RED Komodo to start limited shipping soon for $6k

Yea, my third-party non-RED batteries worked for the Raven as well. I honestly don't know what the RED-branded third-party ones exactly did.

Maybe a firmware update in the cameras let all of them work the same. IDK.

But with the Komodo, I don't know if I would use cheap batteries. Like $26 cheap. lol
 
My ikan d7 chews through canon lpe6 batteries. I bought some extras last year on uncontested ebay auctions for $1 apiece (new - shows you how much they cost to manufacture)

Not sure of the brand, I'd have to check. They work great. Do they last as long as they should? Not sure. They last plenty long. And did I mention they were $1 apiece?

Lithium ion batteries are child's play these days

Oh, and I also have a canon BP battery plate for the ikan, but I prefer to use the lpe6 plate because those batteries are very light. But maybe that's just me
 
Yeah - and I also saw the batteries were hot-swappable, so I'm betting it would work if RED didn't do anything internally to prevent such a solution.
 
Ah, maybe not then. Maybe someone will make a more powerful one like those few RED accessory companies that always jump on making new stuff for the cameras.

At some point, someone in the universe must have asked why not Sony NP-F batteries? Second most popular small batteries in history.
 
NorBro said:
You can get one 98Wh mini (or a compact V-mount) for $240. So one would be cheaper than two Canons, and last 2-3x as long (depending on the model).

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod..._vmp98s_micro_series_98wh_v_mount_li_ion.html

But regular V-mounts are even cheaper. Lots of options for $150-$200, which would power that camera for 8-10 hours if size/weight didn't matter.

Bricks have always made most sense for cinema cameras. An industry-standard. This Komodo battery idea kind of reminds me of REDVOLTs, which might have been universally hated for their short running time. (They eventually made better ones though.)

The real additional cost is going to come from adding multiple batteries/chargers to your kit if you'll need to shoot continuously all day long (without AC).

And if the above comment is true, you may have to have two batteries for both slots on stand-by.
Click to expand...

The Canons are beefy. the BP-975 is 55Wh+ so two would outlast a 98Wh mini. Camera power consumption is around 27-30Wh. One smaller BP-955 runs my old GL-2 for 4 hours or so depending on roll time.
There is a separate DC in plug for external power that accepts higher voltage batts plus several third party adapters for the battery mounts planned so lots of flexibility. The camera is not designed to power external accessories given its primary design purpose. Those will need their own batteries or larger V-mounts with aux power ports.
Remains to be seen if I can afford a Komodo for a serious hobby cam, but the nice thing about it compared to other cameras is I don't need anything but the body, a couple of lens adapters and some media. Already have everything else in the kit.
 
Last edited:
NorBro said:
Yea, my third-party non-RED batteries worked for the Raven as well. I honestly don't know what the RED-branded third-party ones exactly did.

Maybe a firmware update in the cameras let all of them work the same. IDK.

But with the Komodo, I don't know if I would use cheap batteries. Like $26 cheap. lol
Click to expand...

Jarred warned that the cheaper third party BP's don't have enough cells in parallel to meet the current draw needed to boot the camera. It won't turn on. Also true of the BP-915 Canon.
 
Razz16mm said:
Jarred warned that the cheaper third party BP's don't have enough cells in parallel to meet the current draw needed to boot the camera. It won't turn on. Also true of the BP-915 Canon.
Click to expand...

The max draw should be reported on spec sheets somewhere, no? (Though I can't currently find it for any of these batteries)

Do you mean that the draw spikes during boot-up? Or you're just saying if the battery can't give 25+w, it won't turn on?

In any case, one would expect the higher capacity batteries (even the cheap ones) to have a higher max draw, right?
 
Grug said:
Well if the chart hasn't been done properly, then it's completely pointless anyway (and shouldn't exist, since it would literally serve no purpose), so let's assume it has been done correctly. How are you reading the chart? The first chip is a reference chip to establish the white clip point. So you count from the second chip downwards, the steps between each solid line showing your DR. Once the lines meet the noise floor (i.e. you can't see a black gap between the line on the waveform and the noise floor below it) you've reached the limits of your shadow detail (unless you're willing (and able) to distribute your images with exceptionally noisey shadows.

View attachment 139233

View attachment 139232
Click to expand...

I'd like to see those charts run at 800ISO. No silicon sensor is near peak saturation or optimum SNR at 6400.
 
Razz16mm said:
The Canons are beefy. the BP-975 is 55Wh+ so two would outlast a 98Wh mini. Camera power consumption is around 27-30Wh. One smaller BP-955 runs my old GL-2 for 4 hours or so depending on roll time.
There is a separate DC in plug for external power that accepts higher voltage batts plus several third party adapters for the battery mounts planned so lots of flexibility. The camera is not designed to power external accessories given its primary design purpose. Those will need their own batteries or larger V-mounts with aux power ports.
Remains to be seen if I can afford a Komodo for a serious hobby cam, but the nice thing about it compared to other cameras is I don't need anything but the body, a couple of lens adapters and some media. Already have everything else in the kit.
Click to expand...

That 98Wh mini was just an example for the cost and size.

A regular V-mount could have 200-300Wh for the same price if size/weight didn't matter.
 
Razz16mm said:
I'd like to see those charts run at 800ISO. No silicon sensor is near peak saturation or optimum SNR at 6400.
Click to expand...

They are raw cameras that are only ever at base iso.

6400 is just pushing in post. They likely exposed for native iso and pushed them in post. Other than the Gemini, Red cameras only actually have one iso setting, the rest is metadata.
 
Last edited:
James0b57 said:
They are raw cameras, so they are only ever at base iso.

6400 is just pushing in post. They likely exposed for native iso and pushed them in post. Other than the Gemini, Red cameras only actually have one iso setting, the rest is metadata.
Click to expand...

What does that mean in effect? That as you push them, the noise floor rises and the stops above the floor get compressed into a smaller range at the top of the output brightness but the processing prevents the top stops from all blowing out and thus the original DR is preserved plus some noisy stops at the bottom that become brighter?
 
ahalpert said:
What does that mean in effect? That as you push them, the noise floor rises and the stops above the floor get compressed into a smaller range at the top of the output brightness but the processing prevents the top stops from all blowing out and thus the original DR is preserved plus some noisy stops at the bottom that become brighter?
Click to expand...

I think you described it better than i could have!

Will just post this inaccurate graph here, perhaps for the lurkers, if there are any anymore, as at least it shows how many cinema cameras do iso. Canon seems to add gain along the way, so, i believe Canon is a type of “true” iso, and this graph does not apply to Canon C. Also, dual iso has become popular, and those cameras have two “base” iso settings. But within each base iso, they shift iso using pushing and pulling.

However, Alexa and most Red’s tend to do iso like this:
49952007218_c1f8494a38_z.jpg

Iso800 - cleaner shadows, “thicker” mids, but less highlight roll off.
Iso1600 - noiser shadows, “thinner” mid tone tonality, longer highlight roll off

The clipping points aren’t changing, just where the operator chooses to land the exposure. Iso 1600 boosts the brightness of the mids and allows for more highlight rolloff. Or pulling down to iso 400 cleans up the shadows but leaves less elbow room in the highlights making a “video” look up top sometimes.


There is a good interview with Rob Maclachlan who DP’d the ‘Red Wedding’ episode for the HBO series “Game of Thrones”. In the interview, he says that they shot the wedding by candlelight at iso1600, which not only gave them an extra stop to work with, but extended the highlight range keeping the candle flames from clipping.



When lowering the iso, the operator is using less of the shadows and working their back against the highlight clipping point. Whereas raising the iso, the operator it lifting the shadows and exploring the murky waters of noise, which tends to have more wiggle room for a stop or two. But highlights are that impassable barrier, there is not wiggle room with highlight clipping on digital, unless you have a lot of dynamic range for a film like infinite roll off. Wally Pfister over exposed the film in shooting the Joker interrogation scene in the Dark Knight by like 5 stops and they pulled it back down.
 
Last edited:
An extended highlight roll off mimics a more analogue feel, which i feel is more similar to how our eyes see things. There is a dampening as analogue reaches the limits in audio and visual mediums that digital doesn’t quite have until there is more headroom than needed. So, we may only “need” 12 stops of DR, but we need an extra 6 stops on top of that for better roll off in high contrast situations.
 
So, we may only “need” 12 stops of DR, but we need an extra 6 stops on top of that for better roll off
Click to expand...

18 stops is an awful lot of dynamic range. An f-stop represents twice as much light. So 11 stops is not 10% more than 10 stops. It's 100% more. 18 stops is 2⁶ as much light as 12 stops --- that's 64 times. The image sensor's photodiodes must have 64 times less noise or 64 times the well capacity (or a mix thereof).

in high contrast situations
Click to expand...

High-contrast situations are 8-12 stops, when I and others have measured them.

  • The difference between a pure white fabric and the blackest dye is 5 stops.
  • The difference between direct light and shadow varies. It could be 2-5 stops, if you remain outdoors.

So if you snap a pic of a scene where someone in black is under a tree, and someone in white out in the open, you're talking 8 stops.

In this article, Dynamic Range of an Image, Roger N. Clark measured 11. He has white things in direct sun and black things under a patio umbrella. I could imagine darker shade. Then again, this is pretty extreme, since his house is behind him or to the right, blocking any light from that direction.

---

Hollywood sets typically are lit to around 7 stops. When they shoot outside, they bring lights, partly to lower the dynamic range. You might see lights shining up into trees from underneath.

---

Or take slide film. It had a dynamic range of 7-8 stops, yet still looked nice. Search Google Images for "velvia", for example.

---

Your screen has a dynamic range of 6-8 stops. Movie theater screens are 9-10 stops --- and that was the ideal goal, according to some Academy test instructions.

Real-world scenes are 7-12 stops, but you must always "compress" the dynamic range to the 6-8 stops of the viewer's screen. That affords you some of the leeway you were talking about for highlight roll-off.

---

I feel that most people decide how much dynamic range they want in camera like this:

  1. Find an image you like.
  2. Find out which camera took that image.
  3. Look up that camera's dynamic range.

This is unscientific. It's subject to a lot of variables. There are many other things that can affect the look, even if you're considering only highlight roll-off:

  • Was the image recorded compressed or raw? The Canon 5D looks drastically different depending on whether you use its stock image processing and codec, or if you bypass the whole shebang and record raw with Magic Lantern. Its raw imagery looks great, even though it has "only" 11.7 stops.
  • Who graded it, and how? Again, from looking at Fujifilm Velvia, I believe that most cameras could look good if I had access to the raw image and graded it myself.

---

If a camera has 12-14 stops, and you only ever use 7-8 of them for given scene, where do the other stops go? I think most of them are going to ISO variability.

I used to wonder how a single sensor could have multiple ISOs. If you crank up the amplifier, you crank up noise right along with signal. So you're not changing the dynamic range, just the midpoint.

A camera with a dynamic range of 13 stops, shooting scenes of 8 stops, would have 5 more stops to play with --- the difference between ISO 800 and 25600.
 
Last edited:
Dunno exactly how many stops I need. All I know is I run into situations where I can't keep all the detail I want.

The biggest problem for me is having incident light sources in the frame. The sun, clouds, practicals. And also, if you expose something at the edge of your contrast range, it usually won't have as rich a tone and color. So it's great to have more range than you need for simply registering detail.
 
The best that you could hope for is a true 13.5 - 14 stops because anything over 15+ is questionable in mostly everything else out there. Probably not in the budget anyway.

So a solid 14 stops would be nice until more cameras advance and add an additional stop in the next 2-3 years.
 
NorBro said:
The best that you could hope for is a true 13.5 - 14 stops because anything over 15+ is questionable in mostly everything else out there.
Click to expand...

This old animation I created for Convergent Design is still useful in understanding sensor characteristics including a pretty cool visualization of a sensor's linear response...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQJHqDGRoa8&t

As an aside, I used to do back-light motion graphic animations ( you know... "Stranger Things" style titles but using the original multi-exposure optical techniques) in the 80's, using 5247/7247; a tungsten balanced 100iso stock. The "formula" for getting pure black and pure white was easy... 3.5 stops under middle grey was black (completely clear on the negative), and 3.5 stops over middle grey was "white"... you could push just a bit more into the highlights when exposing a lens flare effect, or a longer exposure to get a "white on white" effect, but that was hard to discern in the telecine bay of the day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top