Buying a Monstro now?

[James Darren]

I think Arri and RED both have more to worry about from Sony, which is starting to win over lots of converts with the Sony Venice, which by all accounts is doing better than the Alexa Mini LF.

Not according to all the LA rental houses I have spoken with. The Venice is doing very well, but so is the Mini LF.
Even the Alexa Mini is still in high demand, 7 years later.

On the episodic shows that I know of, I would say it's roughly an even mix of Venice, Mini & Mini LF and then a small percentage of DXL2/Red.

 

[Brian Long]

I think Arri and RED both have more to worry about from Sony, which is starting to win over lots of converts with the Sony Venice, which by all accounts is doing better than the Alexa Mini LF.

Doing better in sales or performance?

 

[Michael Lindsay]

In the UK both the Arri LF mini and the Venice do very well!

Venice 2 is going be picked up by the main players here for def...

Red is again the underdog and Raptor ST is the plucky 'massively specced' thorn... This huge spec may ultimately force it back into all the serous places on mass but we will have to wait to see. I am actually amazed by the lack of slowmo on Venice 2 which restricts it to only certain types of Drama and prob not commercials. Raptor ST will make more sense in the Rental marker when the XL ships... ...but if Red takes too long, or doesn't get it right, I suspect it may get passed over.. And Raptor doesn't end up seeing ALEXA Mini level sales. .(which it deserves with its feature list)

As for the original posters question our POV..

We are a very small studio.. and as such don't want to have too many cameras. So when we bought our white Raptor I assumed I would sell either a Monstro or a Gemini (as we also have our eye on a XL and just bought a Phantom) - and since our cameras are very complete packages (loads of top drawer Aks) I did want to sell fast as I can't really take a vey low price. BUT we haven't put either up for sale yet. Why??

Monstro is still a very good camera and when running a Skintone OLPF is my favourite picture from all our current cameras!
Raptor ST is great but def incomplete as of today.
If there is no 'final' fix for the split sensor issue (Which I accept is very difficult to produce in the real world) I will need to keep the Monstro till I sort out a diy fix 100% ... (have some new flocking coming for the mount)

That left me with the idea to get rid of our Gemini but if your filming with S35 lenses, need great low light performance, a complete package with VF and really NEED a small data footprint it is super valuable so we can't really let it go..

So to sum up: yes a really nicely put together Monstro package is still a fantastic option today! ....and so is the Gemini for some markets....

 

[Daniel Bichler]

Monstro is such a great camera! I love our Monstro and our quick and compact gimbal to handheld setup.
If it wouldn’t be so damn slow and laggy sometimes for playback and magnify, I wouldn’t have my eyes on Raptor. But I don’t really like Raptor’s new concept of its small V-Mount plate, fixed R-Mount and this very bad designed RMI Monitor Mount, which does not allow to mount the common gimbal top plates for setups with heavier lenses.

So I guess we will live with our Monstro for the next years .

 

[Phil Holland]

Hi all. Looking for some thoughts on buying a Monstro now with Raptor Xl on the horizon. I’ve just returned my V-raptor as I wasn’t happy with-
*senor issues
*fan noise
*boot time
*lack of accessories
*rental value/long term investment value
*laggy monitor
*timecode functionality

I’m after a large format camera to shoot high end fiction and commercials (mainly beauty/skincare products).I don’t need high frame rates. Could Monstro be a good solution? Found body only (a few accessories but no monitor or media) for around £20k (British pounds). Seem like fair value?

Monstro has legs in it. I am a V-Raptor owner and held onto my Monstros. This is mainly due to the "what else is out there logic".

Just to quickly hit some things:
- Sensor Issues - The seam stuff is somewhere between a big deal and none issue. There's also some experiments I've done that have solved specific issues I was facing on some of my more rubbish adapters. In terms of Raptor XL, I suspect you won't be seeing much of this based on how the mounting systems works and what it forces you into not doing more or less. But time will tell and I will test that.

- Fan Noise. DSMC3 is quieter than DSMC2. XL will certainly be quieter still as that has been a selling point for Ranger and DXL thus far due to the larger cooling system.

- Boot Time - This has yet to be an issue for me on any camera to date even when boot times were far higher. But DSMC3 is faster currently.

- Newness/Accessories/System Maturity - DSMC3 is still brand spanking new and a lot of stuff isn't out or hasn't shipped yet. We haven't even seen a lot of the 3rd party stuff really that will be incoming. Pretty common when a system is new, but once RED's baseplate/production stuff ships that will alleviate much of that. 3rd party solutions for I/O have been nice, but I hate saying that first party is often best party when it comes to production gear, but that is often the case.

- Rental Value/Long Term Investment Value - Rental Value is often calculated on kit price and more expensive gear = higher day rate for the most part. Don't know if we'll ever see $3500 days on basic packages again however. Truly it it depends on what you include in your kits and all that. New cameras will obviously be a better long term investment. That's always the case.

- Laggy Monitor - Is this DSMC3 Touch or? I don't find it to be that laggy. It's different from DSMC2.

* Timecode - Don't know what is long term for Timecode, but TC has been working how I personally work with the cameras. I didn't know people were still pulling the cord on sync a lot of the time. RED might be able to hold TC between power cycles on the new system. But honestly whether your system can hold it or not, at this point you should always be feeding active sync wirelessly or wired. Extremely minimal investment that solves a variety of post problems. Don't even remember when I made this switch, but it's been maybe 5-6 years and not a single drifted frame since.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Doing better in sales or performance?

I mean its anecdotal, but from what I'm hearing from people and reading about whats being shot on what, it would appear the Venice has surpassed the Alexa Mini LF in the growing Larger Format market. It now seems like Venice is certainly going toe to toe with the Alexa to a degree I've never see another camera do in the past 10 years. Lots fo cameras like RED have nipped at Arri's heels, and certainly RED has been used on commercials a lot, but Venice is taking on a level of prestige I've never seen from a new platform before. In the S35 world Alexa is still king, but for Vista Vision Venice appears to be wining. I'm happy to be wrong, but the vast amount of projects being shot on Venice says otherwise.

 

[Jason beaumont]

I bought a monstro right before raptor was annouced, i was a little like damn ! they got me! but now i see i made the right decision. The monstro is the most amazing red camera ive owned, and ive owned 5 different models. you wont be disappointed. I prefer it over my Mini LF and My mini SOMETIMES.

Im also selling a gemini brain for 10k. The 2nd best red camera hands down, you wont be disappointed with this camera either. It looks amazing, the texture and color science is very similiar to the alexa mini yes has its own feel.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

The more mature DSMC2 platform and the Monstro sensor is easily my A-cam of choice.

To this day, I consider the Gemini to be the most owner/operator friendly camera on the market capable of cutting in with anything - including Alexa, Venice, etc.

IMHO, the V-Raptor platform needs more development, particularly bulletproof AKS, to reach it's potential.

Looking forward to the Ranger-ish VRaptor XL release. Now that we have Komodo, do I really need an A-cam that can be rigged down for gimbals, etc? I'm far more attracted to a more full featured camera that doesn't require adding several devices to it for most shooting scenarios. I'd also be interested in a lens mounting system more like DSMC2 vs the RF/adapter world.

Cheers - #19