Leaderboard

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 use it both for my own films as well as I get hired to do music videos and events. I just finished a feature length experimental film shot entirely with it called Shapes, Colours, Patterns. (There's a trailer for it on my Tumblr. https://clarknikolai.tumblr.com ) I'm very happy with it, and of course the image from that camera is gorgeous. Something I've discovered with the Digital Bolex's footage, is that it looks the best projected rather than shown on an LCD screen. I'm now working on a new project. It's a narrative, collectively written, performed and crewed by myself and three other artists. It's set in the present day in east Vancouver where three artists are working on their art projects. The characters are based on the people involved and their real lives (but fictionalized so we have more freedom.) We're using French New Wave and Availablism methods. Quick half-day shoots. It's self funded, using what we have around us, the equipment we already own, locations we already have, etc. (I think so far all we've spent on it was some coffees.) I plan to enter it in to film festivals when it's done. Here's a picture with the camera mounted backwards on the shoulder rig. This is so the camera operator can walk forward while the talent is behind them and they don't need a spotter. It's tricky to learn how to move but it's going okay. It works fine with a wide lens but not easy when zoomed in (as you'd expect.) We have to flip the image in the monitor or it's disorienting.

Here's a pic from a shoot I did last December. I don't know the brand of the shoulder rig (as I got it used on Craigslist), the EVF is the (sadly discontinued) Kinotehnik LCDVFE. The camera attaches to the rig with a Niceyrig quick-release plate (that has feet). The lens is a vintage Angenieux 17-68mm zoom with a screw on wide angle adapter, on top is a Niceyrig top handle holding an Audio-Technica stereo mic and a monitor mount. A bit hard to see is an attachment that goes below the rails between the shoulder pad and the grips for two wireless mic receivers.

Old cameras have a number of challenges, including: - weak codecs, often 8-bit low bitrate files - terrible low-light - dated colour science and no log profile (rec709 profiles only) - poor DR - lack of IBIS or EIS - etc At the time these were pretty significant challenges. Now they aren't the challenges they used to be, because fast lenses and film emulation assist with all these limitations. Let's take these one at a time. Weak codecs Weak codecs, including 8-bit low-bitrate files can be soft, and can be overwhelmed by motion. By shooting with faster lenses you render more of the frame out-of-focus and therefore the limited bit-rate only has to focus on a smaller percentage of the frame. Thanks to cheap Chinese optics companies, we are now awash in F1.4, F1.2, and even F0.95 primes. The soft image is now no longer a liability, because compared to our modern 4K sensibilities, even 35mm film is noticeably soft by comparison. This means that by adding film emulation you'll be softening those edges and smoothing over any subtle compression artefacts. Film often has a more compressed colour palette, pushing hues closer together in many instances, lessening the visibility of artefacts. It doesn't work magic, but every bit helps. Terrible low light Cheap F1.4, F1.2 or even F0.95 primes sure make a big difference after the sun goes down. That "fast" F2.8 vintage lens you were shooting on back then is 3 stops slower than these things now. That can really bring a lot of situations back from being unusable to being at, or close to, native ISO. Dated colour science and no log profile Rec709 colour profiles are basically a creative filter the camera has applied, and they often weren't that good. Film emulation takes that image and applies an incredibly large transformation over it, which goes a long way to hiding any imperfections the colour profile might have had. It's like if you put on a pair of rose-tinted-glasses, you can still see that things have different colours, but any subtle differences aren't visible because the image has had a strong look put over the top. Also, film emulation plugins often come with controls for exposure and WB etc, which can help to grade the 709 footage, which was a major pain back before we had colour management pipelines. Poor Dynamic Range You know what else has pretty poor DR? Print film! Kodak 2383 has about 5-6 stops in the linear region, and then everything else in the image is squished into the highlight or shadow rolloffs. Yes, you can see into those rolloffs a bit, but if your camera has 8 stops then you've got at least a stop to put into each rolloff. People think film has huge DR, and it did at the time compared to consumer digital cameras, but it was the negative film that had the huge DR, not the print film. It's very common now for people to shoot on film, scan it, and then do everything else digitally, so they keep the full DR of the negative, rather than taking half of it and pushing it into the rolloffs. This is a still from Minority Report from 2002: It's not exactly a dynamic range demo - the streams of light INSIDE THE ROOM are blown out and every item of clothing the main character is wearing is crushed blacks. Lack of IBIS or EIS So there's a little shake in the files... well, film had this thing called Gate Weave, which was where each frame didn't perfectly align in the camera and so when played back there was movement of the whole image. Once we started doing digital intermediates people started stabilising the images digitally and that went away. When I went to the cinema and saw Goodfellas projected on celluloid they played a bunch of old ads and movie previews also on celluloid, and some were jumping around all over the place and some were rock solid (which means the projector the theatre was using wasn't the source of it) and much to my surprise, Goodfellas itself had quite a bit of it. By just using modern tools you can now stabilise things pretty easily, but this will create artefacts if you do it too strongly (especially if the camera had bad RS), but applying film emulation gives you much more leeway. This is because you can stabilise the image, then apply some Gate Weave, and once the viewer notices your images look like film they'll potentially just accept the shake in the image as being part of the film look. By adding Gate Weave and getting some grace from the viewer you can potentially increase the strength of the stabilisation you're applying too, with there being more wiggle room, and also because the softening of the image will mean that any distortions in the image will be slightly less visible. I was inspired to write this partly from my GX85 Super-16 camera project, but also partly by this video of the GH2 shooting at night. You can still see the ISO noise and macro-blocking creep in as blue hour ends, but he was also using the 9mm F1.7 and 35-100mm F2.8, the F1.7 is reasonably bright, but the F2.8 is pretty slow compared to things like the TTartisan 50mm F1.2 or the 7Artisans 35mm F1.2 primes that are $109 and $97 on B&H. These won't offer OIS, so your options for these on non-IBIS cameras are to spend more (Canon and Sony both offer 35mm and 50mm F1.8 primes with OIS) or to use a tripod or larger rig of some kind. Far from perfect, but much more useable than you'd think. These cameras have actually gotten better over time as the rest of the ecosystem is better able to support them. The only reason we don't think so is that our expectations have inflated faster than their potential.

I just learnt very early in my career, unless I did not do that, it left me open to all kinds of issues. I make it very plain before each and every client books that other than a handful of things that are more or less a given, I do not and will not shoot to shot lists as they both stifle creativity and are open to interpretation and potential recrimination. Nor will I edit or produce a result to any other specification than my portfolio would suggest. Despite it being in the contract, I will still get someone every now and again who will send me a detailed shot list of 50 other individuals work on 50 other days, that may or may not even be the same season never mind time of day, captured at 50 different venues...and then have to politely remind them I cannot do that...and they will STILL complain after the fact I have not done what they paid me to do. Well actually, I have done EXACTLY what you paid me to do, but fortunately these freaks are maybe 1/100 clients and all you can do ultimately is politely and professionally move them on. Having said that, if I feel I can accommodate or work something in, I will at least try, but we are never going to get close to that 50 'Must Have' list...and you still won't win, but at least you can occupy the moral high ground and state you bent over backwards even though you did not need to. It's just part of running a business and anyone who has been doing so for 25 years, will have experienced issues from time to time and as long as they are not the norm, then you are doing just fine. I can count on just 2 hands from 850+ jobs/clients over 25 years those who have had a hissy fit and hand on heart, can say with 100% conviction, it was them not me! But I do work in a very specific niche where I can operate in this manner and I am the type of person who is comfortable saying no with a smile.

Following this! I have the GX9 and have often wondered about trying come C Mount S16 lenses on it. After all, some should cover the 2.2/2.3x crop in 4K. I'm not going to go as deep as the OP here but if I can get a decent look with FilmConvert I'd be happy.

The GX85 with the 14mm is such a nice and pretty combo. Best bang for the buck for wide angle rangefinder style photography. I still got my GM5 but I'm thinking about selling it as its cuteness factor wears off quickly and the GX is just so much better in every regard. I would have loved a Leica branded version with rock solid build and perfect button feedback and layout. I think this little Lumix is still well build and to me it is a classic indeed. It's my favourite small camera in regards of small form factor, great image and bang for the buck. If it had Pannys great 10bit codec and HLG I would have called it a digital S16 camera. I do call it a personal cinema verité camera nontheless. Anyway, awesome thread and interested to see your findings, kye! I've been using my two GX85 cameras for photography over the last couple of months, with a 14, 28 and 50, even a 75mm in use. Different 50s btw, C-mounts from Schneider and Zeiss. That Zeiss is astonishing, the Xenon painterly with its uneven focal plane and it other attributes. Would love to put em to usage for video. I guess this thread is a good starter for some GX85 motion picture love!:) @kye I have not experimented with the 2x digital crop. Is it without artefacts? That would make it a usuable 2/3" camera, though with one bayer sensor instead of three sensor blocks of course. Kind of like an LX10, which in 4K has about 2/3" sensor size. Could the 2x digital crop be downsampled from a 2.3K image? I could test it myself, couldn't I? Shouldn't I?:) @Clark Nikolai I would love to see a picture of your shoulder mounted D16. Awesome! Do you use it for personal occasions or for projects and what kind of projects? Cheers and thanks for this fun thread!

It seems like Panny is asking if we want a Lumix L2000- an L10 with a mount, full HDMI, IBIS and a headphone jack, for 1199 and a Lumix L1000, an L2000 with GH5 sensor, for 899. I'd say two times Yes, please! Keep em coming! I would go for the L1000. The names are too cool, so I am looking forward to my L1000. Heck, why not, the L2000 will be it for me.

Oh, this deserves admiration. I've learned to try and do this too. The gigs I now accept for clients grant me autonomy. I've failed with a few clients in the twilight of my career because I wanted to protect my autonomy, but I chalk it up to not being creativity aligned, and try to not let it bother me. Well, before I found (developed) my own voice I certainly worried about that stuff -- I had to worry about the $tuff. Good on you for building something that expresses your creativity so well that people want to pay you for it.

The funny thing with vintage lenses is half the magic comes from the flaws people used to complain about. Lower contrast, weird flares, cat-eye bokeh, imperfect corners… now everyone is hunting for exactly that look again.

This is really amazing, @kye - thank you so much for doing this. Apologies if I missed it someplace, but did you happen to note the lens you used to create your findings on the GX85? thank you again!