KOMODO....

[Phil Holland]

Yeah, I did see the 2 battery slots. Looks like it would fit 2 Sony NP batteries

Canon BP series batteries mentioned much earlier in the thread.

Agree about speedier start up times. The instant on world of DSLRs hasn't quite hit home in digital cinema cameras yet. Amira at 13 seconds-ish is pretty speedy. Me, I'd like anything 20 seconds and under.

 

[Jason Henne]

Canon BP series batteries mentioned much earlier in the thread.

Agree about speedier start up times. The instant on world of DSLRs hasn't quite hit home in digital cinema cameras yet. Amira at 13 seconds-ish is pretty speedy. Me, I'd like anything 20 seconds and under.

Thanks Phil. I looked back but not far enough. Okay. Well, I'm glad it's not some kind of RED battery, but that Canon choice is a bit of a bummer. Those c200, c300 ii batteries are really expensive without much in the way of alternatives while you've got off brand Sony NPs that are big and awesome for $25 a piece, so I would have liked to see that, but I guess I get with the canon lens mount on the front, doing a canon battery mount in the back makes sense. Overall, I think the camera is going to be pretty good and I'll definitely get one. If it's dual-iso then I think they're going to sell a lot of them.

 

[Billy Jim]

Thanks Phil. I looked back but not far enough. Okay. Well, I'm glad it's not some kind of RED battery, but that Canon choice is a bit of a bummer. Those c200, c300 ii batteries are really expensive without much in the way of alternatives while you've got off brand Sony NPs that are big and awesome for $25 a piece, so I would have liked to see that, but I guess I get with the canon lens mount on the front, doing a canon battery mount in the back makes sense. Overall, I think the camera is going to be pretty good and I'll definitely get one. If it's dual-iso then I think they're going to sell a lot of them.

BP-975 batteries by Wasabi and Kastar can be had for under $30 at Amazon.

 

[Bastien Tribalat]

I saw this picture on dpreview.com.
It was posted on January 9th and it is supposed to be a picture of a "lithium 3D camera module" of some sort for the Hydrogen One. Since I'm not an owner of this smartphone and don't really follow the news about it maybe it's old news, maybe it has been cancelled I don't know. I'm posting this because of the bracket thingy : could this be an indication of how we would use KOMODO with the Hydrogen phones ?

 

[Jason Henne]

BP-975 batteries by Wasabi and Kastar can be had for under $30 at Amazon.

Right but I imagine we are looking at it requiring the BP-A batteries like the BP-A60 or A30, because that's the newer BP battery and mount. The ones that power c300 ii and c200. Those batteries have only one alternative made by SWIT and they're also not cheap. One Canon bp-a60 battery sells for $429 on B&H.

 

[Jason Henne]

I saw this picture on dpreview.com.
It was posted on January 9th and it is supposed to be a picture of a "lithium 3D camera module" of some sort for the Hydrogen One. Since I'm not an owner of this smartphone and don't really follow the news about it maybe it's old news, maybe it has been cancelled I don't know. I'm posting this because of the bracket thingy : could this be an indication of how we would use KOMODO with the Hydrogen phones ?

My thinking is that with the Komodo people will find their way around having to use the Hydrogen phone. SDI to Atomos and then from the SDI out you run wireless to your directors monitor or AC monitor if you need to. If they make it so you need to control the camera with a Hydrogen I think the camera will more than likely have bluetooth or wifi integrated and that will allow any phone to be able to control the camera through an app, probably an expensive one like foolcontrol. RED just has no business in the phone market, clearly from the first Hydrogen. You can get better phones for free with a $40 boost mobile plan. When RED said they were making a phone our imaginations went to how great it would be if we could get some of that RED quality with the built in camera on our phone that we carry around every day, but technology clearly isn't there yet. Instead we got some gimmicky hologram thing that has nothing to do with film-making. Even if the reason to get a hydrogen was a pocket sized camera attachment, that would be getting closer, but this Komodo is not pocket size., so however great they think their phone will be, it won't compete with a Galaxy or iPhone and they have blown the opportunity for people to give the Hydrogen a chance, because the first was so bad. I think making a $5000 RED Komodo is smart to stay competitive with alternative smaller 6K cameras out now and on their way, but using it to continue to push their bad cell phones is like they are doubling down on a bad idea they shouldn't have done in the first place.

 

[jordan levy]

I also wonder if Canon will do something similar with an RF mount, like a c200-300 with incredible auto focus and internal ND's, and EVF, etc...

 

[gabrielB]

Right but I imagine we are looking at it requiring the BP-A batteries like the BP-A60 or A30, because that's the newer BP battery and mount. The ones that power c300 ii and c200. Those batteries have only one alternative made by SWIT and they're also not cheap. One Canon bp-a60 battery sells for $429 on B&H.

The canon BP-A are 14.8V batteries. The BP-9 series are 7.4V. It's been pretty much confirmed earlier in the thread Komodo runs on these lower voltage batteries. That then implies the camera needs less power, probably generates less heat and seems to be having a larger single fan for potentially very very quiet cooling. I'm very very sensitive to noisy tools, especially with an art form that captures sound, so to me that's one of the main exciting things about Komodo. That and hot-swappable long lasting small footprint batteries.

 

[Savannah Miller]

Canon BP series batteries mentioned much earlier in the thread.

Agree about speedier start up times. The instant on world of DSLRs hasn't quite hit home in digital cinema cameras yet. Amira at 13 seconds-ish is pretty speedy. Me, I'd like anything 20 seconds and under.

That's one of the few things Blackmagic seems to have worked hard on. Their boot times are quite reasonable.

 

[Samir Patel]

Instant on sounds great but don't you want to run a sensor to it's optimal temperature anyway for clean images? Redundant batteries seem to me like a solution to that. Start up... always on

 

[Gregory Karydis]

Instant ON doesn't have to automatically entail instant REC...
You could always use the time the camera is on to punch in the right settings.
And once the sensor is ready, allow it to record.

 

[Mike P.]

Instant ON doesn't have to automatically entail instant REC...
You could always use the time the camera is on to punch in the right settings.
And once the sensor is ready, allow it to record.

And almost every camera that is instant-on doesn't require the sensor to "warm up" for a substantially cleaner image...

...Hell, they don't typically require black shading either, and when they do, it's way less finicky/nitpicky/time consuming.

 

[Phil Holland]

And almost every camera that is instant-on doesn't require the sensor to "warm up" for a substantially cleaner image...

...Hell, they don't typically require black shading either, and when they do, it's way less finicky/nitpicky/time consuming.

Sensor calibration tends to be more important for higher end equipment and even BMD is doing it as of late, which helps with many potential sensor evils. Not truly a requirement, but if image quality is important to you, it's a good way to get the most out of a sensor. The hard truth is the sensor itself can change over time, temperature variations, or other "charging gremlins". Some cameras do some things internally behind the scenes that users never know about, what most consumer tools get is a one off calibration from the factory. There's also ways of tuning a sensor as well as tapping into image processing to avoid certain evils, but you start chewing into the potential of an imager real quick depending on what is actually going on. FPN CalMap generation is one aspect, but these days other things might be going on during sensor calibration.

On the RED side of things for DSMC2, right now it's about a minute per "K" of resolution to do a Sensor Calibration. 8 minutes for Monstro and Helium 8K, 5 minutes for Gemini and Dragon. You get a pretty broad workable shutter range off a single Manual Calibration and improvements are very visibly there when you calibrate to work at extremes when it comes to shutter angle/speed/integration time. Something a few cameras don't do great, but that's on a rare day. Most people aren't shooting 1/4th or 1/8000th when it comes to cinematography. Calibration doesn't need to happen all the time. Usually really when there's big temperature changes or after a firmware update. I tend to do it about once a week if I'm on a straight forward shoot, it's easy on short jobs as you just do it first day and wrap in a week or two. It will be interesting to see what techniques and methods RED tosses into Komodo on this front. Could be some weird combo method, might be something else, we just don't know. All of this stuff is making my mind run wild towards future cameras though.

Totally get why the other way is more appealing towards ease of use, but the technique is there to ensure you are creating the best a camera can do. Even DSLRs have dark frame reduction for single long exposures to try to make a better image happen when exploring very dark content.

I'm all for ease of use improvements, especially for the natural history filmmakers out there who really need to jump to get the shot and power is often a concern out in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Fabricio Morato]

Regarding sensor calibration on dsmc2 is really not a problem.. haven't done one on my Helium since last year and have zero problems.. just double checked..

 

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Can some mod move all the theories/supposed technical discussion to another thread so that the pearls of wisdom (if any) are not lost. Komodo related info can then be easily accessed.

 

[Phil Holland]

Can some mod move all the theories/supposed technical discussion to another thread so that the pearls of wisdom (if any) are not lost. Komodo related info can then be easily accessed.

Not going to spend the time to sift through 80+ pages, but what I can do is summarize what we do know.

I'll mention some stuff inside Jarred's first post, just to have it in one spot. Here's everything we've learned, have leaked, or more or less has been discovered by looking at the released images.

Komodo features (as of 8.31.2019):
- Sensor: A new RED 6K sensor (format size and frame rates unknown)
- Media: CFast 2.0
- Recording Codecs: It's been hinted that REDCODE RAW might be in there, but I wouldn't say that was truly confirmed
- Lens Mount: Appears to be a fixed Canon RF Mount (very easy to adapt damn near anything to)
- Battery: Uses widely available Canon BP style bricks, uses up to two of them, and it can hot swap while powered on - apparently the camera is very power efficient, i.e. long up time/runtime
- Hard Line Power: DC IN uses rugged LEMO style connector
- Monitoring: Still early, but we know 4K out via SDI (unknown if 6G or 12G)
- External Control Port: Unknown to what all the EXT port does, but the imagination leads to a couple of usual concepts, mainly hoping for Genlock and Timecode, perhaps wired control of some sort (USB to LEMO?)
- Form Factor/Weight: <4x4x4" cube, <=2lbs in weight (the base of Komodo to me looks alarmingly close to the "bottom foot" of a RED DSMC2 body)
- Microphone Port: 3.5mm Stereo
- Headphone Jack: Yep, 3.5mm
- Scratch Mic: Looks that way
- Rigging: Features at least 4X M4 mounting areas around the front of the camera
- Focus Hook Mount: Yep, on axis with sensor w/ M3 mount - nice touch
- Price Point: <$5K for RED Hydrogen owners (no word on specific discount if AL or TI owners), price for everybody else is unknown as of yet.

Other than that, it features a Record Button with some sort of indicator LED above it. Also has a dedicated power switch w/ LED which if it works like other cameras in the RED world means it will power on if DC or Battery is feeding power to it and you have to switch it off or shutdown if you want to turn it off, that just also might be how it's turned on and off even, unknown. Hard to tell if that's a tally light on the front of the camera or just some sort of capped bolt, back focus adjustment, or whatever. Tally light makes sense there though. There's clearly vents and a heat sink.

Real stuff we don't know. Sensor Size, Max FPS, anything hard about the sensor, price, and we certainly haven't seen the top of the camera. Also, no mention of WiFi or Bluetooth as of yet. I've got lots of thoughts, but there's clearly not a lot of buttons going on here.


Jarred's kept me out of the loop thus far and I think he enjoys my Sherlock-ing about with all of this. I know you're looking for facts, but I'll just go with my gut on one thing. I would be surprised out of my mind if this sensor is smaller than Super 35mm, I personally think it's larger, likely what I refer to lovingly as S35+, don't know if it's FF35 or close to VV. I'm personally hoping for a DCI 1.9:1 sensor similar to 3 of the current RED cams. DCI mathematically makes a hell of a lot of sensor for digital cinema as you can maximize the width of the format and be theatrically compliant at maximum supported format size and crop in slightly to 16x9. 3:2 and other more taller sensors are nice for anamorphic for sure, but still to date the vast majority of the world shoots spherical glass. Off topic, Monstro's sensor size is an incredible Swiss Army knife when it comes to formats for spherical and anamorphic shooting. Gemini clearly was aimed to really be anamorphic friendly as well. Everything else is DCI and in my best Thanos voice, "as all things should be".


IBC is right around the corner with several new camera announcements already happening, I would expect more news somewhere around there.

 

[olivier harrault]

Jarred's kept me out of the loop thus far and I think he enjoys my Sherlock-ing about with all of this. I know you're looking for facts, but I'll just go with my gut on one thing. I would be surprised out of my mind if this sensor is smaller than Super 35mm, I personally think it's larger, likely what I refer to lovingly as S35+, don't know if it's FF35 or close to VV. I'm personally hoping for a DCI 1.9:1 sensor similar to 3 of the current RED cams. DCI mathematically makes a hell of a lot of sensor for digital cinema as you can maximize the width of the format and be theatrically compliant at maximum supported format size and crop in slightly to 16x9. 3:2 and other more taller sensors are nice for anamorphic for sure, but still to date the vast majority of the world shoots spherical glass. Off topic, Monstro's sensor size is an incredible Swiss Army knife when it comes to formats for spherical and anamorphic shooting. Gemini clearly was aimed to really be anamorphic friendly as well. Everything else is DCI and in my best Thanos voice, "as all things should be".


IBC is right around the corner with several new camera announcements already happening, I would expect more news somewhere around there.

Love to read your thoughts !! I hope IBC will be a potential deadline to have an announcement or at least some more informations about the specs and the upcoming release date !!!

 

[Bastien Tribalat]

Jarred's kept me out of the loop thus far and I think he enjoys my Sherlock-ing about with all of this. I know you're looking for facts, but I'll just go with my gut on one thing. I would be surprised out of my mind if this sensor is smaller than Super 35mm, I personally think it's larger, likely what I refer to lovingly as S35+, don't know if it's FF35 or close to VV. I'm personally hoping for a DCI 1.9:1 sensor similar to 3 of the current RED cams. DCI mathematically makes a hell of a lot of sensor for digital cinema as you can maximize the width of the format and be theatrically compliant at maximum supported format size and crop in slightly to 16x9. 3:2 and other more taller sensors are nice for anamorphic for sure, but still to date the vast majority of the world shoots spherical glass. Off topic, Monstro's sensor size is an incredible Swiss Army knife when it comes to formats for spherical and anamorphic shooting. Gemini clearly was aimed to really be anamorphic friendly as well. Everything else is DCI and in my best Thanos voice, "as all things should be".

Well, you make total sense but since I'd really like it to be able to shoot "Netflix Friendly anamorphic", I really hope the sensor resolution can be same as Dragon 6K at 6144x3160 so we can have 4K 4:3 anamorphic at (roughly) 4203x3160. (or even a slight crop at 4096x3024)

 

[Phil Holland]

Well, you make total sense but since I'd really like it to be able to shoot "Netflix Friendly anamorphic", I really hope the sensor resolution can be same as Dragon 6K at 6144x3160 so we can have 4K 4:3 anamorphic at (roughly) 4203x3160. (or even a slight crop at 4096x3024)

Yep, I feel you. I love Dragon. But something that is an extremely subtle difference between OG 6K Dragon sensors and the 6K FF format found on Monstro and Helium is a variation in resolution and format size:
- Dragon 6K S35 - 6K FF = 6144x3160 (aspect ratio of 1.94:1)
- Monstro/Helium 8K VV/S35 - 6K FF = 6144x3240 (aspect ratio of 1.9:1 - or proper DCI)

Here's a visualization of that difference.

I personally wouldn't be sad if Komodo used either of those formats/resolutions whatever the sensor size ends up being. But I would prefer how it is in Monstro and Helium because OCD haunts me

Either ways, if it's either of those 6K formats you'll have Netflix (and everybody else too) compliant anamorphic in 4:3 or 6:5 or a typical 2X anamorphic shoot.

Basically I'd prefer those extra 80 pixels because it benefits all types of shooting, spherical and anamorphic. Particularly the 6K DCI or UHD downsampling to 4K resolutions. If it's even taller in resolution, I think that would be well received as well.

I guess in many ways my wants sort of happen in this order: Sensor Image Quality (color, DR, noise, etc), Format Size (hoping for S35/S35+ at a minimum), Actual Pixel Resolution (so we know exactly what it can do), and Maximum Frame Rate at Full Resolution (effected by Max Resolution).

 

[Bastien Tribalat]

Yep, I feel you. I love Dragon. But something that is an extremely subtle difference between OG 6K Dragon sensors and the 6K FF format found on Monstro and Helium is a variation in resolution and format size:
- Dragon 6K S35 - 6K FF = 6144x3160 (aspect ratio of 1.94:1)
- Monstro/Helium 8K VV/S35 - 6K FF = 6144x3240 (aspect ratio of 1.9:1 - or proper DCI)

Here's a visualization of that difference.

I personally wouldn't be sad if Komodo used either of those formats/resolutions whatever the sensor size ends up being. But I would prefer how it is in Monstro and Helium because OCD haunts me

Either ways, if it's either of those 6K formats you'll have Netflix (and everybody else too) compliant anamorphic in 4:3 or 6:5 or a typical 2X anamorphic shoot.

Basically I'd prefer those extra 80 pixels because it benefits all types of shooting, spherical and anamorphic. Particularly the 6K DCI or UHD downsampling to 4K resolutions. If it's even taller in resolution, I think that would be well received as well.

I guess in many ways my wants sort of happen in this order: Sensor Image Quality (color, DR, noise, etc), Format Size (hoping for S35/S35+ at a minimum), Actual Pixel Resolution (so we know exactly what it can do), and Maximum Frame Rate at Full Resolution (effected by Max Resolution).

Yeah no problem at all, let's go for a proper 6K DCI ratio. Fine by me. (as if it depends on me XD)