mercer

@PannySVHS I've now tested the Crop Zoom (CrZ) mode in 1080p.
This is the first test, and I exposed for the sky (which it thought was the right thing to do) which meant that the plants were a bit low, so I ended up bringing them up a little in post.  The Prores HQ is great at retaining noise and so there's quite a bit visible despite me having shot this at base ISO 500.  I've found that ETTR is definitely recommended if you want a more modern looking cleaner image.
I also used the 12-35mm lens at F4.0 for all images as that's where it's the sharpest.
First is comparing the C4K Prores HQ vs 1080p Prores HQ (on a 1080p timeline):


Next we compare the CrZ vs zooming with the lens.
I have prepared these images in sets of three.  The first is the CrZ image, the second is zooming with the lens, the third is the CrZ image again but with sharpening added.  This allows you to compare both CrZ images directly with the 'proper' one, as the more zoomed CrZ images did look a little soft in comparison when viewed at 300%.
Around 14mm (1.16x):



Around 18mm (1.5x):



Around 25mm (2.08x):



Once I got those images into Resolve and looked at them I decided to re-shoot it with a better exposure.  So I chose a different framing that meant the sky wasn't influencing anything.  However, I didn't realise that where I was standing was going in and out of the sun, so some shots were washed out and I had to compensate for it in post, adjusting contrast/sat/exposure/WB to match.  Tests are never perfect but are enough to give a good idea of what's going on, and in real use where there is no A/B comparing going on no-one would ever spot it anyway.
There's also a slight difference in exposure between the C4K and 1080p modes too, which is a bit odd.  I imagine it's due to changing the sensor mode.  I compensated for that in all these tests too.
C4K Prores HQ vs 1080p Prores HQ (on a 1080p timeline):


Around 14mm (1.16x):



Around 18mm (1.5x):



Around 25mm (2.08x):



I am actually rather encouraged by these results, as my previous test was in low-light and I did on something with much sharper edges and that showed differences I'm not really seeing here.
However, it's not really surprising that the GH7 did this well, as even with a CrZ of 2.08x it's still reading an area of the sensor around 2776 pixels wide.  I say "around" that wide because there is a slight crop when you compare the native 5.8K mode with the native C4K, 4K, and 1080p modes, but I think the 2.08x crop will still be oversampled from the sensor by a good amount.
The other thing I noticed was that I couldn't adjust the CrZ function while I was recording, the button just didn't do anything.  I'm not sure if that's because I have it assigned to a button and that there might be some other way to engage it while recording.  Maybe through the controls that are used to control powered zoom lenses, not sure.
Anyway, it looks pretty darn good to me, and the grain actually reminds me of the OG BM cameras which are quote noisy at native ISOs too (and also lots of seriously high-end cinema cameras too).

The 9mm I tested is the Panasonic Leica 9mm F1.7, I'm not aware of a 9mm F1.4 - maybe you're thinking of the Leica 12mm F1.4?
Let me see if I can further tempt you!!
I have done some tests (images below) but found the following:
You can use the Crop-Zoom function (CrZ) to go up to 1.3x in C4K and up to 1.4x in 4K resolutions There is no 4K option in Prores, only C4K If the sensor was cropped to be a 1:1 readout, it would be a 1.4x in C4K and a 1.5x in 4K, but the CrZ mode stops just short of these amounts.  I suspect that they have limited it so that it is always downscaling, even if just slightly.
Test shots.
First set are with the S-16 Cosmicar 12.5mm F1.9 C-mount lens.  These are all on a 4K timeline, so you can really pixel-pee if you want to.  I didn't have quite enough vND to have it wide open on all the shots, so some are wide open but some are stopped down to F2.8.







Now, I switched from the 4K to the C4K, which meant I had slightly less crop available and you can just start to see the edges of the image circle.  I suspect your mileage would vary depending on what lens you were using.  The Cosmicar is pretty wide, so if you were using a long focal length you'd probably get no vignetting at all.
This should also give a comparison between the 4K H.264 and the C4K Prores HQ.

Now we switch lenses to the 12-35mm and stopped down to F5.6 so we can compare the CrZ crop to a non-cropped image.
This is cropped to 1.3x using the CrZ function in C4K Prores HQ:

and this is without any CrZ and using the 12-35mm to zoom in to match the FOV:

I didn't shoot any clips this morning comparing the CrZ mode in 1080p, but I can also shoot a test for this if you're curious.
I had a closer look and discovered you can't change the zoom amount, which seems to be stuck at 3x zoom.  I'd say that it is resolving enough for focusing and I used it with the Cosmicar in the above test.  It's the normal story of using peaking and rocking the focus back and forth to find the sharpest spot.
At least I'd say that if you can't use it to manually focus then the problem isn't the punch-in feature but some other issue!

I'd argue that this kind of testing is actually necessary to understand how things behave.  Over the years I have tested a lot of things and it's amazing how many things that "everyone knows" do not stand up in even the most basic tests, but continue to be myths because no-one bothers to even look.
Aristotle claimed that women have fewer teeth than men, which is not true, but he obviously never actually looked to see if he was right - despite being married multiple times where he could easily have tested his claim at any time.
No, not mixed up, but the 12-35mm has a shallower DOF and so you have to know where in the image to look to compare sharp details in the focal plane.
This is the unsharpened cropped image:

This is the 12-35mm image:

This is the sharpened cropped image:

The sharpening is perhaps a little over-correcting, but the thin edges are still slightly blurred in comparison to the proper image from the 12-35mm.
This is where it is important to know how to read the results of a test.  This comparison of the zoom to the crop matched FOV but not DOF, and while I probably could have zoomed in using the 12-35mm and also stopped down at the same time to keep DOF the same, the lens sharpness would have been reduced so it wouldn't have been a fair test.  To get around that I should have tested using a flat surface like a resolution chart or a brick wall.
The problem with going that route is that now we're no longer testing anything close to real-life, and no longer answering questions about what will and won't work in real shooting.
The test wasn't "what percentage of resolving power is lost using the CrZ function?"...  it was "is the CrZ function usable for shooting with cropped lenses?".  Realistically I shouldn't have included the 12-35mm optical zooms at all, I should have just cropped in using the CrZ function and left the images to be judged on their own merits in isolation, the same way that any project shot using the CrZ function would be.
This is the danger of pixel-peeing - it distracts from the only thing that actually matters - the image.
The cosmicar really is a gem!
There's a reason that cinematographers have relentlessly driven up the price of vintage lenses over the last decades, and why modern lens manufacturers are designing and releasing brand new lenses with vintage looks, and manufacturers are even creating new mechanisms to control the amount and type of vintage looks with custom de-tuning functions.

The comparison was great. I was thinking you focused on the leave behind the first one. Anyway, 2x crop in 4K mode looks like a great, even downsampled FHD image.
I have the Fuji 12.5 F1.4. Your Cosmicar looks like it's outresolving my lens quiet a bit. The Fuji is still a nice lens though with a very solid build and delivering a beautiful image.

the camera I'm using could be in a museum ..but it works..i

Picked up a used GH6 and got the LogC firmware and I am loving it. I have a Lens Turbo in FD mount and the underrated 35-105mm Canon lens, but am looking to keep this set up as native as possible. I picked up a 7artisans 24mm 1.4 on the cheap and am pleasantly surprised by the lens, especially since every review I could find of it, trashes it. Since almost every review was with the lens on an aps-c camera, I assume some of the goop is cropped out with m4/3.
Anyway, I'm looking for a cheap zoom, probably a Panasonic kit, that is better than it should be. I intend on making it my Spielberg f/5.6 lens, but then I got to wondering if any of the kit lenses are accidentally parfocal? I'd love for the little 14-42 PZ to be that lens, but for some reason I doubt it. I assume I'll eventually give in and get the 12-35mm for the added IBIS, but the point of the camera is to keep it on the cheap.
Here are a few frames from the 7artisans in case anyone is interested. These were my first few shots with the lens and the LogC profile. Other than the Arri LUT and an s-curve, no construction equipment was harmed with this set up...
 

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.  

What's interesting about the LogC license is that it was probably mapped for that specific sensor. The vLog could have just been tossed in. Maybe. Either way, cool camera and shots. 

< 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>

Ok I bought the C500 mkII. Can't wait to create the first project with it. First tests the AF is so much smoother then my S5II, maybe not faster, but it feels more natural. As does the image. The dynamic range is not crazy better over an S5 or S5II it seems. The highlight rolloff seems smoother though. The internal Nd's are fun too.
 

I have now imported my iPhone footage and put it through the same FLC pipeline as my GH7 footage.  
As you may recall, I shot the "home video" parts of the trip with my iPhone 12 Mini, and part of the goals of the new FLC pipeline is to be able to improve the iPhone footage and match it better with the GH7 footage.
Overall, I am pleasantly surprised with both the images and the user experience.
With my phone in my left-front pocket and GH7 in my right-hand, I could extend the pop-socket out, pull my phone out, shoot with it, then put it back, all with my left hand and not having to even turn off the GH7.  Having the ability to swap from shooting with the GH7 and 14-140mm to an ultra-wide in seconds is great when you want to capture the action in real-time:


It has surprisingly good handling of real-world DR:


It allows for quick and unobtrusive shooting in restaurants and cafes:


which also gives some background defocus which is nice.
...and it is great for shooting in very cramped or crowded situations:


I struggled shooting in the Myongdong night-markets just because the GH7 was so conspicuous and just not well designed for such things, however the iPhone worked quite well for those chaos-and-people-everywhere shots, and was great for shooting situations at point-blank range:



In retrospect I wish I had shot more whimsical footage with it throughout the trip, but that's a note for next time.
In order to see how the FLC is contributing to these images, let's compare some of the above shots to how they would have looked with a simple CST workflow (I did a CST to DWG, matched exposure, then CST to 709-A).
FLC:

709-A:

FLC:

709-A:

FLC:

709-A:

I find that it takes the digititis out of the images quite a bit.
Another thing it does is hide some of the limitations of the iPhone too.  Here's a shot I took from out the train window.  It's obviously a very low-light shot and the iPhone NR was probably set to "armageddon".
709-A:

FLC (with a touch of sharpening):

Anything in post that applies across all your shots will help to unify them, and so having a slight softening applied to all the footage, as well as similar colour treatment, can really help to smooth things around any rough shots.  I created my own powergrade using FLC I called "50mm" because I took the grain and softening settings from the 35mm and 65mm presets and set things to the mid-point between the two, effectively emulating a 50mm film process.  I have more work to do, including working out what settings give what results once the footage has gone through the YT compression, but it's a start.

Picked up a used GH6 and got the LogC firmware and I am loving it. I have a Lens Turbo in FD mount and the underrated 35-105mm Canon lens, but am looking to keep this set up as native as possible. I picked up a 7artisans 24mm 1.4 on the cheap and am pleasantly surprised by the lens, especially since every review I could find of it, trashes it. Since almost every review was with the lens on an aps-c camera, I assume some of the goop is cropped out with m4/3.
Anyway, I'm looking for a cheap zoom, probably a Panasonic kit, that is better than it should be. I intend on making it my Spielberg f/5.6 lens, but then I got to wondering if any of the kit lenses are accidentally parfocal? I'd love for the little 14-42 PZ to be that lens, but for some reason I doubt it. I assume I'll eventually give in and get the 12-35mm for the added IBIS, but the point of the camera is to keep it on the cheap.
Here are a few frames from the 7artisans in case anyone is interested. These were my first few shots with the lens and the LogC profile. Other than the Arri LUT and an s-curve, no construction equipment was harmed with this set up...
 

Not cinematic enough.  I fixed it for you.  Now that's cinematic.

I'm not really seeing any difference between any of them; S5, S1H, S5ii.
Yes there are some very subtle differences such as that from the S1H is a teeny weeny bit softer due to the OLPF, but otherwise, nothing for me.
There's some chatter about over-sharpening. I don't see it.
There's some chatter about moire. I'm not seeing that either.
Highlight roll off and blah di blah, - what are we shooting here with these things? Are we really comparing the results from our humble mirrorless cameras with Hollywood lighting, productions, lenses and budgets? I'm not, - to be even remotely in the ball park is hilariously ridiculous.
Here's a screen grab from my S9 which is my principal run & gun unit, from last weekends wedding I am currently editing.
A pretty dark hole of a room for bride prep and unless anywhere near that window, then screwed. It's SOOC and not touched it in any way; exposure, WB...nuffink. 6k 30p shot at 1/50th, 4000 iso, 5000 WB, Freewell ND 2-5, exposure otherwise eyeballed on the rear LCD with the wave form I rarely look at.

I wondered the same thing. I noticed when I activated the code, I could also deactivate. And it states to keep the activation code handy in case I need to reinstall after a firmware update, so I think you may be able to use it for one device, but I'm not certain. The code may forever be tethered to that serial number. 

I went with the GH6 again for for a few reasons...
1. Official Arri LogC profile - it's even embedded in the metadata, so FCPX reads it as Arri footage. For someone who will probably never shoot with an Alexa, I must admit it's a stupidly cool thing...
2. ProRes
3. IBIS
4. Flip up screen
Honorable Mention - I didn't realize how good the preamps in it were going to be. With good mic placement,  some of the audio is perfectly usable. 

Darn. They really work hard to make this camera look bad with their color grading and uninspiring filming. Cinealta F3 amateur work looks stellar on the other hand. Tells us a lot about the shooter and the camera. Whereas none of the S1II videos I've watched so far show me much about its image quality. Tells us nothing about the camera but everything about the shooter. Maybe watching cammacky will give some insight. But that guy sells every camera equally well.

I went with the GH6 again for for a few reasons...
1. Official Arri LogC profile - it's even embedded in the metadata, so FCPX reads it as Arri footage. For someone who will probably never shoot with an Alexa, I must admit it's a stupidly cool thing...
2. ProRes
3. IBIS
4. Flip up screen
Honorable Mention - I didn't realize how good the preamps in it were going to be. With good mic placement,  some of the audio is perfectly usable. 

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! One more round, one more ride!

I went with the GH6 again for for a few reasons...
1. Official Arri LogC profile - it's even embedded in the metadata, so FCPX reads it as Arri footage. For someone who will probably never shoot with an Alexa, I must admit it's a stupidly cool thing...
2. ProRes
3. IBIS
4. Flip up screen
Honorable Mention - I didn't realize how good the preamps in it were going to be. With good mic placement,  some of the audio is perfectly usable. 

I went with the GH6 again for for a few reasons...
1. Official Arri LogC profile - it's even embedded in the metadata, so FCPX reads it as Arri footage. For someone who will probably never shoot with an Alexa, I must admit it's a stupidly cool thing...
2. ProRes
3. IBIS
4. Flip up screen
Honorable Mention - I didn't realize how good the preamps in it were going to be. With good mic placement,  some of the audio is perfectly usable. 

I went with the GH6 again for for a few reasons...
1. Official Arri LogC profile - it's even embedded in the metadata, so FCPX reads it as Arri footage. For someone who will probably never shoot with an Alexa, I must admit it's a stupidly cool thing...
2. ProRes
3. IBIS
4. Flip up screen
Honorable Mention - I didn't realize how good the preamps in it were going to be. With good mic placement,  some of the audio is perfectly usable. 

I also had the GH6 for about a year, but I'm really considering getting one again. I'll probably do like @kye and use that 14-140 most of the time. I'm still debating in my head though. The problem is simple- there are just so many old smaller "good enough" cameras, but nothing small and modern that can do 4k120 in the system. The G9ii is the smallest.
On another note, I'm not exactly how MPB decides to offload cameras sometimes. One day, there're 20 GH6 bodies and the next day none. 

I love the colors on my cheap GH6... oh wait... I'm using the Arri LogC profile...

I've read that they are good. I had no problem with them the first time I owned one, I had a problem with the chroma noise that the DR Boost produced in the shadows. I bought it this time because it was so cheap and I wanted to be able use Arri LogC. It really is a phenomenal camera though. Now I just need to figure out my lens situation with it. I've been shooting full frame for so long, and I have a small(ish) collection of vintage lenses that the price of any good m4/3 lens annoys the hell out of me. I've been using a 7artisans 24mm that is pretty good for what I paid for it. But I need something else.