agree. A mismatch shows up as crushed blacks and clipped highlights before you've touched a grade, and it is very often misdiagnosed as bad exposure. VIDEO RANGE is the safer default for a standard Resolve/Premiere workflow. - F-Log VIEW ASSIST. Turn it ON (p.287). It shows a BT.709-corrected preview while recording. Judging exposure on a flat log image is guesswork; this makes the monitor honest. It affects the preview only, never the recording. - Expose to the right, deliberately. Log protects highlights and hides noise in the shadows. Rate F-Log2 +2/3 to +1 stop over the meter and pull it back in post. Shadow noise at ISO 1000+ is the real enemy, not highlight clipping. - White balance: set it manually. Auto WB drifting shot-to-shot is far more painful to fix in a log grade than a slightly-off fixed value. Use a grey card or a preset K value and stay there. - Movie mode has no Grain, Color Chrome Effect, Color Chrome FX Blue or Clarity: see video-mode-settings.md. All texture work happens in post.

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3. Post workflow: Resolve & Premiere

The correct order of operations. Log grading goes wrong when steps are done out of sequence:

1. Set the project colour management first, before anything else. - Resolve: Colour Science DaVinci YRGB Color Managed, Input = Fujifilm F-Log / F-Log2 (or apply the input transform per-clip), Timeline = DaVinci WG, Output = Rec.709 Gamma 2.4. - Premiere: Lumetri → Basic → Input LUT, then grade in the tabs below.
2. Conversion LUT next, as a normalising step, not a look. Ready-made LUTs built from Fujifilm's official transfer functions are in luts/ (verified against the datasheet's published code-value anchors). Fujifilm also publishes its own official LUTs at dl.fujifilm-x.com if you prefer a vendor-blessed conversion.
3. Balance before you style. Fix exposure and white balance under the LUT (in Resolve, a node before it), never on top of it. Correcting above a display transform fights the curve.
4. Then grade the look.
5. Grain last, on the finished image, never before the conversion.

Node order in Resolve: Input transform → Balance/Exposure → Look → Grain → Output transform. Getting grain or look ahead of the transform is the most common reason graded Fujifilm footage looks "thin".

Matching a motion-picture stock (Vision3 250D/500T, 2383, Double-X): the grain is the missing ingredient, and it is what the cinema recipes cannot deliver in-camera because movie mode has no Grain control. Resolve's Film Grain OFX or a scanned 35mm grain plate over the finished grade does more for perceived authenticity than any amount of colour work.

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4. When not to shoot log

Eterna is a genuine alternative, not a compromise. Fujifilm states Eterna carries a 12-stop dynamic range, "comparable to F-Log," with "room for post production" (official design notes).

So for most work you can shoot Eterna and get near-log latitude with a usable, gradeable image straight off the card, no conversion LUT, no ISO floor, no ND juggling, and the cinema recipes already do the colour work for you. Reach for F-Log2 when you genuinely need the extra stop and are committed to a full grade.

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5. RAW editing: the part most people get wrong

Lightroom's "film simulation" profiles are Adobe's approximations, not Fujifilm's processing. They are reverse-engineered profiles, not the real conversion. This matters more than it sounds: Fujifilm's Image Design team describes a simulation as "converting the raw signal while understanding the difference of the spectral sensitivity", a spectral-aware conversion of the raw sensor signal. By the time a file has been demosaiced and handed to Lightroom, that step has already happened and cannot be re-run. (See why film cannot be faked.)

Three ways to develop a Fujifilm RAW, best first:

1. In-camera RAW conversion, PLAYBACK MENU → RAW CONVERSION. Uses the camera's own X-Processor 5. Output is byte-for-byte the real thing, because it is the real thing. You can change film simulation, WB, DR, tone, colour, grain, everything, then save a new JPEG.
2. FUJIFILM X RAW Studio (free, desktop). Tethers to the camera over USB and uses the camera's processor to render. Same fidelity as in-camera, but with a proper monitor, mouse and file management. This is the single most underused tool for this bank.
3. Lightroom / Capture One. Best editing ergonomics, but the film simulation is an approximation. Fine for exposure/crop/retouch work; not a source of truth for how a recipe actually renders.

The workflow this bank is built around

Shoot FINE + RAW. The JPEG carries the baked recipe, the archival primary. The RAW is your safety net: if a recipe was wrong for the light, re-develop that frame through any other recipe in the bank via in-camera conversion or X RAW Studio, and get a genuine result rather than an emulation.

One shoot, every look in the bank, all authentic. That is the practical payoff of the whole "in-camera JPEG is the primary" philosophy.

Pro tip: X RAW Studio is also the fastest way to develop a new recipe. Shoot one RAW of a reference scene, then iterate settings against it on a big screen with instant feedback. Instead of re-shooting the scene for every tweak.

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6. RAW video: the maximum-quality cinematic path, and its cost

Verified against the X-T5 manual, RAW OUTPUT SETTING p.192, and the HDMI specification block.

The X-T5 can output 12-bit RAW over HDMI to an external recorder:

Menu option	Recorder	Produces
RAW OUTPUT SETTING → ATOMOS	Atomos (Ninja V+ / Ninja Ultra)	Apple ProRes RAW
RAW OUTPUT SETTING → Blackmagic	Blackmagic Video Assist 12G	Blackmagic RAW

The asymmetry that matters for this bank

Stills RAW keeps your recipes. Video RAW throws them away.

• A RAF stills file can be re-developed through the camera's own processor (§5), every recipe in this bank remains available, genuinely, forever.
• RAW video output states plainly: "In-camera image enhancements are not applied to the RAW output." No film simulation. No Eterna. No cinema recipe. The entire recipe bank is bypassed, by design.

That is not a flaw. It is the point of RAW. But it means "cinematic" via RAW video and "cinematic" via this bank are two different projects. RAW video hands you maximum latitude and zero look; the cinema recipes hand you a finished look with less latitude. Choose deliberately.

The constraints (manual, p.192)

• Frame size is forced to 6.2K.
• Nothing is recorded to the memory card: the external recorder is your only copy. No backup, no safety take.
• ISO is restricted to 800–12800. Same ND-filter problem as F-Log2, one stop worse.
• Focus zoom is unavailable while RAW HDMI output is active. Check focus before you roll.
• Disabled in some movie and high-speed modes.
• Fujifilm's own caveat: output quality "varies with device specifications" and may not equal a full post-production result.

Which RAW, if you use Resolve

Blackmagic RAW is the stronger choice for a Resolve workflow. It decodes natively, plays back far more efficiently, and exposes ISO and white balance as editable metadata after the fact. You can genuinely re-rate a shot in post. ProRes RAW is better served in Final Cut and Premiere; Resolve's support for it has long been the weak spot. If you already live in Resolve, the Blackmagic Video Assist path is the less painful one.

Is it actually worth it?: an honest ladder

Tier	Shoot	You get	Cost
1	Cinema recipe (Eterna base)	Finished cinematic look, straight off the card, 12 stops	Baked in — limited regrade
2	F-Log2	~13 stops, full grading freedom, internal 10-bit	ND filters, ISO 1000 floor, a real grade required
3	RAW HDMI	Maximum latitude, editable ISO/WB, 12-bit 6.2K	External recorder + rig + cables + power, no card backup, ISO 800 floor, no film simulation at all

The honest recommendation: RAW video only produces a "masterpiece" if the grade is where your craft actually lives. If it isn't, tier 3 buys you a heavier rig and a longer edit for a result that a well-shot Eterna or F-Log2 file would have matched. The cinema recipes exist precisely because Fujifilm's own colour science is worth more than most people's grading.

Where RAW genuinely wins: mixed or unfixable lighting (editable WB saves the shoot), extreme highlight recovery, heavy VFX/keying work, and any project where a colourist is doing the finishing.

If you do shoot RAW video

1. Rig for it. Recorder, HDMI cable strain relief, external power. HDMI is the fragile link; a knocked cable ends the take with nothing on the card.
2. Shoot a grey card and a colour chart at the head of each setup. Editable WB is RAW's best feature and a chart makes it exact rather than approximate.
3. Expose for the highlights. ISO 800 base with 12-bit depth gives generous shadow recovery; clipped highlights are still gone.
4. Match to your JPEG stills. Grade the footage toward the cinema recipe you would otherwise have shot. Those recipes are, in effect, Fujifilm's own reference grade for the look.
5. Grain last, 6.2K RAW is clinically clean. Motion-picture stocks are not. See §3.

Last updated: 2026-07-21