kye

I love this

The elephant in the room is Resolve.
As I have discussed and demonstrated in my "New travel film-making setup and pipeline - I feel like the tech has finally come of age" thread, over the last decade Resolve has gotten more feature-rich, but more importantly, it's made it HUGELY easier to use and get good images.
People now have a lot more knowledge about colour grading tools and techniques, that's for sure, but things like the Film Look Creator enable you to use a single node, you set your input and output colour spaces, and then you can adjust exposure / WB / saturation / contrast and all sorts of other things in the same tool.  You don't even need to apply a film look at all...  just select the "Blank Slate" preset, which sets it to have no look at all, and you can still use all the tools to adjust the image without having to worry about colour management at all.
Any improvement in your post-processes is a retroactive upgrade to your camera, your lenses, and all the footage you have already shot.
Colour grading is such a deep art that I think the average GH5 user back in the day was probably extracting a third of the potential of the images they'd shot, if that, simply because they didn't know how to colour grade properly.  I'm not being nostalgic about the GH5 either, the same applies for any camera you can think of.
There are reasons to upgrade your camera, for sure, but most of the reasons people use aren't the right reasons, and they'd be better spent taking the several thousand dollars it would take for a camera upgrade and taking unpaid leave from their job and improving their colour grading skills instead.

You could do a similar testing like kye for banana leaves and textures in low light, when you enter your neighbor's garden at night.😊

On an unrelated note, aren't banana trees some of the prettiest trees there are? The shape of the leaves and the way they move in the wind is just an attractive thing. I have a friend who once sailed the South Pacific. He said when they would be at sea for days and would approach an island with banana groves that it was such a beautiful sight.
I'm in the only place in Canada warm enough to grow them ( and just barely too) so people plant them as decoration a lot. 

Went for a wander in the rain over the weekend with the GH7 and this lens:

I applied some filmic colours and a bit of grain, but the halation / bloom / softness / flares are all the lens.








Just remember, the less you pay for a lens, the more fun it is.... and this lens is a lot of fun.

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!

Indeed it is, and indeed I do!
Haven't turned it on in.. well.. some time.  
I must admit I find it funny that my first video-first camera was the XC10 but moved on because I wanted shallower DoF, and now I'm back to shooting deep DoF with a 10x zoom lens.  This is why I never sell anything - I've lost count of the number of times I learn something new and then pull things out of the discard pile again, and although it's mostly lenses, you never really know.

I was just poking around in the menus and noticed there is an option where you can switch between Full and Pixel:Pixel, so that's the same as the ETC mode on the GH5.  It looks like you can use this with any resolution.
Also, you can record C4K in Prores RAW, which is a 1:1 sensor readout, so exactly a 1.41x, or a horizontal crop factor of 2.934 from FF (the GH7 horizontal crop factor is 36/17.3=2.0809).  The bitrates are a bit heavy though at either 1700Mbps or 1100Mbps and it's Prores RAW so you can't import it directly into Resolve and will need to transcode with a third party utility.
This thing has so many options, and the more I poke around in it, the more it feels like a cinema camera in the body of a MILC.

@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).

Simply fantastic images and I like the dark look. Though I'd change the 14-140 to M.Zuiko 12-100 f4 for that constant aperture, while losing tele but gaining on a wide end. Feels like 100mm on a M43 body should be enough though.

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!

Sharpness seems very natural to me, although I am not at the level of pixel peeing as others around!
What I can say is that the Prores feels like Prores from a cinema camera.  So the files edit like butter, the grain is well captured and not removed / crunched, etc.  I've done quite a lot of low light high-ISO testing in the last few weeks and even up to ISO 12,800 the footage cleans up in post using temporal NR, which wouldn't work if the compression killed all the noise.
Punch-in focussing is available during recording, and pops up automatically if you touch the focus ring on a native lens, and has a custom amount of zoom.  I'd assume it's the same as previous cameras where you have an option to give you a punch-in box in the middle of the monitor, or for the whole monitor to show the punched-in part.  The focus peaking was also active within and outside the punched-in part of the screen.
The in-camera digital zoom is changed from previous models, and significantly improved at that.  It's quite different now.
Let's say I have my 9mm lens fitted.  I hit the button I have mapped it to (it's called Crop Zoom "CrZ") and it activates the feature, showing me the current focal length (9mm) and there are a bunch of ways to get it to smoothly zoom in and out, displaying the current equivalent focal length as it goes (10mm, then 11mm, etc).  
The function is integrated into the zoom controls for the powered zoom lenses too, so I think you can zoom in and it will zoom the lens in as much as it can and then (if enabled) it will keep zooming in with the digital zoom.
I thought the idea was it will keep zooming in until it gets to a 1:1 sensor read-out and then won't go any further, but the manual just lists some rather arbitrary zoom amounts.  With my 9mm lens, if I shoot with the C4K mode it will go to 11mm, but on the 1080p mode it will zoom in to 24mm.
In my tests I've found that the in-camera cropped images are free from artefacts, and I'd even zoom in/out during recording using it if I felt the need to.  
I'd happily use it for S16 cropping, or any other cropping you wanted.  Perhaps the only caveat is that if you wanted to crop more than the 1.3x it will do in C4K, or 1.4x in UHD, then you have to use the 1080p mode, and that mode seems to have a slightly different look to the images, a bit more like the OG BM cameras in that it looks like a lower-resolution sensor readout.  It's got a bit of that lower-resolution more sharpening look to it, rather than a higher-res-downscaled look to it.  It's subtle, but it's there.  It's still high-quality, but just compared to the 4K modes it's noticeable.
I've been doing lots of tests for my next ballooning trip, and these include low-light testing.  I figured I'd take my 14-140mm zoom for when the light is sufficient, and I'll take my new 9mm F1.7 as my ultra-wide, but was wondering if the 9mm could be my low-light non-wide lens as well.  
I did two tests.
The first test was an ultra-low-light test.  
I tested:
- GX85 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F1.4
- GX85 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F2
- GH7 with 9mm F1.7 at F1.7 (shot in C4K and cropped to be 17mm FOV in-post)
- GH7 with 9mm F1.7 at F1.7 (shot in 1080p and cropped in-camera to be 17mm FOV)
- GH7 with 12-35mm F2.8 at F2.8 and 17mm
- GH7 with 14-140mm at 17mm
- GH7 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F1.4
- GH7 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F2.0
- GH7 with Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95 manual prime at F0.95
- GH7 with Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95 manual prime at F1.4
- GH7 with Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95 manual prime at F2.0
I reviewed all of them with just a 709 conversion, with NR/sharpening, and with tonnes of NR/sharpening.
This is a test of lots of things being traded-off against each other, as the slower lenses all needed a higher ISO, and the 9mm was sharp wide-open and brighter but also pulling from a smaller sensor area, but I didn't upload to YT so it's not a full pipeline test.
The result was that the Voigtlander won, the TTartisans at F2.0 was good, the 12-35 was good, but the 9mm was still acceptable and waaaaaay better than the GX85 + TTartisans wide open (which was what I shot the previous outing with and I found to be disappointing - the combo of the TTartisans at F1.4 combined with the GX85 ISO6400 was just a killer combo).  
I also tested the 9mm F1.7 wide-open vs the 12-35mm F2.8 stopped down to F4.0 against each other in good lighting and native ISO and using the 1080p in-camera zoom to match focal lengths.
I reviewed all of them with just a 709 conversion, with NR/sharpening, and with NR/sharpening put through my FLC pipeline (which includes softening the image slightly and adding grain).  I didn't upload it to YT either, so it's not a full-pipeline test but was a good indicator of it.
I found that the 9mm zoomed to 12mm was equivalent to the 12-35mm, at 18m it was noticeably softer, and at 24mm it was really noticeable and getting into vintage territory.  
I can post some stills if you're really curious.

Went for a wander in the rain over the weekend with the GH7 and this lens:

I applied some filmic colours and a bit of grain, but the halation / bloom / softness / flares are all the lens.








Just remember, the less you pay for a lens, the more fun it is.... and this lens is a lot of fun.

I have a new setup and pipeline and I'm really happy with it.
GH7 shooting V-Log in C4K Prores 422 internally, at around 500Mbps 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 lens for daytime, 12-35mm F2.8 for night-time K&F True Colour 1-5 stop vND Pipeline in Resolve: CST to DWG as working colour space Plugin for basic shot adjustments Film Look Creator for overall look (and for taking the digititis out of the image) ARRI709 LUT to get to 709 output I went on a walk on Monday to test the full setup, and it was a crazy hot day (37C/99F) and direct midday sun, so seriously challenging conditions.  Here are a few grabs (be sure to click-through rather than viewing the preview files embedded in the post).










My notes and impressions - while shooting:
Setup was GH7, 14-140mm lens, vND, and a wrist-strap and that's it I used the integrated screen, showing histogram, zebras, and focus-peaking to monitor I used back-button focus to AF before hitting record, so no AF-C going on while shooting (and randomly changing its mind about what to focus on) All shots were 14-140mm at F5.6 for constant exposure The K&F 1-5 stop vND had enough range, when combined with the DR of the GH7, so I never needed to change settings, despite going in and out of shadow (and even inside, which isn't included in the above images) The vND had a much more consistent sky and colour render than my old (crappy) vND, so I'm really happy with it I did ETTR and bring images down in post, but my tests indicated that V-LOG is very linear so there are a good few stops of latitude there The "tripod mode" of IBIS, which locks the frame completely, was very effective (despite me being hot and not having eaten for hours) and I could hand-hold past 70mm without it needing to drift, and even at 140mm (280mm FF equivalent) the shots will be fine with a bit of stabilisation in post (C4K on 1080p timeline) I shot about 18mins of footage in about 1.5 hours, camera was on most of the time with screen at full brightness, and didn't get any notifications about the battery, and didn't look to see how much was left since I have a spare My notes and impressions - in post:
I chose a Film Look Creator preset and then just messed with it for maybe 10 mins, while scrolling back and forth through the footage, and I deliberately pushed the contrast to create a really strong sense of the contrast between the beating sun and the deep shadows Shots had exposure adjusted (obviously, due to ETTR) and some had contrast lowered and a few had slight WB tweaks, but that's it I never felt like I was fighting with the footage, and it didn't feel like work when creating the look..  I've shot with a lot of cheap cameras with tiny sensors and you always feel like you're trying to make gold out of lead, but playing in the FLC was more like choosing between a large range of high-quality options I used another copy of the FLC to adjust exposure etc per shot, with it set to not impart and 'look'.  The advantage of that is that in Resolve there is a mode (Shift-F) that maximises the preview image and gets rid of the GUI except for the vertical toolbar on the right-hand-side where the DCTL and OFX plugins are, so it's a way of getting almost a full-screen view but keeping the controls visible..  very useful if you don't have a control surface or a second monitor handy. I'll talk more about my thought process and how I got to this setup in a later post, and also go into some of the technical stuff (DR, high-ISO, etc) but more importantly than that, I finally feel like the tech has come of age.
What I mean by that is that I now have a setup where:
I can shoot with a conveniently sized setup that doesn't need a rig and is ergonomic to use It has the right usability features, such as histograms, zebras, focus-peaking etc internally The monitor is bright enough The GH7 plus lenses (14-140mm F3.5-5.6 and 12-35mm F2.8) are long enough and fast enough to shoot what I see, without being too large, heavy, or prohibitively expensive It has enough spec that it can deal with almost all the situations that I actually shoot in, with enough DR for the sun, enough ISO for night-time, and fans so it doesn't overheat before I do, etc It shoots internally using a colour space and codec that don't look cheap/amateurish and make me think about upgrading It doesn't fight with me in the colour grade Resolve and the Film Look Creator are able to easily give me the flexibility in post to match images and correct any weaknesses from shooting (e.g. if there's a bit of movement when shooting hand-held at 140mm) Resolve and the Film Look Creator are able to remove the 'digital/video' look and instead give me a range of options that don't look artificial and most importantly, contribute a feeling to the footage without distracting from the content of the images (this is, after all, the entire purpose of what we're doing here.....) For the first time it feels like I'm getting the results I want because of the equipment I have, rather than in spite of it.

Sharpness seems very natural to me, although I am not at the level of pixel peeing as others around!
What I can say is that the Prores feels like Prores from a cinema camera.  So the files edit like butter, the grain is well captured and not removed / crunched, etc.  I've done quite a lot of low light high-ISO testing in the last few weeks and even up to ISO 12,800 the footage cleans up in post using temporal NR, which wouldn't work if the compression killed all the noise.
Punch-in focussing is available during recording, and pops up automatically if you touch the focus ring on a native lens, and has a custom amount of zoom.  I'd assume it's the same as previous cameras where you have an option to give you a punch-in box in the middle of the monitor, or for the whole monitor to show the punched-in part.  The focus peaking was also active within and outside the punched-in part of the screen.
The in-camera digital zoom is changed from previous models, and significantly improved at that.  It's quite different now.
Let's say I have my 9mm lens fitted.  I hit the button I have mapped it to (it's called Crop Zoom "CrZ") and it activates the feature, showing me the current focal length (9mm) and there are a bunch of ways to get it to smoothly zoom in and out, displaying the current equivalent focal length as it goes (10mm, then 11mm, etc).  
The function is integrated into the zoom controls for the powered zoom lenses too, so I think you can zoom in and it will zoom the lens in as much as it can and then (if enabled) it will keep zooming in with the digital zoom.
I thought the idea was it will keep zooming in until it gets to a 1:1 sensor read-out and then won't go any further, but the manual just lists some rather arbitrary zoom amounts.  With my 9mm lens, if I shoot with the C4K mode it will go to 11mm, but on the 1080p mode it will zoom in to 24mm.
In my tests I've found that the in-camera cropped images are free from artefacts, and I'd even zoom in/out during recording using it if I felt the need to.  
I'd happily use it for S16 cropping, or any other cropping you wanted.  Perhaps the only caveat is that if you wanted to crop more than the 1.3x it will do in C4K, or 1.4x in UHD, then you have to use the 1080p mode, and that mode seems to have a slightly different look to the images, a bit more like the OG BM cameras in that it looks like a lower-resolution sensor readout.  It's got a bit of that lower-resolution more sharpening look to it, rather than a higher-res-downscaled look to it.  It's subtle, but it's there.  It's still high-quality, but just compared to the 4K modes it's noticeable.
I've been doing lots of tests for my next ballooning trip, and these include low-light testing.  I figured I'd take my 14-140mm zoom for when the light is sufficient, and I'll take my new 9mm F1.7 as my ultra-wide, but was wondering if the 9mm could be my low-light non-wide lens as well.  
I did two tests.
The first test was an ultra-low-light test.  
I tested:
- GX85 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F1.4
- GX85 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F2
- GH7 with 9mm F1.7 at F1.7 (shot in C4K and cropped to be 17mm FOV in-post)
- GH7 with 9mm F1.7 at F1.7 (shot in 1080p and cropped in-camera to be 17mm FOV)
- GH7 with 12-35mm F2.8 at F2.8 and 17mm
- GH7 with 14-140mm at 17mm
- GH7 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F1.4
- GH7 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F2.0
- GH7 with Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95 manual prime at F0.95
- GH7 with Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95 manual prime at F1.4
- GH7 with Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95 manual prime at F2.0
I reviewed all of them with just a 709 conversion, with NR/sharpening, and with tonnes of NR/sharpening.
This is a test of lots of things being traded-off against each other, as the slower lenses all needed a higher ISO, and the 9mm was sharp wide-open and brighter but also pulling from a smaller sensor area, but I didn't upload to YT so it's not a full pipeline test.
The result was that the Voigtlander won, the TTartisans at F2.0 was good, the 12-35 was good, but the 9mm was still acceptable and waaaaaay better than the GX85 + TTartisans wide open (which was what I shot the previous outing with and I found to be disappointing - the combo of the TTartisans at F1.4 combined with the GX85 ISO6400 was just a killer combo).  
I also tested the 9mm F1.7 wide-open vs the 12-35mm F2.8 stopped down to F4.0 against each other in good lighting and native ISO and using the 1080p in-camera zoom to match focal lengths.
I reviewed all of them with just a 709 conversion, with NR/sharpening, and with NR/sharpening put through my FLC pipeline (which includes softening the image slightly and adding grain).  I didn't upload it to YT either, so it's not a full-pipeline test but was a good indicator of it.
I found that the 9mm zoomed to 12mm was equivalent to the 12-35mm, at 18m it was noticeably softer, and at 24mm it was really noticeable and getting into vintage territory.  
I can post some stills if you're really curious.

Sharpness seems very natural to me, although I am not at the level of pixel peeing as others around!
What I can say is that the Prores feels like Prores from a cinema camera.  So the files edit like butter, the grain is well captured and not removed / crunched, etc.  I've done quite a lot of low light high-ISO testing in the last few weeks and even up to ISO 12,800 the footage cleans up in post using temporal NR, which wouldn't work if the compression killed all the noise.
Punch-in focussing is available during recording, and pops up automatically if you touch the focus ring on a native lens, and has a custom amount of zoom.  I'd assume it's the same as previous cameras where you have an option to give you a punch-in box in the middle of the monitor, or for the whole monitor to show the punched-in part.  The focus peaking was also active within and outside the punched-in part of the screen.
The in-camera digital zoom is changed from previous models, and significantly improved at that.  It's quite different now.
Let's say I have my 9mm lens fitted.  I hit the button I have mapped it to (it's called Crop Zoom "CrZ") and it activates the feature, showing me the current focal length (9mm) and there are a bunch of ways to get it to smoothly zoom in and out, displaying the current equivalent focal length as it goes (10mm, then 11mm, etc).  
The function is integrated into the zoom controls for the powered zoom lenses too, so I think you can zoom in and it will zoom the lens in as much as it can and then (if enabled) it will keep zooming in with the digital zoom.
I thought the idea was it will keep zooming in until it gets to a 1:1 sensor read-out and then won't go any further, but the manual just lists some rather arbitrary zoom amounts.  With my 9mm lens, if I shoot with the C4K mode it will go to 11mm, but on the 1080p mode it will zoom in to 24mm.
In my tests I've found that the in-camera cropped images are free from artefacts, and I'd even zoom in/out during recording using it if I felt the need to.  
I'd happily use it for S16 cropping, or any other cropping you wanted.  Perhaps the only caveat is that if you wanted to crop more than the 1.3x it will do in C4K, or 1.4x in UHD, then you have to use the 1080p mode, and that mode seems to have a slightly different look to the images, a bit more like the OG BM cameras in that it looks like a lower-resolution sensor readout.  It's got a bit of that lower-resolution more sharpening look to it, rather than a higher-res-downscaled look to it.  It's subtle, but it's there.  It's still high-quality, but just compared to the 4K modes it's noticeable.
I've been doing lots of tests for my next ballooning trip, and these include low-light testing.  I figured I'd take my 14-140mm zoom for when the light is sufficient, and I'll take my new 9mm F1.7 as my ultra-wide, but was wondering if the 9mm could be my low-light non-wide lens as well.  
I did two tests.
The first test was an ultra-low-light test.  
I tested:
- GX85 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F1.4
- GX85 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F2
- GH7 with 9mm F1.7 at F1.7 (shot in C4K and cropped to be 17mm FOV in-post)
- GH7 with 9mm F1.7 at F1.7 (shot in 1080p and cropped in-camera to be 17mm FOV)
- GH7 with 12-35mm F2.8 at F2.8 and 17mm
- GH7 with 14-140mm at 17mm
- GH7 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F1.4
- GH7 with TTartisans 17mm F1.4 manual prime at F2.0
- GH7 with Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95 manual prime at F0.95
- GH7 with Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95 manual prime at F1.4
- GH7 with Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95 manual prime at F2.0
I reviewed all of them with just a 709 conversion, with NR/sharpening, and with tonnes of NR/sharpening.
This is a test of lots of things being traded-off against each other, as the slower lenses all needed a higher ISO, and the 9mm was sharp wide-open and brighter but also pulling from a smaller sensor area, but I didn't upload to YT so it's not a full pipeline test.
The result was that the Voigtlander won, the TTartisans at F2.0 was good, the 12-35 was good, but the 9mm was still acceptable and waaaaaay better than the GX85 + TTartisans wide open (which was what I shot the previous outing with and I found to be disappointing - the combo of the TTartisans at F1.4 combined with the GX85 ISO6400 was just a killer combo).  
I also tested the 9mm F1.7 wide-open vs the 12-35mm F2.8 stopped down to F4.0 against each other in good lighting and native ISO and using the 1080p in-camera zoom to match focal lengths.
I reviewed all of them with just a 709 conversion, with NR/sharpening, and with NR/sharpening put through my FLC pipeline (which includes softening the image slightly and adding grain).  I didn't upload it to YT either, so it's not a full-pipeline test but was a good indicator of it.
I found that the 9mm zoomed to 12mm was equivalent to the 12-35mm, at 18m it was noticeably softer, and at 24mm it was really noticeable and getting into vintage territory.  
I can post some stills if you're really curious.

I have so much great footage I've taken with the gx80- the one that was used in that gx85 thread started way back when (and briefly became the most popular thread on EOSHD ever). Every camera I've used since (there have been many of all shapes and sizes) was either bigger, lacking features, or didn't have add significant improvements over it. In retrospect, I probably should have stuck with it and I would have saved a bundle and paid off my house that much quicker.
Just last night, I was live streaming via HDMI with my S9 (not recording) and the camera over-heated mid-session (about a hour in), something  my M43 cameras NEVER did. Granted, I don't think the S9 is made for what I was doing with it in a VERY hot attic (~35C), but still I wasn't even recording and I had a dummy battery. I guess the S5ii will now need to be doing that job and I'll set up my GH2 as a backup (just in case it happens again).

Think about selling it and see how you feel.  If you don't have a negative reaction to the thought, and it's not a practical choice, then sell it.  
If you do have a negative reaction to the thought of selling it, then think about how much you might get for it and what you could do with that money.  Then think about swapping the camera for those other things and see which gives more excitement.
Ultimately, if you're not shooting for money, then you're doing it for enjoyment, so ignore the specs and go with what would bring you the most happiness.
Thanks!
Not sure if I said this above, but my approach for the GX85 shots was to just apply enough of the film simulation in the FLC to get rid of the "video" look in the files, which I think was only about a third.  The GX85 has a strong look to begin with, so I didn't need to add much to the colours.  
After many years working out colour grading tools and techniques across lots of cameras I've worked out how to get images to not look so digital, but now I can do whatever I want with them, I have to now work out what I want!  It's a work in progress as everything is.
Prores V-Log on the GH7 is an absolute joy.
I have been doing some low-light testing over the last week or so in anticipation of my next balloon adventure, and I compared using a 17mm lens with using my new 9mm lens to get a 17mm FOV (firstly by shooting C4K Prores 422 and cropping to 17mm FOV in post, and also by shooting 1080p Prores HQ and cropping to 17mm in-camera) and even then, at ISOs of 5000 or more, the results were still not like the normal results from cheap cameras.  In the grade it feels like footage from any cinema camera I've tried - the controls all feel great and the image responds how you want it to without colour shifts etc.  Hell, I'm in groups where there are guys dealing with FPN from their RED cameras at base ISO that is worse than this camera has at ISO3200.
Absolutely!  There is something magical about this combo.  I don't know what, but it's a joy to use and the files just seem to have something special to them.
Dual GX85 bodies is a great way to go actually, and saves time in changing lenses all the time.  Great stuff!!

I have an outdoor shoot coming up and have been meaning to roll over my ND stuff.  Might give it a go.
https://shorturl.at/RWJJi
https://shorturl.at/TE7qr
 
 

I did a bunch of testing some time ago comparing them, and they were less different than I thought they would be, and the CineD and Natural seemed to have the same latitude.  I'm not sure if somewhere along the line I got confused between Natural and Standard though, so that might be something to test.
Years on, the conclusion I've come to about colour profiles is that if you're going to colour grade in post with any kind of sophistication (and now with the Film Look Creator tool and Resolve colour management we have incredibly sophisticated tools) then it probably doesn't matter which profile you use.
If I was limited to basic tools then I might just use CineD and be done with it.
It's just preference really.
The vND I'm using is the "K&F Concept 58mm True Color Variable ND2-32 (1-5 Stops) ND Lens Filter".  They offer one with a larger range, but it isn't the True Colour one so I suspect it has more colour shifts.  I've been really happy with it and my tests didn't show any colour shifts.  I asked some professional cinematographers for advice and they said this was the cheapest one they'd recommend, so I suspect this is entry level.  The NiSi ones were also recommended, but they're significantly more expensive.
As always, do your own research, but if you're curious I might have my tests somewhere.  

From what you've said I would strongly suggest you to use Manual mode and to customise the dials individually (like @ac6000cw posted above) to configure one dial to be ISO ("Sensitivity" in the manual) and Aperture on the other.
This would give you immediate control over the ISO (which you should only raise once the lens is wide open and there isn't enough exposure) and Aperture.
This gives the advantage of the exposure of the shot not changing automatically during the shot.  This is almost always something you want to avoid.  Like I explained earlier - you don't want the exposure going up and down when bright objects come in and out of frame in the background.
In situations where you do want the exposure to be adjusted during the shot, for example if you're moving from a light location to a dark one, or if lights get turned on/off, you can adjust these things with the dials.  This will result in the exposure suddenly changing during the shot, rather than it gradually transitioning (as auto-ISO will do) but this is actually an advantage in post instead of a disadvantage.
This is because if you need to adjust exposure during a shot then in post you can just chop the clip up into a few pieces (on the exact frames that the exposure changed when you changed the dials) and can automate the it from there.  The challenge you have when using auto-ISO is that every shot where the exposure is drifting up and down will need to be adjusted with curves to compensate for what the camera did, and this can take literally hours.
I shot a rodeo once using auto-ISO and a guy fell and the bull went over him, nearly treading on him, and so my framing went: him on top of the bull, pan down to him on the ground under the bull, him on the ground after the bull has run off.  The exposure was all over the place as the elements in the frame changed and the camera "helped" me with exposure.  The exposure automations I had to use to create an exposure that looked like nothing happened were complicated and took me literally hours.  Had I shot it using one exposure then I could have just used a single exposure automation to bring up the exposure would have only taken minutes, and even if I'd have adjusted aperture or ISO during the shot it would only have added a few minutes in post to chop it up and adjust each segment individually.
As you saw from my stress tests above, there is a lot of latitude in the files, so I cannot imagine that many situations where you'd want to change exposure during the shot.
I used to be a full-auto shooter, and shot like that for years, listening to people online about how doing things manually was better.  Now we have better tools in post, I have now fully switched to manual shooting as I've been through the pain of adjusting things in post to compensate for the camera wandering around.  
Just looked.  I have -5 Contrast, -5 Sharpness and -5 NR, and 0 Saturation.
There is a whole topic about why I have set these the way I have, but that's what I recommend.
5600K makes things look like what they actually look like.
I shot for years using auto-WB and just couldn't make things look natural in post, they always looked like something was off in some way.  This solves that issue.  I found that when shooting in available light, even doing a custom WB on a grey-card gives a worse result than just using 5600K.
I'd encourage you to set it to 5600K and carry the camera around with you in a pocket for a day with the smallest lens you can find and just take a 1s clip of every location you can find.  Then pull them all into your NLE and see how they look.  You might be surprised at how well it works across all the different situations.  
If you can, take it to some night markets where vendors are selling food from vans and people are selling low-value items.  You will find the most incredible variety of ultra-low-quality lighting imaginable, as every vendor will buy the cheapest LED lights they could find at the time.  Trying to "correct" for these lights will be futile, but the footage should still be a representation of the environment you shot in, even if it won't look like a beauty commercial.
 
A note on testing...  I shoot in similar situations to those you have mentioned, and I have come to the conclusions I have come to via lots of experience and an incredible amount of testing.
Testing is so important to getting good results because so often you are convinced of something and then do a test to verify your opinions and find that the results are radically different than what you were expecting.  So many people online are full of opinions that are so easily proven to be false with only a few minutes of real-life testing.
I'm not sure if you've come across any cinematographers doing latitude testing of a cinema camera, but it's very telling that cinematographers (whenever possible) will do camera and lens and lighting tests prior to shooting a TV series or movie, and it seems like no-one doing videography or photography does these or talks about them.  Hell, I was looking at a lens the other day and couldn't even find anyone who published test images at different apertures to see how the lens performed wide open vs stopped down.  I found lots of photography bloggers who published lots of images and had lots to say, but testing?  Nah.... 
Professionals test, amateurs guess.

Think about selling it and see how you feel.  If you don't have a negative reaction to the thought, and it's not a practical choice, then sell it.  
If you do have a negative reaction to the thought of selling it, then think about how much you might get for it and what you could do with that money.  Then think about swapping the camera for those other things and see which gives more excitement.
Ultimately, if you're not shooting for money, then you're doing it for enjoyment, so ignore the specs and go with what would bring you the most happiness.
Thanks!
Not sure if I said this above, but my approach for the GX85 shots was to just apply enough of the film simulation in the FLC to get rid of the "video" look in the files, which I think was only about a third.  The GX85 has a strong look to begin with, so I didn't need to add much to the colours.  
After many years working out colour grading tools and techniques across lots of cameras I've worked out how to get images to not look so digital, but now I can do whatever I want with them, I have to now work out what I want!  It's a work in progress as everything is.
Prores V-Log on the GH7 is an absolute joy.
I have been doing some low-light testing over the last week or so in anticipation of my next balloon adventure, and I compared using a 17mm lens with using my new 9mm lens to get a 17mm FOV (firstly by shooting C4K Prores 422 and cropping to 17mm FOV in post, and also by shooting 1080p Prores HQ and cropping to 17mm in-camera) and even then, at ISOs of 5000 or more, the results were still not like the normal results from cheap cameras.  In the grade it feels like footage from any cinema camera I've tried - the controls all feel great and the image responds how you want it to without colour shifts etc.  Hell, I'm in groups where there are guys dealing with FPN from their RED cameras at base ISO that is worse than this camera has at ISO3200.
Absolutely!  There is something magical about this combo.  I don't know what, but it's a joy to use and the files just seem to have something special to them.
Dual GX85 bodies is a great way to go actually, and saves time in changing lenses all the time.  Great stuff!!

I did a bunch of testing some time ago comparing them, and they were less different than I thought they would be, and the CineD and Natural seemed to have the same latitude.  I'm not sure if somewhere along the line I got confused between Natural and Standard though, so that might be something to test.
Years on, the conclusion I've come to about colour profiles is that if you're going to colour grade in post with any kind of sophistication (and now with the Film Look Creator tool and Resolve colour management we have incredibly sophisticated tools) then it probably doesn't matter which profile you use.
If I was limited to basic tools then I might just use CineD and be done with it.
It's just preference really.
The vND I'm using is the "K&F Concept 58mm True Color Variable ND2-32 (1-5 Stops) ND Lens Filter".  They offer one with a larger range, but it isn't the True Colour one so I suspect it has more colour shifts.  I've been really happy with it and my tests didn't show any colour shifts.  I asked some professional cinematographers for advice and they said this was the cheapest one they'd recommend, so I suspect this is entry level.  The NiSi ones were also recommended, but they're significantly more expensive.
As always, do your own research, but if you're curious I might have my tests somewhere.  

I bought myself a second GX85. It will hopefully arrive this week. Comes with the 12-32, which I already own and enjoyed using for some test clips with the og pocket. I think I should let go my GM5, as it was more an object of desire than being a practical artists tool for me.
What do you guys think? Prices are pretty nice and high for these at the moment. Mine is orange and in a very good shape. Much usage would rub the faux leather off I think.
I love the subtle color grade @kye Great results with your GX85 cinema beast.:) Btw I really love the colors of the GX' raw files when taking photos . This camera is perfect for street and to carry along. Anyway, how is Prores on the GH7?:) Any nasty artefacts? Awesome to hear and read about your findings with this exciting camera, Kye!

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.