A controversial Komodo topic - Footage and DP's

[Dan Kanes]

Matt, your work is so dope man.

 

[Brett Harrison]

Well said, Matt. I look forward to seeing your work with the Komodo.

It's really quite the reverse to what OP said: a good photographer will see the characteristics of the camera even from 'mundane' footage, and be able to imagine what she can do with those characteristics.

 

[Curtis boggs]

Great work Matt, dig what you do.

Komodo has been a treat for a small camera build.
While it doesn’t hold the power of DSMC2 it’s got enough
to be really useful as a small hand held or on a Gimble.
I suspect mine will spend a lot of time on my Ronin MX.

Cheers

 

[Andi Loor]

Josef O:s post has one interesting point, it is a general bashing of RED cameras on internet including the not yet released Komodo. The problem I have with Josef O:s post is that he thinks he knows why, searching the answer in some kind of elitist view. I don't think that kind of stance would help RED getting a "better reputation" and help sales. I am positive that Komodo will find it's buyers in many "categories" of customers, including professionals and even amateurs. After all a camera that is affordable and isn't supposed to be an A-camera will cater to many different buyers. I wonder why Josef O is concentrating his worries for REDs "reputation" around Komodo and not the more expensive models? I wonder if Josef O isn't blending too many thoughts into one post?

 

[Retson Ross]

Being a 'youngin, at 22 years old, I do agree with Joesef on some points. When I'm out shooting shows, I've had quite a few people ask more about my rig setup, and less about what Ive shot.
Lately I've felt that it's almost like a fashion statement.

What really interests me is if people will stay with the A7R3/S2 line, or will they show RED interest.
I previously owned a 1MX, but religiously use my A7S2.

 

[Christian Jadot]

Josef O:s post has one interesting point, it is a general bashing of RED cameras on internet including the not yet released Komodo.

I find it interesting as well. It is like people are waiting to bash this camera. I am pretty open minded and willing to critically look at something I like and point out where it could be improved. (In this industry, you have to be!) I am just not seeing the hate some of these people are throwing at it. Either my eyes are way better or way worse than theirs when it comes to this kind of thing. I could be convinced either way. Anyways ...


As Tay Tay once said, "A hater is going to hate."

 

[M Harvey]

There are a couple threads going here now on RU that relate to the subject of bad behaviour on camera forums. It's hard to measure these things in any objective way, but are we all feeling meaner lately?

I'm not on facebook or most other social platforms, but I've seen some of this stuff on newsshooter in recent months. Sorry to single one site out, but it's only because I really like it, and in particular appreciate that Matthew Allard and Erik Naso write really useful reviews that are informed by years of experience actually producing professional work. But in recent months the comments sections often feel as if your'e reading a sports forum-- the opposing team/brand never does anything right, and you score "points" against them by posting comments about how much Canon/Sony/Red/etc. sucks. It's kinda weird, and I'm not sure where it's coming from.
Is it the tone set by "reviews" on youtube or other places? If you decide the Canon C500 mkII is your next camera, that's great-- but why are you mad at Panasonic or Sony or Red as a result?

A big thanks to the moderators here! I'm sure there are some close calls, but they've managed to keep this site civil, and therefore valuable...

 

[Phil Holland]

A big thanks to the moderators here! I'm sure there are some close calls, but they've managed to keep this site civil, and therefore valuable...

Cheers to that and Jarred and myself have had a few chats about keeping REDuser on task and improving it. It's still amazing how much good info and discussions go on here. I'm certain that will be looked at in the future. Obviously bigger fish to fry right now with Komodo cracking out of it's shell.

I'm fortunate to be a mod here and a few other places and generally I don't really care where people post, but the emphasis should always be on the filmmaking community and expressing as well as sharing ideas pertaining to whatever the heck is going on in our little industry.

There's a few groups out there in facebook land that are a bit of a psycho-chamber, but mostly in known forums it's nice to know people from all over, all ages, and all experience levels can freely reach out. There's always a fine line when certain things cross over into the realm of the motion picture industry, but generally people remain pretty civil in the face of the weirdest stuff.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

My general thought is to leave marketing to marketers, it's not a cinematographer's job to worry about the successful release of a new product. Ultimately as people shoot with any product, its strengths and weakness will be revealed.

Of course, it is completely reasonable for a manufacturer to control the flow of information and footage pre-release. And I think it is wise for any working person to keep an open mind and extend professional courtesy to the manufacturer rather than look for the first opportunity to find faults in a new product; you have to think of your long-term relationships to the vendors that supply the industry.

But personally, I find slick product demo reels to be only moderately interesting, they mainly exist to generate excitement for the new product, which is fine, I like to see cool images as much as the next cinematographer. But in the long run, I find rougher footage to be more valuable, I need to see how the camera handles mistakes, abuse, no-win shooting scenarios, etc. because we all face those at some time.

 

[William Long]

Much ado about nothing ... with a pinch of pretentiousness.

Komodo seems to do strange things to people - can't wait until everybody has one.

Black please! )

 

[Jiri Vrozina]

I don't think anyone needs to panic.

RED is unusual, yes, in that they don't hand out their first 10 cameras to the likes of Roger Deakins.

Instead, they gave them to real users with different needs.

Ie what you are seeing then is real footage, shot by real people.

Not slick commercials that only shows the good, and never the bad.

Think about that - there's a confidence there we haven't quite seen before.

RED is almost daring these beta testers to "break" the camera and the sensor.

And I'll admit, I've been impressed by lots of the test footage, for reasons that aren't always obvious.

For example:

1) The global shutter is real.

2) The small body appears to work well (there's an intimacy to holding such a light weight camera)

3) The internal mic sounds better than expected

4) Fans appear to be quiet (we've heard no complaints so far).

5) The image looks GOOD - it's clean, the color is there, it's just very solid.

I'm not sure what there is to complain about, honestly...

Nick, do you know what kind of pilots TEST FLY Raptor F22 or Airbus 350???

 

[Gregory Karydis]

Thank god for the moderators in here and out there!
It's a tough and mostly thankless job. Speaking from experience

As David already put it, it's how the camera can deal with the tough shit. How, the resulting footage can either save or ruin a project when all things go south in a shoot. And from my experience, that's more often the case.
Everything from Philip's pups, to Jason's ceiling fan and some of Tim's forest shots are in less than ideal conditions. But it shows how this (as of yet still pre-production) camera can handle the tough jobs and still deliver.
Phil's shoot at closer to a controlled studio environment shows that there's a lot of potential and we have a really versatile little beast in our hands!
Cannot wait to receive mine and get creative!!!

 

[Mark Phelan]

Nick, do you know what kind of pilots TEST FLY Raptor F22 or Airbus 350???

Only the bravest, toughest souls are worthy. Men of steel, and with reckless abandon.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I don't really understand this? Are the images so far released not enough to make a judgment?

We have some footage under uncontrolled situations and we have Phil's chart/face shot showing a controlled situation. Coupled with all the spec information we have and the ability to play around with the R3Ds themselves should be more than enough to make a judgment about whether or not the camera is enough for the specific jobs you do.

What we don't know much about is the shooting experience, how it performs while working, boot times, handling, ease of use etc. etc. That should be much more important than the image as we should expect the image to be good enough for professional use.

The question of whether or not the image quality is "good" has in my opinion become an irrelevant question on modern cameras. They are all good enough. I'm not sure what it is that people look for when a new camera is announced nowadays? Rarely do I see actual productions looking bad whatever the option they used. If they look bad they look bad because the people using these cameras are bad cinematographers or directors.

Based on the footage released and the specs we know, ignoring the physical performance on set, Komodo is more than enough for probably the majority of productions done today, even on a high budget scale. If the performance is reliable and robust (primarily in terms of being better than other cameras like the Pocket 6K in that area), it will be worth every dollar put into it and be a superb independent and short film camera as an A-cam.

I don't understand what people are worried about? The image quality for a global shutter sensor blows every other camera in this price range out of the water. Just get it and do something with it, focus on the art, it will probably be a better camera than most people can manage anyway.

As for the existence of feature film footage we have "Let Them All Talk" to look forward too and that was shot on a very early prototype version, so if that's not enough for people I don't know what will be.

 

[Jiri Vrozina]

Only the bravest, toughest souls are worthy. Men of steel, and with reckless abandon.

WRONG AGAIN.

A test pilot must be able to:
Understand a test plan;
Stick to a test plan, flying a plane in a highly specific way;
Carefully document the results of each test;
Have an excellent feel for the aircraft, and sense exactly how it is behaving oddly if it is doing so;
Solve problems quickly if anything goes wrong with the aircraft during a test;
Cope with many different things going wrong at once.
Effectively communicate flight test observations to engineers and relate engineering results to the pilot community, thus bridging the gap between those who design and build aircraft with those who employ the aircraft to accomplish a mission.

 

[Gregory Karydis]

WRONG AGAIN.

A test pilot must be able to:
Understand a test plan;
Stick to a test plan, flying a plane in a highly specific way;
Carefully document the results of each test;
Have an excellent feel for the aircraft, and sense exactly how it is behaving oddly if it is doing so;
Solve problems quickly if anything goes wrong with the aircraft during a test;
Cope with many different things going wrong at once.
Effectively communicate flight test observations to engineers and relate engineering results to the pilot community, thus bridging the gap between those who design and build aircraft with those who employ the aircraft to accomplish a mission.

My dear, I understand the need to be right and prove everyone wrong, but this is a whole other ball game.

This camera is intended for a less than ideal use case scenario, where everything goes off script and you are still expected to pull decent footage off of the wreckage.
To equate it to your test pilot-aircraft analogy, this is like handing the aircraft to a highly proficient psycho pilot on crack with a crate full of explosives and telling them to go nuts!

First thing I am going to shoot is strapped on the back of neighbours' dog while they let it go chase a frisbee at the park. Then throw the footage to Syntheyes and hit Auto.

 

[Jiri Vrozina]

My dear, I understand the need to be right and prove everyone wrong, but this is a whole other ball game.

This camera is intended for a less than ideal use case scenario, where everything goes off script and you are still expected to pull decent footage off of the wreckage.
To equate it to your test pilot-aircraft analogy, this is like handing the aircraft to a highly proficient psycho pilot on crack with a crate full of explosives and telling them to go nuts!

First thing I am going to shoot is strapped on the back of neighbours' dog while they let it go chase a frisbee at the park. Then throw the footage to Syntheyes and hit Auto.

How many hours do you spend on this forum every day? How many posts do you post on average every day here? How many posts in total have you posted on this Komodo forum so far? I am amazed, hope you have some other hobbies.

 

[Gregory Karydis]

How many hours do you spend on this forum every day? How many posts do you post on average every day here? How many posts in total have you posted on this Komodo forum so far? I am amazed, hope you have some other hobbies.

If it helps, I moderate two other forums, one of which is for VFX.
I also do Technical Support for an AR app I co-designed and in my spare time I shot and edited one corporate and two short film projects in the past week.

But all this is irrelevant as I rarely sleep and my 48 hour day schedule is divided into 3 timezones.

#ModeratorLifeFTW

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot (and she'd kill me if I did) I also shoot and edit almost all content for the social media account of my significant other.

In short, I don't know how many hours I spend here, it feels like a second home since 2007 (Thanks Jim and Jarred!)

But we are going off on a tangent here, the topic is "do these DPs have the Right Stuff to test the baby dragon and do you think you'd do a better job? If so, why?"

 

[Jiri Vrozina]

If it helps, I moderate two other forums, one of which is for VFX.
I also do Technical Support for an AR app I co-designed and in my spare time I shot and edited one corporate and two short film projects in the past week.

But all this is irrelevant as I rarely sleep and my 48 hour day schedule is divided into 3 timezones.

#ModeratorLifeFTW

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot (and she'd kill me if I did) I also shoot and edit almost all content for the social media account of my significant other.

In short, I don't know how many hours I spend here, it feels like a second home since 2007 (Thanks Jim and Jarred!)

But we are going off on a tangent here, the topic is "do these DPs have the Right Stuff to test the baby dragon and do you think you'd do a better job? If so, why?"

OK.
In my opinion. for work you have done here, if i was in charge of RED, i would give you KOMODO for free when it is 100% ready for sale. You deserve it.

 

[Kelly Conlin]

I think the definition of cinematographer in this string perhaps should be examined. It's alluded that a "real" cinematographer films on set in a controlled environment with 1st Acs and everything else a film set of privilege affords. There are also real cinematographers who shoot short films, documentary films, independent films and blockbuster films who will benefit from this camera's size and dynamic range and whose work is inherently filmic.

I think the lack of #impressive" or "quality" footage not being posted as of yet has NOTHING to do with price point or who will end up buying this camera. The people who received cameras first WERE RED shooters from what I am seeing so if somehow being able to afford to own a higher priced camera and using one means you're a cinematographer, than the first footage should have been amazing. Perhaps the footage wasn't jaw dropping because learning a tool before using it is paramount, the software is still beta and perhaps the people who are filming right out of the gate with it are otherwise used to filming with a crew. Blaming the price point of the camera, pressure on the individuals dropping footage or the camera itself seems a bit much.

I think if anything people who grew out of the DSLR revolution (not me) will do wonderful things with the camera. Many short films and independent productions will be captured with it that will blow people's minds.

As for autofocus, I can see its use when filming with a stabilizer like a gimbal which the Komodo will be used on heavily.