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We’re clearly not talking about the same thing. There’s obviously no need to use AI to violate copyright, that’s not its only purpose! That’s exactly the point I was making. Stolen scripts? I’ve seen that happening since the ’90s (when I've started to work in this business, with Elias Querejeta as professional script reader FYI), long before AI ever came into the picture. Has this technology made things worse? I wouldn’t be surprised. I fully second the concern! it’s a high price to pay for adopting this kind of technology indeed. If we’re using our own stuff, then nothing is being stolen. The meaning up there (@my posts) is very clear: AI is just a tool. The use of it is something else, though so yeah, what you’re saying fits too. But that’s not really the point I was making. It’s the usual tone in these kinds of discussions: always about taking sides. WOW We have to pick a side or risk being seen as a minor part of the picture. And if we don’t explicitly state our stance, we risk no longer being seen as part of our own group : P Phew... If people prefer to see things in B&W, they shouldn’t blame the world we live all in, later on. I’m done with binary thinking, always have been BTW. And I’m not here pretending my dick’s bigger than anyone’s. Everything you wrote, I stand. I don't retract a single word of mine up there either... What about that? ;- )

I'm not aware of any existing generative AI model that could be even remotely considered to be ethical in its construction and any of use of the generated results should be considered generally unethical. Any use of Generative AI is using an unprecedented amount of stolen material. The AI companies even admit as much, saying that being obliged to require permission from the rights holders to use their existing content would be fatal to their business model. It's like a thief saying that the invention of locked doors presented an existential threat to their business model. And keep in mind that the end game for most/all of these AI companies is not to make your life better unless you are one of the huge businesses that are financing their development or a totalitarian government.

I don’t know how you can say that with a straight face. The BFI have just published a report saying that 130,000 films and scripts have been used without permission or accreditation. It is all about violating copyright. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/09/ai-plundering-scripts-poses-direct-threat-to-uk-screen-sector-says-bfi

I had that camera for about 1 month and then sent it back to Amazon because the GX80 came out at the same time. Still, I recorded some great moments on it. One of the videos is so precious that I have it on my desktop at all times.

I think you should. I think you’d be pleasantly surprised at the degree of enhancement the accumulated knowledge of these intervening years brings. It’s a camera that has always appealed to me and I’ve been waiting patiently to pick a used one up for £200 for years now. Still waiting ! Which is likely a testament to how many people have held on to them and are still getting great results .

Man, I lost my GX7 years ago --and when I look at that 1080 footage I still find myself coveting it.

Not exactly, although low budgets can now achieve more than ever before : ) We can move faster, take on more projects simultaneously, and access work that was previously beyond our financial reach. For creators who used to get stuck a few steps in, things that once seemed impossible are now within reach. I’ve seen many talented people leave the craft or reduce it to a side project but now, the path forward feels more open.

People paying far less for it though right?

Indeed it is, and indeed I do! Haven't turned it on in.. well.. some time. I must admit I find it funny that my first video-first camera was the XC10 but moved on because I wanted shallower DoF, and now I'm back to shooting deep DoF with a 10x zoom lens. This is why I never sell anything - I've lost count of the number of times I learn something new and then pull things out of the discard pile again, and although it's mostly lenses, you never really know.

A great benchmark. Do you still have that XC10?

hmm to be fair this theory of “everyone who is involved and interested in this clearly terrible product is a pedophile” makes more sense than anything i can come up with

Thank you very much , you helped me a lot.

Went hot-air ballooning and if there was ever a challenge for shooting, this was it. Extreme low-light and extreme DR from hugely bright light-sources. They say you can't take bags in the balloon, and it had been really wet weather, so I decided to go small. I took the GX85, TTartisans 17mm F1.4 for the low-light, Laowa 7.5mm F2 for an ultra-wide, and the 12-35mm F2.8. I was a bit cheeky and took a sling bag and kept it under my jacket. The requirement is that nothing is loose in the basket and that you can hold on with both hands for landing, so I figured my bag under my jacket was basically the same as having a big pocket. It's a crazy early start. We arrived in the field before first-light and they started setting up in pitch darkness guided only by torches. I started shooting at F1.7 and needed ISO6400 at first to get any kind of level on anything except their torches. I shot on the 17mm at F1.7 and gradually reduce the ISO until the balloon was mostly inflated, then swapped to the 7.5mm for a few wide shots, and then swapped to the 12-35mm F2.8 and it was time to get in the balloon and off we went. I also shot with my iPhone 12 mini for some quick shots using the ultra-wide when I didn't want to change lenses, and also as we were approaching landing, as I had put the camera away in anticipation. It was super-foggy and the pilot ended up having to land early and for a while we were going pretty close to the treetops so I'd put my camera away when he told us that he'd be landing at the next opportunity. Frame grabs.. mix of GX85 and iPhone, put through a quite moderate FLC pipeline. In retrospect I took the complete wrong equipment and used it in the wrong way (so, it's business as usual!) but the FLC pipeline really took the footage to the next level, and I used just enough strength on the film emulation to get rid of the digital look to the images. Here's a comparison. Grade (same as above): SOOC: The GX85 has super-whites so despite being SOOC that image is actually slightly clipped in-post and some highlights can be recovered, which the FLC grade has done, but you get the idea. The SOOC is with the GX85 default profile and has much more of a video look to it, despite being pretty good compared to other similar cameras. If I was to take the same equipment again, I'd lean into the darkness and just use the 17mm at F2.0 where it cleans up and use the GX85 at something sensible like ISO1600. This would have the early shots as perhaps being unusable, but it would mean that the torches the crew used wouldn't have been clipped (I clipped them in favour of exposing what they were shining on). We're going to go again later this year, and for that I plan to take the GH7, 9mm F1.7 and 14-140mm F3.5-5.6. This will be a much larger setup but if I use a neck strap then I only have to have one lens in a pocket and so I won't need a bag at all. I just bought the 9mm F1.7 and it's sharp wide-open, so apart from having AF, it is both an ultra-wide as well as a low-light lens. I can crop in-camera and/or in-post to get a tighter FOV, but you don't normally need long focal-lengths when it's that dark. The more I use this FLC pipeline the more I like it. If I'd have shown these images to my 2018 self, I wouldn't have believed me when I said that it was me that made them.

The question you asked was “Is it possible to record only Log without the LUT with the G9 MKII ? And how? I haven't found it.” That was the question I was answering. The question you should’ve been asking was if it was possible to record Log without the LUT whilst using a monitoring LUT. For that you need to use the view assist.

Thank you But I know this video, it doesn't prove that with the Lut on, the log is recorded in log format. I don't think you've tested this setting yourself, because that's what I do: - either the Lut is applied on the monitor and it's also recorded. - either the Lut is off, and a log is recorded, but you can't monitor your exposure in Rec 709. Is it strange that no one noticed this ?!

Turn the Real Time LUT feature off to not bake it in.

I'll repeat my question; my English is poor. With a monitoring LUT V-Log to Rec 709, it's impossible for me to film in Log without recovering the LUT when recording with the Lumix G9 MKII ? Is it possible to record only Log without the LUT with the G9 MKII ? And how? I haven't found it. Thank you very much.

Greetings Friends! More seamless texture images are ready for you on these pages on my site: https://soundimage.org/txr-brick-seamless/ https://soundimage.org/txr-concrete-pavement-seamless/ As always, they're 100% free to use in your projects with attribution, just like my thousands of other images, Mp3 music tracks and sounds. It's all original...all my own work. Here's a preview video showing some of my textures: https://youtu.be/ZYIZjpb3I3c?si=g68J8QhnaZHChwB2 Ogg MUSIC MEGA PACK Speaking of which, don't forget to check out my new preview video for my Ogg Music Mega Pack...it runs just over an hour and has chapter markers so you can get a good preview of the various genres in the pack. It's also kind of fun to listen to while doing other things...hopefully it'll give you a good idea of my music if you're not yet familiar with it. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/W7yQVscjqUM?si=wD1XqAOJ6_Lswgqw OTHER USEFUL LINKS (I hope) https://soundimage.org/ogg-game-music-mega-pack/ https://soundimage.org/ogg-music-packs-2/ Enjoy, please stay safe and keep being creative! 🙂

No thanks 😂

PS — Just to answer someone else out there to whom I’ve sent this link: Nothing against it looking like video, if so. Video is cinema : P If this means looking like it was made for the big screen in terms of narrative — well, docs are usually made in a different form. But docs are also cinema ; ) That narrative form, usually made for the big screen, can also be reached through distinct ingredients such as cadence, dynamic range, lighting, framing and their respective language each element carries. Not to mention editing, pacing, sound design, and how it all aligns with intention. That is, further to that — narrative intent doesn’t depend solely on medium or format. Whether fiction or documentary, cinema arises from how all elements are orchestrated: rhythm, texture, spatial composition, sonic atmosphere. The so-called 'cinematic look' is less about resolution or gear and more about coherence — how lighting interacts with story, how movement informs meaning, how editing shapes perception. A documentary can be just as evocative, immersive, and crafted for the big screen as any scripted film — sometimes more so, precisely because it plays with reality through an authored lens. Think of the slow-burn, meditative tempo of Chantal Akerman’s News from Home, or the hyper-composed observational poetics of Gianfranco Rosi’s Notturno and Fire at Sea — all undeniably cinematic. Or the emotional montage and reflexive voiceover of Agnès Varda in Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, merging essay film and personal documentary with formal invention. Even in cinéma vérité — like Frederick Wiseman’s institutional portraits — the framing, duration, and soundscape create a cinematic rhythm far beyond "capturing reality." Lars von Trier’s The Idiots (Idioterne) and one of my favourite ever (as you well know ; ) offers another perspective on cinematic form, blending the boundaries between staged drama and spontaneous behavior. Shot with a raw immediacy and handheld style that can resemble documentary, it challenges traditional narrative structures and pushes cinema toward an exploration of social taboos and collective behavior. The film’s use of naturalistic lighting and unpolished texture contributes to its unsettling, immersive atmosphere, underscoring how cinematic expression can emerge from both form and content in provocative ways. Closer to us ; ) Portuguese cinema brings its own deep contributions to this idea of documentary as cinema. Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela or No Quarto de Vanda / In Vanda’s Room unfold in shadow and stillness, shaped more by presence than plot — fiction and documentary blending until the line dissolves. And Manoel de Oliveira — whose films stand almost outside time — gave us a cinema where documentary, poetry, theatre and metaphysics cohabit the frame, inviting reflection instead of reaction. Also worth noting in the video I’m commenting on here (shot on the Panasonic G7 with cheap C mount glass such as Kern Pizar 26mm f/1.9 and Cosmicar 12.5mm f/1.9 lenses) is the distinctive grain structure — a tactile, organic texture that enhances its cinematic feel. This film grain, far from being a flaw, enriches the image’s atmosphere and adds depth to the visual narrative, demonstrating how video can carry a rich, sensory cinematic language all its own. All this just to say: the tools of cinema aren’t bound to fiction, nor to any one format. If it resonates, constructs space, breathes rhythm, and asks something of the viewer — it’s cinema, regardless of whether it was shot on film, video, or through a window.

Busy day?

< Off to desperately search for a G9ii review by someone called Wright so I can make a two wongs don’t make a right quip>

Just a note for @Andrew Reid: that's Richard Wong, not Robin Wong... I know, both review M43 cameras.

I don't quite understand, but I have the impression that it's impossible to shoot in log without baking the display LUT? Strange, less interesting.

I don't quite understand, but I have the impression that it's impossible to shoot in log without baking the display LUT? Less interesting. I think Sony allows it.