The GX85 "Super-16" project

[kye]

21 hours ago, PPNS said:

looks nice, hides the clipping well

Thanks!  The colour part of the emulation (which has the rolloff in it) is just a preset in the Resolve Film Look Creator (IIRC the Fujifilm one, but if not that one then it'll be the Kodak one).  

Other parts of the emulation I've had to go DIY and disable those parts of the FLC, but no-one has said anything bad about the colour profile so that seems to be good.

6 hours ago, Clark Nikolai said:

In my opinion, you've made it there!

Thanks!

I was just thinking about where it's at and next steps and I realised that there are a few things I hadn't done yet, but feedback suggests that it's fine how it is, so that's amusing.  One of the things I had noted was that apparently the size of the grains is different in the shadows vs highlights, so I was thinking about different ways to implement that, but maybe I just won't bother!

[Clark Nikolai]

2 hours ago, kye said:

 One of the things I had noted was that apparently the size of the grains is different in the shadows vs highlights, so I was thinking about different ways to implement that, but maybe I just won't bother!

Probably anything you do from now on is just for fun.

What ways would you implement this? If it was me it would be a two or three layers, each with a lumakey for a brightness range, then different grain size on each one.

[kye]

12 minutes ago, Clark Nikolai said:

Probably anything you do from now on is just for fun.

What ways would you implement this? If it was me it would be a two or three layers, each with a lumakey for a brightness range, then different grain size on each one.

I'd use a little known plugin called Tilt Shift Blur (TSB), which comes with Resolve but is very special in a critical aspect.

Normally if you have a node and give it a key then the node calculates things as normal and then uses the key as a transparency effect, so if you used a large Gaussian Blur and gave it a key then you'd get a huge blur mixed with the sharp image at the level of transparency the key dictated.  However, with the TSB, the key defines the size of the blur, so you can vary the size of the blur that way.
For this purpose I'd give it a luma key of the image and adjust the contrast and amount to control the relative amount of blur between the lighter and darker parts of the image.

The TSB is what I use to soften the edges of the frame in my lens emulation nodes, which allows there to be no blur in the centre and it gradually transition to having a larger and larger blurring towards the edges.

The fact that the key input acts as a transparency control really doesn't make much sense when applying most OFX plugins and I'm surprised they haven't made more of them smart like the TSB one where it uses the key as an input to control one or more of the OFX parameters.

[PannySVHS]

@Framed_By_Dan

Afaik the Lumix GX9 has a 1:1 readout in 4K, covering exactely S16 image width, with a 2.8 crop of FF. So even a 10 or 12mm S16 lens should work perfectly in 4K.

[Framed_By_Dan]

6 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

@Framed_By_Dan

Afaik the Lumix GX9 has a 1:1 readout in 4K, covering exactely S16 image width, with a 2.8 crop of FF. So even a 10 or 12mm S16 lens should work perfectly in 4K.

I've always tried to figure out what the crop was in 4K.

Always assumed it might have been 2.3x, similar to the GH4 but it definitely feels a bit more than that.

[PannySVHS]

On 6/15/2026 at 12:17 AM, Framed_By_Dan said:

I've always tried to figure out what the crop was in 4K.

Always assumed it might have been 2.3x, similar to the GH4 but it definitely feels a bit more than that.

Should be the exact crop of the GH5 in UHD Extele mode, which is pixel to pixel and has about a 1.4 crop factor of the Mft sensor. GH5 and GX9 have the same sensor resolution.

[kye]

4 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Should be the exact crop of the GH5 in UHD Extele mode, which is pixel to pixel and has about a 1.4 crop factor of the Mft sensor. GH5 and GX9 have the same sensor resolution.

So the GX85 has a 1.1x (2.2x compared to FF) and the GX9 has a significantly larger crop despite being newer and the replacement model?  That's disappointing!

[PannySVHS]

5 hours ago, kye said:

So the GX85 has a 1.1x (2.2x compared to FF) and the GX9 has a significantly larger crop despite being newer and the replacement model?  That's disappointing!

That would make it perfect for my 10mm Cmount, not so perfect in regards of noise in 4K, compared to the GX85. The GX85 hack from @BTM_Pix allowed a forum member to get 200mbps HD running on the GX9. The stock HD is supposed to be very good in regards to resolution looking at the dpreview comparison tool. I am tempted to check this camera out sometime. I still love and use my GX85 btw. The 8bit 4K is indeed amazingly good for what it is and grades better than it should allowed to do in regards of spec sheet numbers. Nice results you are achieving with yours. @kye

[Anaconda_]

have you guys seen Spektrafilm? It now has an OFX plugin, and possibly an ios app on the way too, and it's free!

https://spektrafilm.114c.de/

[kye]

8 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

That would make it perfect for my 10mm Cmount, not so perfect in regards of noise in 4K, compared to the GX85. The GX85 hack from @BTM_Pix allowed a forum member to get 200mbps HD running on the GX9. The stock HD is supposed to be very good in regards to resolution looking at the dpreview comparison tool. I am tempted to check this camera out sometime. I still love and use my GX85 btw. The 8bit 4K is indeed amazingly good for what it is and grades better than it should allowed to do in regards of spec sheet numbers. Nice results you are achieving with yours. @kye

I had ruled out the GX9 for some reason, thinking it didn't have IBIS, and then I randomly heard that it did have IBIS and so I got confused about why I had written it off, so hearing about the crop made me wonder if that was potentially the reason.

200Mbps is a great bitrate, especially for HD!  I don't recall hearing about this.

56 minutes ago, Anaconda_ said:

have you guys seen Spektrafilm? It now has an OFX plugin, and possibly an ios app on the way too, and it's free!

https://spektrafilm.114c.de/

Yes - there's even a thread about it that just started!

 

I haven't looked at it myself yet, but if it's a one-stop solution for film emulation then it seems promising.  I've heard it's pretty slow still, but it's still early days and perhaps optimisations will change that at some point.

For me, and this GX85 Super-16mm film camera project, it was more about the GX85 and me finding a place for it.  I have equipment I like, shooting situations / scenarios I prefer to shoot, and images I like, and the goal is to find combinations that work well.

This project has resulted in me successfully discovering and developing the combination of:

• GX85 plus 14mm F2.5 pancake lens at 1x / 2x / 4x digital zoom
• Shooting street scenes in uncontrolled / available light, hand-held, from waist height
• Passable S16mm film camera emulation for gritty images with a strong vibe

I'm actually really heartened by the GX85 and will be testing how far I can push it in other ways.  Emulating a S16 camera is a lot easier than a S35mm camera, for example, so I'll see how I go with that.  I'm effectively done with the S16 film camera emulation but not done at all with pushing to get the most from the GX85.