RED Komodo to start limited shipping soon for $6k

I'm liking what I'm seeing from Komodo so far. Need to see way more footage to really get a sense of it.

However, I don't understand the people who want to pay $1000 extra just to have the camera be a different color. I mean, seriously, who cares what the camera looks like?
 
It's not about the color(s), but about getting them right now versus 3-4-5+ months later.

Highly popular and dominant technique in sales as patience is truly tested for many when availability is offered and at your fingertips.
 
Jaime Valles said:
I'm liking what I'm seeing from Komodo so far. Need to see way more footage to really get a sense of it.

However, I don't understand the people who want to pay $1000 extra just to have the camera be a different color. I mean, seriously, who cares what the camera looks like?
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Early adopters. My understanding this is a very limited pre-production run of non-standard colors. When the regular production starts cameras will be black in color.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EgnjXJh9ms&t=314s
 
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NorBro said:
It's not about the color(s), but about getting them right now versus 3-4-5+ months later.

Highly popular and dominant technique in sales as patience is truly tested for many when availability is offered and at your finger tips.
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And it's RED. These are a lot of the same people that name their cameras, list the serial numbers like they somehow mean something to anyone and talk about this camera like it's a live animal. It's actually pretty embarrassing, especially if you are a professional, and you act like some of these people do over a camera. I mean I don't think little kids acted like this over Cabbage Patch Dolls, Beanie Babies or Tickle Me Elmo. You could probably tell these same people that the cure or vaccine for CV had just been released and they'd be like, "cool... whateve". But give them a footage clip or drop a tech spec and they're dancing around and dropping sycophantic Thank You's like you had just saved their kids life.
 
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Run&Gun said:
And it's RED. These are a lot of the same people that name their cameras, list the serial numbers like they somehow mean something to anyone and talk about this camera like it's a live animal. It's actually pretty embarrassing, especially if you are a professional, and you act like some of these people do over a camera. I mean I don't think little kids acted like this over Cabbage Patch Dolls, Beanie Babies or Tickle Me Elmo. You could probably tell these same people that the cure or vaccine for CV had just been released and they'd be like, "cool... whateve". But give them a footage clip or drop a tech spec and they're dancing around and dropping sycophantic Thank You's like you had just saved their kids life.
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It isn't a hard and fast rule but usually, the amount of talent is inverse to the amount of gear fetishism involved. Writing reviews and articles about gear, I truly think there is a fairly sizeable group of people who really live for equipment fetishism.
They might occasionally make a video, social media post or "project", but their main thing seems to be the buying, selling and festishizing of their gear. You see how many pieces of gear are sold here that are a year old and barely, if ever used and that
has to make you wonder what the heck are people doing, buying a $50k camera, using it once, then selling it at a considerable loss.

It's funny, I write about gear and love learning about it, how it works, why it was designed that way, where the manufacturer succeeded and failed. But for all of the gear I write about, I mostly don't care about gear very much. I appreciate gear that just gets the heck out
of my way and let's me do my work, creating stories. Coming from the analog era and being in the business at the dawn of the digital revolution, I'm mostly thrilled with almost all of the semi-pro and pro gear on the market. Compared to the gear I owned and used
when I first got into production, everything today is so cheap, so good and so easy to use, I just marvel at a lot of it. The Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro. What it can do for under $600.00 is astounding. My Sound Devices Mix Pre 3, if this would have existed when
I owned my audio post facility and people were using these back then, instead of $20 Nagra reel to reels, it would have completely revolutionized location sound. A device this good with this amazing sound and ease of use for just $700.00.

So many people get into gear tribalism, which I find incredibly boring and pointless. An amazing amount of people wrap up their personal image and indentity in the gear that they choose to buy and use, which to me, is amongst some of the most puzzling and bizarre human behaviors
I ever seen. RED people are generally members in this club, it's that buying into a lifestyle, aspirational marketing thing, which, for a camera, is a pretty strange idea to me, it's just a camera. I kind of get it with cars, boats, planes as they transport your body physically, they literally change your world, but a camera
is a just a sensor in a box, it truly is just a tool to accomplish a job although it can become an extension of your minds eye, which I guess is something? But the whole thing of brand X people attacking Brand Y people because they don't use Brand X's camera and think Brand Y cameras are
better, I just shake my head, I dont understand that.
 
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puredrifting said:
It isn't a hard and fast rule but usually, the amount of talent is inverse to the amount of gear fetishism involved.
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For that matter, many of the full-time camera bloggers have truly awful shooting. They know more about cameras and codecs than I ever will, and when you see their shots you realize how little all that matters. Technique, composition, shot concept...

It reminds me of a story I heard about a famous violinist. After a concert, someone comes up to him and says, "Your violin sounds so beautiful!" He puts his violin up to his ear and says, "I hear nothing."
 
Fetishism aside, we're kidding ourselves if we say we don't care about technology. If the camera hadn't been invented, we'd all be painting or drawing or sharing oral traditions.

Komodo is definitely a cool camera, mostly because of the codecs and the global shutter. That being said, I think if I really needed a Komodo I would just buy a Pocket 6K. It still doesn't have the technologies that are inducing me to upgrade from the S1.

I was happy with my GH5 but needed better low-light to compete with Sony shooters, so I bought the S1. If it had good AF and no-crop 60p, I would stick with the S1.

The A7SII has remained remarkably popular for several years, perhaps because of its position in the Sony line-up as the "video" model. (It's actually the most-rented item on kitsplit or lensrentals.) That's what I'm hoping for with the R5 or A7SIII - something you don't need to upgrade for 4-5 years, even as new offerings arrive.
 
I thought of registering on the Red forum just to ask what people were seeing in the first Komodo footage that I wasn't. It would have been a genuine question because so far I prefer the Canon C300/3 and C500/2 footage that I've seen. But I have slowly learnt that that way madness lies. The amount of flack would have made WW2 bomber pilots wince. I know it's all pre-production stuff but I see nothing of the "awesomeness" that the fanboys see. I like the concept of the Komodo, small size, global shutter, but for me to choose it over the 300/500 I would need to see better footage than the Canons. I'll reserve judgement until I can get my hands on both cameras and until then, my pants are staying completely dry.

And I think one of the best signatures here is puredrifting's: it's a business first and a creative outlet second.
G.A.S. destroys lives. Stop buying gear that doesn't make you money.
 
Stewhem,

the Komodo has some pretty great improvements.

1. possibly the best dynamic range ever seen in a global shutter cinema camera.

2. fixed "red dot flare pattern" issue.

3. improved CMOS smear. Possibly the best performance of any CMOS camera

4. and since Red cameras do less in camera processing for things like correcting noise or colour shift, this sensor improves the colour shift in the shadows. Most other RED cameras just shift magenta or green. even the C500mkii, with all the in camera processing shifts green(in raw) in the shadows and displays FPN at iso12,800(raw or XF). The magenta or Green shift in the shadows on RED's can be fixed in post, to a degree, but with the Komodo, it won't need to be.

Those are things that are kind of cool for anyone who shoots video. The footage posted so far have been very informative in that way.
 
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All that is true, but it may not be as important to Stewhem. (You could argue that it's important to everybody, whether they think so or not.)

I think those considerations are in line with what makes the tuba above so expensive - handling edge cases and technical issues that are uncommon and not always easily discernible.

But yeah Komodo has cool stuff going on. I didn't mean in my earlier post that it doesn't have advantages over the Pocket 6K, just that those advantages might not be worth the price difference to me personally. (At any rate, I'll probably buy neither, much as I would like to.)
 
We already kind of went over this, so no need to rehash it but: as long as we're not shooting into the sun or a point light (lamp shades are often OK) we won't clip the signal. And if we don't clip the signal we'll be left with a flat, greyish looking file, regardless of camera.

From here, the content creator can go in a million directions. What we're seeing online is the result of camera+intent. From time to time we download a raw frame and we can all start fresh. But just look at the frame in the thread where I ask for 1Dx mk3 footage: people will take the same starting point and end up in different places. So it isn't strange then, that some will love and some will frown at graded footage. We're looking for different things.

For me it makes sense to try to understand the promise the raw file holds. That will be the base quality of the file/footage + my skill set in developing it. Depending on this and what other camera(s) we might want to intercut with, it's easier to arrive at a sound conclusion.
 
AndreeOnline said:
We already kind of went over this, so no need to rehash it but: as long as we're not shooting into the sun or a point light (lamp shades are often OK) we won't clip the signal. And if we don't clip the signal we'll be left with a flat, greyish looking file, regardless of camera.

From here, the content creator can go in a million directions. What we're seeing online is the result of camera+intent. From time to time we download a raw frame and we can all start fresh. But just look at the frame in the thread where I ask for 1Dx mk3 footage: people will take the same starting point and end up in different places. So it isn't strange then, that some will love and some will frown at graded footage. We're looking for different things.

For me it makes sense to try to understand the promise the raw file holds. That will be the base quality of the file/footage + my skill set in developing it. Depending on this and what other camera(s) we might want to intercut with, it's easier to arrive at a sound conclusion.
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Well said.
 
Hi Guys. Yes, the Komodo does sound promising and despite the marketing style of Red, and their fanboy base, I've always admired their ability to shake the market up. So I have an open mind and am keen to get my hands on one. All the specs don't really mean much these days as they are spun by the marketing departments. Some do, like global shutter, but then that's just one element, albeit an attractive one as the DR doesn't seem to suffer. I think for me colour quality is one of the main criteria and Canon are up with the best IMHO. Also, having owned a few Canon still and video cameras over the years, their reliability is proven to me, and that's another big factor. But as I said, hands on is the only way to evaluate them. I sold my C300 mk2 because I couldn't get on with its "tower block" approach to its body shape. I always found my box-like Hasselbalds (analogue and later digital) easy to handle and that's something you can't get from spec sheets. But it's surely good to get another one to choose from so no complaints from me.

And I agree with Andree: they are all so good these days if we can't get a good image out of them then we need more lessons. Or find another way or earning a living.
 
if we can't get a good image out of them then we need more lessons.
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We need to stop saying this, at least on DVXuser. Cameras are technical wonders, but their image quality is just ok. There are thousands of shooters that are out performing cameras capabilities every day.
 
Pat Forestell said:
What's the highest rez at 29.97 frame rate (Komodo) ?
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Hey Pat, as far as I know the full sensor can do 40fps, so any Rez can do 29.97.

If you shoot in a 2.40 aspect ratio, the max frame rate for 5K s35 is 60fps, I believe.
 
James0b57 said:
We need to stop saying this, at least on DVXuser. Cameras are technical wonders, but their image quality is just ok. There are thousands of shooters that are out performing cameras capabilities every day.
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Hi James. I said "good image", not perfect. And how good depends on so many factors. Like single crew with no time to light or even add reflectors up to big budget stuff where you light almost as much as you want/need. Etc.

I think the main problem we have in the real world is holding highlights. Like the proverbial outside window view in a darkish room. And I agree, at the moment cameras, all of them, are just ok at that but for most situations I haven't found my cameras too limiting for a few years now. I admit to having to be quite innovative with camera angles and think faster than I can normally manage on a few occasions but mostly I get the image I want. Would I prefer another ten stops of DR? You bet.
 
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