– Rec709 LUT Kodak 2383 D55 (5500K)

– Rec709 LUT Kodak 2383 D60 (6000K)

– Rec709 LUT Kodak 2383 D65 (6500K)

I picked the D55 one. The highlights are very warm. And because the white points are “separated” you can easily follow my steps how I rebuild the curve to match the grayscale. And we can compare a typical Arri Rec709 S-Shape to a “film stock” S-Shape.

It is totally fine to use a “Rec709 LUT Kodak 2383 D55” from DaVinci Resolve. Those LUTs have been used on Hollywood Productions and are well-made. You can open the LUT with a text editor and see that the LUT expects “Cineon Log” as Input Gamma. So first we have to transform our Arri Footage to “Cineon Film Log” Gamma. After that we can apply the LUT.

So we don’t have to rebuild the LUT. Keep in mind though: If you only apply a LUT and you see that the LUT is changing the colors of your image, you will not learn much about what the LUT is doing to your image.

In general, rebuilding a LUT can be a great exercise, to learn more about colors of different film stocks. It can help you to create your own Look / Power Grade that is consistent. That you can apply to a well exposed image and the Look will “work”. Rebuilding a LUT is also great if you only like ONE specific characteristic of a LUT. Maybe one color. Or you want to shape your own S-Curve. Maybe you want more red in the shadows and blue highlights. Your PowerGrade is fully editable. You are the creator of the Look and you know exactly what is going on in each Node and can change any value you want to change.

So, just for fun, let’s try to recreate the “Rec709 Kodak 2383 D55” LUT and learn more about color grading and colors themselves.