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I like film and retro filmic looks, but shooting Super-16 (or even Super-8) is still an expensive PITA. After some testing of my equipment, I've realised that my GX85 has image quality equalling or surpassing a Super-16 film camera (with some categories surpassing a Super-35 film camera) so in my pursuit of a pocketable, portable, fun, simple, and fast setup that looks like film, this project is born. The criteria is to work out how to get great images from the tiny setup that are enough like film that most people would believe it if you said it was shot on film. My approach is simply to compare the two and find the biggest differences and then work on bringing them closer together, 80-20 rule and all that. The first point of comparison is already known, the crop factor is similar (2.2x vs 2.88x) so making sure I don't go too hard into shallow DOF then this should be comparable. Second consideration is camera movement, shake, and how they'll be used. S16 film cameras can be hand-held, but they've got some weight so are relatively steady in use. 8mm cameras were designed to be hand-held and are much lighter, so will move more. The GX85 is far smaller than either, but has IBIS (and OIS with some lenses) so that should make it feel larger, but I'll have to watch out for parallax, which will give away the cameras lack of heft. Third is the DR. Film has a huge DR and I wasn't sure how this would go - harsh clipping of highlights and blacks will be a dead giveaway. Without knowing anything about its rec709 profiles, I shot an exposure test where I took shots one stop apart. Film negatives have a lot of DR, but print film has far less, with stocks like Kodak 2383 only having about 5-6 stops in the linear range of their exposure (between about 10% luma and 90% luma, before the rolloffs kick in). Bringing in my test shots and matching the contrast within my standard colour pipeline (based around the Film Look Creator tool in Resolve) I realised the GX85 has enough DR to push its highlights well up into the highlight rolloff curve of the FLC, and same with the shadows, so this is fine too. DR, check! Fourth is resolution and texture. The images should be soft and noisy, but how much? After reviewing a number of sources, I realise that there are all kinds of factors, such as the speed of the negative, how it was exposed (0... or -1 and pushed in post, etc), but often the biggest factor in softness was the lenses used, and the biggest factor on the grain is the processing that the streaming service does when you upload it! In this sense, I have a lot of freedom in these aspects, but I'll have to do further tests on uploading to YT. I have seen videos that have really nice grain in 4K, so I know it can be done, but my previous tests showed the YT compression really changes things, so I'll have to do more tests. Then we're into testing with real images and just seeing what we see. My first test was some random shots in the garden, just to have a starting position. The feedback I got (including one friend who practically lives to talk about film!) was that it looked good but needed more saturation. My thoughts were that I exposed too high (I'd forgotten that the LCD is deceiving and the GX85 has a lot of shadow info) and as such the highlights in the first image were clipped in the file and still show in the graded image. After this test I happened to watch a YouTuber go through their grading process and they said they exposed by putting the image in the middle of the histogram, which made sense to me and I realised this is what I should do with the GX85. Second test was just a few images while out and about. It's the GX85 and 14mm F2.5 pancake lens. I'd previously forgotten this lens is both a 31mm and also a 62mm (with the 2x zoom) and so is much more flexible than I was remembering, so I made sure to include some 2x shots to see how useful that was with this level of image degradation. I also decided to push the images to get more of the kind of look I'm chasing. The 2x seems completely fine too, having quality far more than this level of softening will show. I also re-graded them in B&W, pushing the contrast much further. I may even want to go harder on these. Much more work to do, but I'm really liking the process so far. In these days of digital perfection, the attraction of film is in the colours and the texture. If you want the colours and not the texture, wanting to keep a much more modern level of sharpness and noise, emulating some of the properties of film is so ubiquitous that I think it's just called "colour grading". The phrase "film emulation" then is for the texture of film and deliberately wanting the imperfections and aesthetics of it. You don't have to go hard like I have with Super-16 film + Super-16 lenses levels of softening, but if you did this is easily possible too and FLC has 35mm presets which soften, but do so far more subtly than this. I'll continue to iterate on the colours and textures, but moving into moving images is probably next, with all the testing of the YT processing and compression that comes with that. But seriously, imagine telling someone in the 80s that you could fit an interchangeable lens camera capable of shooting feature-film level images in your pocket... Feedback welcome.

I originally read the title as “This Guy Makes Any Camera Shite” and thought my cloud account had been hacked. I enjoy watching Brandon Li’s stuff, particularly the self shooting ones. Self shooting as in shooting on your own as though someone else is shooting rather than self shooting in the vlogging context. Tripods basically.

Typing that reply certainly did make me warm even more to the LX100 and L10, but considering I have the GX85 and 14mm F2.5 already (and are therefore a FREE option!) it's pretty hard to beat for a number of reasons.. The size with the 14/2.5 is similar, and it doesn't get larger when you turn it on: As I edit in 1080p and am softening the image in-post rather than sharpening it, the 14/2.5 on the GX85 can be a 31mm and a 62mm (with the 2x zoom function) which are both absolutely awesome focal lengths for shooting how I like to shoot. I can easily bring other lenses if I am shooting something worth putting some effort into shooting (ie, it's not just an EDC opportunity). I've shot an absolute ton of tests on the GX85 so I know it inside and out. Like most of us here, I both crave the simplicity of having a fixed-lens setup that would do most of what I want, but I crave the choice and freedom of the options that an interchangeable lens mount provides!

The secret sauce is skill. As someone that used to make my living doing travel videography decades ago, this Brandon guy has really honed the judgement it takes to get the shots. There's so much going on out there in the environment and he's able to omit it, control it, and/or shape it into something impressive. It's really quite a thing to do. He could make any camera in manufactured in the last 15 years look similar to this. In fact, he has. This guy is a cinematographer that really knows how to chase the light, compose a shot, and also create advantageous serendipity. Which might sound like a paradox, but it really isn't. But, yes, images like this sell cameras. Okay, buy the camera if you'd like and start the path to making an edit like this. You can't buy his boots-on-the-ground experience though. He's casual about it all during his "how-to" segment, but it really is the biggest factor here.

It is nuts isn't it?! I'm shooting 4:3 ratio, 4.7k APSC 300mpbs on my S1RII's, specifically so I have the biggest box for both orientations with 50p. That is 3552 pixels tall so even with a 9:16 end product, plenty of scope to punch in if needs be. 2x crop markers, one set at 2.4:1 landscape and the other at 9:16, 75% blackout. No need to tilt the camera 90 degrees and no need for a dedicated social media camera. The only 'compromise' is visually composing for shooting for 2.4:1 and 9:16 within the same frame, but I personally like being able to make 2 entirely different end products from the same original footage, - there is both continuity yet difference. But 7k raw files? Nuts!!

About the lack of IBIS, I suspect…but could be wrong, that they deliberately skipped it as another point of difference with a future S9II which not only would have an interchangeable lens mount, but extra bells & whistles, ie, your P&S can’t be too sophisticated. Re. the size, back when these things were competitors, I went with the Sony RX100v over the LX100 and thought that was an ace little camera and truly pocketable whereas the LX100 was less so. I am not bothered about pocketable and though the new ‘LX100’ might have grown, just as the Fuji X100 line did, I think it’s just about right and for years have wanted a fast zoom lens ‘version’ of a Fuji X100/Ricoh GR and skipped everything, every year. Until now, - it’s time.

I missed your point about it being in the S9 chassis, but that makes total sense and gives a lot of hope for a GX10, as if they can fit a FF IBIS sensor assembly in there they should be able to fit a MFT IBIS sensor assembly in there too. If they announced one of those I'd be very tempted to pre-order one. I'm super happy with the images from my GH7 but the size is cumbersome for a lot of things, and my GX85 still softly calls to me because of the form-factor. Once you add a large lens to it the difference becomes less significant of course, but there are lots of small lenses. This is the GX85 vs the GH7 (they haven't put the L10 in yet) but it shows my general point: Looking at the size this way really does show the genius of the LX100 and L10. This is the LX100 vs the GX85, but the GX85 has the 12-35mm F2.8 lens, which not only is MUCH larger than the LX100 (open and closed), but the lens is 1.5 stops SLOWER at the wide end than the one in the LX100 and L10!! In order to get an MFT camera to match / surpass the LX100 / L10 lens, you need to go to the 10-25mm F1.7 lens, which isn't a fair test as it's wider and constant F1.7, but the size difference is.... stunning. The more I think about it, the more I realise the F1.7-2.8 lens and GH7 sensor combo really an 80% combo, where with its speed and aperture and the GH7s ISO performance, for general travel / family / hobby / creator / vlogging / etc stuff you'll only really miss the odd situation here or there where you'd wish for something more. This is absolutely in contrast to the other little cameras I've looked at (the Sony ZV-1 comes to mind) where as soon as you go inside or after the sun sets the image turns to mush with the poor ISO performance, plus the DR of the GH7 sensor will seriously embarrass lots of the alternative options too. This is because most of them are just old, but that seems to be the state of the market for these smallest options. I'm not really sure what the current alternatives are for the L10, but happy to hear if someone wants to make a list...

I’ve also had an email this week trying to get me to rush down to London for the MPTS broadcast show lest I miss their headline speaker…..erm…. Michael Gove The irony/shamefulness of having him as an expert speaker when his most famous contribution to political discourse in the UK was this.