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Showing content with the highest reputation on 06/04/2026 in all areas

  1. Stepping away from film emulation for a moment, the thought occurred to me to that we have softened the image enough for the 2x and 4x in-camera digital zooms to be tested. The GX85 sensor is 4592px wide, which with its 1.1x 4K crop factor, means that the horizontal resolution for its 1x is about 4174px, with the 2x crop it's about 2087px, and the 4x is about 1043px. Normally the 2x is usable on a 1080p timeline and the 4x is not, but with the film emulation on it, the only way to find out is to test it in the real world. Here is the GX85 with 14-140mm lens on it at F5.6. Optically zoomed to about 25mm: At 14mm and zoomed 2x in-camera: To me this looks completely fine. So far so good.. Optically zoomed to about 50mm: At 14mm and zoomed 4x in-camera: This is the big one. I see some differences here, but not enough that if I saw this in an edit it would pull me out of it, which is really what I'd want - to know if it's usable. For some context, I shot this test with three lenses, the 14mm F2.5 pancake lens (which is the lens I'll be using), the 12-35mm F2.8 and the 14-140mm shown above. While the light was changing during the test, what is interesting is that the 14mm F2.5 has much less contrast. The reason I point this out is that when comparing the 14mm F2.5 with in-camera zoom to the other lenses I think the lens rendering itself is the most significant difference. 2x comparison: and now for the main prize, 4x: This is an excellent result as far as I am concerned! Caveats: This is with the v5 film emulation grade, which as @eatstoomuchjam pointed out might be on the softer side of the range for what 16mm film rendered However, this grade DID NOT include the lens emulation stack, so the lens barrel distortion, vignetting, and corner softening hasn't been applied, so that could go some way to evening out the look I haven't done any sharpening to compensate for any softness. In the past I've discovered that a digital zoom of about 1.6x can be equalised by some careful sharpening in post, so sharpening isn't to be underestimated, especially in the context of an edit where (hopefully) the viewer is looking at the content and not the image Super-16mm film was often shot on several primes, where some would have been sharper than others, or on zooms, where the zoom would have been sharper in certain parts of its range than others, so natural variation in this stuff is potentially making it a more accurate emulation rather than detracting from it I suspect that the 4x is on the edge of being too soft, which makes sense as it's a 1K sensor readout going through a lot of processing and rescaling, but this is a great result. So.... the GX85 and 14mm F2.5 lens is a Super-16mm setup with a "turret" of T2.5 lenses that are equivalent to 31mm, 62mm and 124mm, and it's (just) pocketable and fits in the palm of your hand! Happy to share the power grade if anyone wants to play with it.
    2 points
  2. Here's a shot where I graded the 4x digital zoom to match the optically zoomed reference. I sharpened, added midtone detail and played with curves to counter the diffusion from the 14mm F2.5 lens. 14mm with 4x (look only) 14mm with 4x (graded to match) Optically zoomed to 56mm (reference image) So there we go, if I wanted to get a 4x shot to match, even between lenses, then it's completely possible.
    1 point
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