John Matthews

The GX85 continues to be a great. I had it for over 2 years and I took videos and photos that I'll cherish forever. I only sold it because I mistakenly thought something Sony and FF would do better and they were from a technical point of view, but it was much bulkier and not as fun to shoot with. I've taken a tonne of shots with the 14mm f/2.5 too- loved that combo for over a year and a half. In 2019, when I decided I'd never leave M43 again, I've been looking for that lens. Sometimes, you can find it for about 100 Euros.
Can't wait to see the results you get with the combo!

It was/is a pretty popular camera on here.
You might want to consider putting my Cinelike D hack on it for a bit more flexibility.
 

Just bought a GX85.
It's purpose is to serve double-duty, as an inoffensive little camera that I can stealthily take anywhere, and as a 2nd / backup cam for travels.
Travel is one of my great pleasures, and if COVID has taught me anything, it's that I need to get better at travel near home.  This has resulted in my Go Shoot project, which essentially involves trying to have small, low-zero cost adventures close to home, and to film them as little videos to try things and make memories.  The key thing for this kind of thing is having a small unassuming camera that doesn't attract attention.  I've been using my GF3, due to its tiny size, but its lack of tilting screen or stabilisation are rather inconvenient and it 17Mbps 1080p is a little lacklustre to say the least.
These projects are about story first and image second, and are finished on a 1080p timeline.  This means that if I take the 100Mbps 4K image and crop 2x then it becomes a 1080p at 25Mbps image, which is still acceptable (and still better than the GF3!) so that means that the GX85 and 14mm f2.5 combo would be tiny, but with the 2.2x crop factor in 4K and cropping in post, would be 31-62mm equivalent, and the f2.5 combined with the downscaling in post should mean it'd have reasonable low-light ability too.
GX85 with 14mm f2.5 for a tiny setup:

If I want to work quickly and have a more doc-style of shooting, I can pair it with the 12-35/2.8 and get 26-154mm.  In extreme low-light (like caves), I can take the Voigtlander 17.5/0.95 and get 39-78mm.  If I want to go vintage, I can use the Cosmicar 12.5/1.9 for a 28-56mm range.  Lots of cool options available.
Once we get back to travel, which is likely to happen later here in Australia than elsewhere in the world it seems, I'll also use it for a 2nd / backup camera to my GH5.  I find that often I will be on a balcony or terrace in golden hour (either dawn or dusk) looking at a spectacular view and wanting to record three things simultaneously:
Time-lapse of the whole scene as the light changes - super wide-angle and deep DoF
This will be my action camera, which by taking 8MP (in 16:9) Jpegs, which are around 3Mb each, gives about 600Mbps when put onto a timeline at 25fps.  Not bad! Time-lapse of part of the scene - variable focal length required
This will be what the GX85 will do, and can use any of the MFT lenses I have. Video of interesting things happening, probably with a wide-angle lens
This is what the GH5 will be being used for.  People walking, boats sailing, flags waving, etc etc.   The GX85, by being able to share any of the lenses I have for the GH5, also makes a great backup camera in the instance that the GH5 is out of action.
Is anyone else using a GX85?  or small camera to fly under the radar?

Yeah, I'm curious to see what you're doing with it.  I love shooting with small modest cameras so bring it on!

I got the Olympus E-P7 a little over a month ago (a fantastic bundle with the venerable 75mm f/1.8). The camera is a little bit of a mixed bag, not have any PDAF. However, it does have some things going for it:
only 330g (that's the main feature) with two dials, otherwise roughly the same as the E-M10 iv minus the viewfinder. Decent for one-handed operation. 4k in all modes (world camera), 8-bit 420 (I think, but don't really care), something the PEN-F lacked PEN-F style color creator mode, meaning one can control the saturation of 12 different colors for interesting out-of-camera results. In fact, due to the PEN-F coming out in 2016?, there are many settings out there to mimic film stuff or just creating interesting looks. Downside of the color creator mode is that you need to work from P mode. Yes, you can use the AEL button to lock things down. Using a manual lens, it's essentially manual mode. Does anyone have any questions about it or interesting in seeing some footage with various color-creator settings?
 

Would love too see your findings and images. I love the tweaking and nerdy pleasures. That's what Eoshd is all about for me, much more than spec list after spec list. Very fond of the famous Oly jpeg color engine. An HD 100mbit 420 8bit codec without noise reduction from the mft 16 or 20MP sensor is all I would need. Instead I had to go with a Lumix S1 for my portable video needs. My GX85 is still with me most of the time.

I mistakenly wrote "color creator" mode when I should have written "color profile" mode. Saturation can essentially be individually adjusted for 12 colors of the rainbow.  This could allow for film simulations or creating looks that emphasize certain colors (and not others). I'm not aware of any other camera that can do that in-camera. Maybe I'm mistaken?
 

I got the Olympus E-P7 a little over a month ago (a fantastic bundle with the venerable 75mm f/1.8). The camera is a little bit of a mixed bag, not have any PDAF. However, it does have some things going for it:
only 330g (that's the main feature) with two dials, otherwise roughly the same as the E-M10 iv minus the viewfinder. Decent for one-handed operation. 4k in all modes (world camera), 8-bit 420 (I think, but don't really care), something the PEN-F lacked PEN-F style color creator mode, meaning one can control the saturation of 12 different colors for interesting out-of-camera results. In fact, due to the PEN-F coming out in 2016?, there are many settings out there to mimic film stuff or just creating interesting looks. Downside of the color creator mode is that you need to work from P mode. Yes, you can use the AEL button to lock things down. Using a manual lens, it's essentially manual mode. Does anyone have any questions about it or interesting in seeing some footage with various color-creator settings?
 

I see it becoming an established style, especially on social media. And real films will have to mimic it to get the authentic feel of that when needed by the script.
Sure will be interesting to play with and see how it develops but for now it is 99% a TikTok thing to raise the production values of short social media measured in seconds.
I am impressed that Apple managed to put ProRes codec into a phone as well.
What is stopping the camera companies now exactly with their hardware and lack of internal ProRes. Just outdated chips or what?

The treatments in the above (IIRC) were through applying noise reduction (NR).  It was a combination of spatial NR which essentially blurs the footage, and temporal NR which blurs between frames.  NR is quite smart, but ultimately it's a fancy blur, and definitely softens the footage visibly, so needs to be used with sharpening / unsharp mask, and has very significant limitations in real use.
In terms of 8-bit vs 10-bit and if it's "worth it", the test is really if you have problems with 8-bit footage.  If you're shooting 8-bit and not having banding issues, or issues with colour blotches on skin tones, etc, then moving to 10-bit probably won't have much impact.
My advice is to focus on the final results you're getting, work out what the biggest issues / limitations are for you, and then put your money towards those issues.  Counter to what these (and many other) forums suggest, most of the time the biggest return on investment for the average film-maker is on something other than their camera, most likely audio equipment, lenses, filters, audio equipment, lighting and grip, haze / fog, production design, and, to save the best for last, the best money you can ever spend is to invest in your own education and skills.  The skilled operator can get reasonable results in almost any situation with any equipment, whereas amateurs make Alexa footage look like a home video....

There is an argument to be made for using faster lenses with these older cameras, based on their lower bitrate codecs.
Simply put, the limited bitrate struggles then given too much motion and detail to try and replicate.  This is why video of snow-storms, waves, etc often descend into mush - the bitrate doesn't hold up when the frame has lots of detail and motion.
Placing the camera on a tripod is a great way to limit the motion - when the background doesn't move then the bitrate can focus on what is moving and give it a higher image quality.  
It's the same with having shallower Depth of Field, as it makes more of the frame out-of-focus and therefore much easier to describe, so the compression gives those parts less bitrate and is able to put more bitrate into the things that are in focus.
It might seem rather strange to pair these older cheaper cameras with super-fast super-expensive lenses, but that's how the math works out.

That's awesome. I love those lenses. They were such a perfect size when I used to shoot on the eos-m. I still have a NOS 50mm 2.8 in its box in my closet.
Are you shooting the short for someone else, or is this a personal project?
You're shooting with an E-M10ii now, right?
I started shooting stills on film recently and have a fondness for old rangefinders, especially the ones from the 70s with the built in lenses... Minolta Hi-Matic, Canonet, Olympus XA. Inevitably I'll want to move onto a hybrid stills/video camera. Size is more important to me than anything else, so I am looking at Olympus and Fuji.
My friend has an E-M10ii and a GH5, and he did a shoot a couple months ago using both cameras and I went back and forth between the two and surprisingly, or not, the Olympus just looked better.
So right now it's between the E-M5iii and the X-T4.
Anyway, the point is that there is something special about these small cameras. The GX85 was a ton of fun to shoot with. The Samyang 12mm t/2.2 balanced perfectly on that camera and due to the 4K crop I was able to use some of my c-mount lenses.
I love Full Frame and someone will have to pry my 5D3 from my cold, dead hands, but it is big and not particularly stealthy. So it's cool to see that some people are still shooting on small cameras.

Out of all the modern lenses I've owned, this one was my favorite.  One of the best things about the M43 format is the native lens selection and the easy adaptability of old stuff.
Looks like you have plenty to play around with!  I would recommend trying the old Pentax Auto110 lenses for your GM1, as that was truly a lot of fun for me when I had it.  My avatar here is the GM1 with that 24mm lens on it.
Not sure if you've seen it, but here's a link to a doc my wife and I made after the Japan one, the main lenses for this film were the fast Voightlander manual primes:  
 

Oh man, I take a GM1 again. Just to play with it.
So...depends on what you're doing, but, honestly, I had an old 24mm on my GM1 most of the time.  (Pentax auto110 24mm f2.8 prime) If you read my posts here, you know I'm a vintage and manual lens guy.  I just can't abide AF, feels wrong to me for docs shot Cinéma Vérité style.
For this particular documentary we were using Nikkor prime lenses with and without speed booster adapters.
My wife did a bunch of b-cam work with the GM1 on this doc, and she put the modern Pany20mm 1.7 on there as well.  I've shot a bunch of stuff with newer cameras and lenses since this doc, but I still think the way this one looks is better than most stuff I've done in the years since.  
I blame my lazy-over-reliance on IBIS and slow-mo for me losing some shooting mojo.  
(FWIW, I'm shooting a narrative short laster this month with the Pentax auto 100 prime lenses)

My anecdote is simple. 
I moved from a GH5 to a cheap EM10III.  The GH5 is awesome, but it's more than I need.  I also didn't like that I was resorting to shooting slow-mo a lot.  FWIW, I made a doc film 6 years ago on a GX7 and GM1.  Looked better than anything I've done in the 6 years since. 
It's certainly not the gear making my stuff better or worse.

Samsung NX1! 

Paid up member of the 90% club here.
The extra 50% of; time, effort and sometimes money to get that last 10%, just is not worth it to me, especially as no one but yourself really notices what that ‘extra’ 10% could have been.
Life’s too short.
Or to coin a very British phrase, I can’t be arsed.

Dito.
I found a GH2 a few months back for dirt cheap and ran across this comparison:
I find it absolutely amazing that the hacked GH2 still holds up in some areas against the GX80, which is a great value proposition in itself. I'd go as far as saying the hacked GH2 still holds up in many ways to current offering by Panasonic (G100). This not a knock on Panasonic but rather congratulating the people who've hacked the GH2. Now, actually prefer working with a GH2 to working with a GX80.

Yeah, the client wrote it, recorded it.  I edited to her script. 
This video work is indicative, I think, of my  "90% rule."  Meaning, I score shots from 1 (shit) to 100 (perfection), and often try to hit a sweet spot of 90.  Yes, you could do a bunch of other crafting to squeak out the final 10% to make the shots technically perfect, but the last 10% requires an ridiculously exponential amount of expense and effort.
So, one tries to find a balance.  I'd give myself an 80-85 on this stuff.
It's all relative to what the client demands, what you demand of yourself, and what the budget allows.
That all being said, the era of dudes like me delivering "90" is going away.  Clients are okay with 30 these days.  On the high end clients will expect 100.  Seems like people in my range of stuff are not in demand so much anymore.
p.s. I add a lot of grain in post.  My ISO never went over 800 on this gig.

I think of all the video-capable cameras I've owned, the Pana G6 (which Andrew dubbed the 'GH2 Redux' when he reviewed it) was almost perfect for me - small, light, fits nicely in the hand, mic input, FHD 50p/60p to MP4 files, a lever to control power zoom lenses (the last G series camera to have that), 'creative video' mode etc. and a simple uncluttered control layout. For stills (not video), it also had variable telephoto sensor crop controlled by the zoom lever.
It's successors gained 4k video and then IBIS, but I think they lost some of the 'only what you really need' control simplicity along the way.

Your video is easily better than 95% of the work that is out there --  great eye and a nicely coordinated edit.
The narrator did a great job, as well.  Did someone give her line readings?
 
I noticed that the interior shot had slight noise, but I was pixel peeping.  I would guess that you had to stop down due to the high scene contrast.  It certainly was not enough noise to warrant using an unwieldy cinema camera, although it might have been interesting to try a minor adjustment to the E-M10's "Highlights & Shadows" setting.
Your video is a superb and inspiring piece that brings life to a mundane subject.

Dito.
I found a GH2 a few months back for dirt cheap and ran across this comparison:
I find it absolutely amazing that the hacked GH2 still holds up in some areas against the GX80, which is a great value proposition in itself. I'd go as far as saying the hacked GH2 still holds up in many ways to current offering by Panasonic (G100). This not a knock on Panasonic but rather congratulating the people who've hacked the GH2. Now, actually prefer working with a GH2 to working with a GX80.

I know it's an impossible thing to really quantify to other people, especially pros, but it's been true in my experience as well.  I've just ended up preferring using Oly cams for some reason.  Ergonomics I think.
And it doesn't make sense because Oly's menu system is a bit of a jumble, but I guess once I learned it, it's been productive.
I don't do a lot of high end stuff, and what I do (still) do is almost always hand-held run-n-gun.  I get by easily with 8-bit.  My cheap EM10iii with a variable ND does the job.  Here's a recent thing I was hired for; half day shoot and half day editing with a script they recorded.  Basic basic basic, but got the product delivered to the client as they requested.  I'm not sure if I even used a high end camera for a gig like this it would've turned out much different.  So, you know, for me, the rather simple tool is appropriate.
 

The Panasonic G9 is underrated as well, especially since all the video firmware updates
I'll have to do a bigger video on YouTube about all the underrated and forgotten tools in the age of Sony-Fuji-Canon brand worship.

Olympus 3840 x 2160 at 24/25/30 fps is about 100 Mbit/s => 12.5 Mbyte/s. At 4 Gbyte per file and 13 files, that works out at just under 70 minutes maximum 4k recording time (and much longer in 1080p)?
The  E-M1 ii is also limited to 13 files per recording.
As I rarely record for longer than 10-15 minutes, enabling focus-stacking (on E-M1 ii) with any lens is of more interest to me, but as I don't have > 30 minute recording on any other camera I own, having it available on my E-M1 ii might be useful one day 🙂
Thanks - I'd seen that info posted on EOSHD a while back (maybe by yourself) but not yet tried it with a recorder.