Coming back to the GX85 for more organic looks

[kye]

My mind keeps coming back to the GX85, and I've realised that (yet again) it's far more capable than I'd given it credit for.

To this end, I did some additional testing by shooting some night cinema on Halloween.  This batch has my Super-16mm film emulation on them, but there's other grades below.

What I've worked out is that there's an incredible synergy between the:

• The GX85 itself (of course!) paired with small lenses 
• Resolve and the Film Look Creator
• The 1x, 2x, and 4x in-camera digital zoom function

It will come as no surprise to anyone here that the GX85 combined with small lenses provides a very small and light rig, the tilt screen and customisable buttons gives great ergonomics, and the assist features are great too (setting the display to B&W, have coloured focus peaking enabled, exposure meter and the histogram all combine to give a great UI that doesn't need an external monitor).

Where the synergy comes in is using the in-camera crop modes combined with the Film Look Creator in Resolve.

If you like the look of Super-16mm film, then the 1x and 2x and 4x modes are all usable and give the following FOVs with my tiny lenses:

• Panasonic 14mm F2.5 AF lens gives 31mm at 1x, 62mm at 2x, and 124mm at 4x
• Panasonic 25mm F1.7 AF lens gives 55mm / 110mm / 220mm FOVs
• TTartisans 17mm F1.4 MF lens is faster than the above and gives 37mm / 75mm / 150mm FOVs
• Risespray 35mm F1.6 MF lens is fast too and gives 77mm / 154mm / 300mm FOVs

If you prefer the extra resolution of Super-35mm film then you're still good with the 1x and 2x modes, but the 4x might be a little too soft depending on your tastes.  It does depend on the lens though, and lots of stuff shot on S35 in the past was on lenses that weren't as sharp as the GX85 4x mode.

Having the combo of a 31mm / 62mm FOVs, or 37mm / 75mm can be incredible for shooting events and street stuff, not to mention travel and general out and about shooting.  It's even quicker than using a zoom because you don't even need to re-focus when swapping FOVs! 

Here's the 1x, 2x and 4x on the 25mm with my custom S16 emulation which also includes a lens emulation too:

If those are too retro / soft / degraded, these are with a 35mm grade and without the lens emulation, so should be a bit cleaner:

Or you can make it cleaner again by lowering the diffusion a touch and adding a tiny bit of sharpening under the emulation:

and here's the 1x / 2x / 4x with that grade:

Hell, you could even use the 65mm setting, which when combined with some sharpening looks like this:

I'm not sure if it's going to replace my GH7 as my main camera, but in situations when I don't need the extra DR or IBIS modes, it's a real contender for sure.

The level of enthusiasm about the new GoPro shows there's interest in smaller camera packages and having used the setup again I'm reminded why - the experience is so freeing.  The GoPro has advantages over the GX85 for sure, but for this type of shooting, the GX85 with its IBIS wins hands-down for me.  Also, the better at grading I get, the less I miss the OG BMPCC and the more I feel the GX85 does what I want the OG BMPCC to do.