KOMODO....

[Misha Engel]

RED and Arri aren't in competition with them.

I don't think RED and ARRI will agree with you and when they do they have already lost.

We've seen to many companies thinking like that in the past who are now gone or a lot smaller.

The bottom up aproach works pretty good.

 

[jordan levy]

I edited a piece shot on Canon C300MKII and Sony A7III and the Sony does not produce pleasing images to me. It's way to "video-esque" for my taste, too noisy, even at base ISO, too harsh. I had to create LUTs using Film Convert to help match the two cameras in the color grading process)

Funny i had the exact opposite experiences, the first time i dealt with A7III footage was a celebrity doc style job i had to use the c300mk2, but my AC had the Sony with rokinons he was so proud of, and finally i was fine, shoot, get some broll, shoot everything. when it came time to edit, his footage looked so much more pleasing to me then the C300, it was the C300 that looked way too video-y in comparison. so i ran out and and bought one, for scouting purposes really, and sold my canon, which was too big for scouting these days. since then ive shot a number of doc style projects on the A7III, at 2500 iso as well and it was super clean. i even have these spots on my reel competing with the biggest of jobs and no one has ever said what did you shoot that with? also, you have to take into consideration, there are so many settings on the sony for picture profiles and customizations, it does take some know how to make it look great, you cant just choose a setting and go with the defaults.
Now back to Komodo!
The specs need to be completely released and preorders opened, other cameras are coming out and people are deciding what to buy before the end of the year, release the Kracken!

 

[Brian Boyer]

I don't think RED and ARRI will agree with you and when they do they have already lost.

We've seen to many companies thinking like that in the past who are now gone or a lot smaller.

The bottom up aproach works pretty good.

I never said RED and Arri don't pay attention to what's happening on the inexpensive end. What I said was they're clearly not going after that market. Their product lines and price points are evidence of that.

Similarly, BMD aren't significantly impacting RED and Alexa jobs at the high end. The difference here is that RED did significantly impact Sony and Arri (D-20/21) digital cinema cams on the high end.

If a time comes where BMD produces something better, or even comparable, for substantially less than what RED and Arri are offering, then they'll have to reevaluate. As long as BMD is unable to give those productions what they feel they need, the current stratification among tiers will continue to exist.

BMD don't have a strong track record on this front. Z CAM is still an unknown at this time. Chevy hasn't put BMW out of business, either. At such time that Chevy offers what BMW's target audience wants from an automobile, for whatever reason they want it, things will change for BMW and they'll have to reevaluate. Until then, they're not in direct competition.

What you're talking about usually comes about when top-tier companies refuse to innovate or start to offer less for more money. That's a death sentence. Jim said a long time ago that RED was ready for the competition to reach 4K and beyond. He said they welcomed it.

RED's position has always been they have way more tricks up their sleeve than just resolution. As we've seen, there's more to widespread adoption of a camera system than just the numbers on the spec sheet. If BMD and others can't close the percieved quality gap, RED and Arri will continue to thrive on the mid-to-upper end.

 

[Maz Mawlawi]

I really hope Komodo delivers in features and price. I hate to say but we have been using the Sony mirror-less cameras a lot lately due to their size, price and features (autofocus, face detection, tracking etc...) yes I know it's only 8 bit with a crappy codec, but when exposed properly and recorded to an Atomos the footage ends up looking really good....and it really makes gimbal work a pleasure especially with the focusing option. As much as I love RED I find that our team is using other cameras more and more... :-/

 

[Maz Mawlawi]

Funny i had the exact opposite experiences, the first time i dealt with A7III footage was a celebrity doc style job i had to use the c300mk2, but my AC had the Sony with rokinons he was so proud of, and finally i was fine, shoot, get some broll, shoot everything. when it came time to edit, his footage looked so much more pleasing to me then the C300, it was the C300 that looked way too video-y in comparison. so i ran out and and bought one, for scouting purposes really, and sold my canon, which was too big for scouting these days. since then ive shot a number of doc style projects on the A7III, at 2500 iso as well and it was super clean. i even have these spots on my reel competing with the biggest of jobs and no one has ever said what did you shoot that with? also, you have to take into consideration, there are so many settings on the sony for picture profiles and customizations, it does take some know how to make it look great, you cant just choose a setting and go with the defaults.
Now back to Komodo!
The specs need to be completely released and preorders opened, other cameras are coming out and people are deciding what to buy before the end of the year, release the Kracken!

Agreed! as much as I hated Sony and love RED (been a RED user since the original RED One) we now use the Sony A7 cams a lot more than our Heliums...

 

[Joel Voelker]

If it will shoot UHD Prores4444, I'll take three of them.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I know there has been a lot of talk in this thread about RED vs. BMD vs. Z CAM but I have a different (probably incorrect) take on the situation: RED is not in competition with either of those companies.

Of course they are, as any other camera manufacturer they are competing with getting their gear used by owner operators and rentals. If these companies start to deliver on qualities that were previously only attributed to Red and Arri, it's gonna eat up a large portion of their customer base.

their primary target has always been, and still is, feature film and narrative tv production.

Yes and no. Their aim is to deliver digital cinema at the highest quality, but most TV, narrative and feature film's are done with rental equipment, so you are excluding the pretty large user-base of owner operators like myself.

BMD cannot release a $15K body. Their usual market won't buy it because it's too expensive. They might as well buy a RED at that price. And the higher end target market won't buy/use it because it's BMD, which they've never seriously considered.

The whole reason they haven't competed with Red is because that would require making a lot of R&D work to compete at the highest end. They've built up a user-base among people who don't need the level of quality that Red cameras give you. However, the gap is closing, their Pocket 6K and Ursa mini pro G2 is miles ahead of their previous gear and it becomes harder and harder for people to justify getting an Amira rather than an Ursa mini pro G2. This gap will close even further and that's when they will start to eat at the Red customer base, without ever even getting into higher priced gear. It's just the natural progression of technology, remember the digital still cameras that cost a fortune in the 90's? Well, we got consumer gear that cost 300 bucks that gives you better quality than what we had back then.

These companies have two different audiences, which translates to them not being in any direct competition.

They have only been seperated by the quality they provide, if you close that gap, people will take notice. The Pocket 6K is disruptive, just check the buzz online and it becomes quite obvious it's not the same thing as when BM released their first pocket or even the 4K. They are closing in fast and ignoring that would be devastating.

Getting into the sub-$5K cinema camera market is a lose-lose proposition for RED. Those people are too hard to please and are never satisfied. They always want unrealistically more for substantially less.

This isn't the case in 2019. The Pocket 6K is priced $2500, that's a lot of unrealistically more for substantially less. And the Ursa mini pro G2 rivals the Amira, but cost significantly less. The only reason it's not taken off quite yet is because of brand recognition. To say that unprofessionals are uneducated into the reason things cost much could be turned towards those who are professionals and are just as uneducated as to why they use only one brand all the time. Everything is marketing. If you just look at the quality against price, things are getting stormy.

Also, if you get people into the Red infrastructure with a cheaper mid-tier camera, you might keep them there when they've become more noticed in the industry. Do you think someone with a Pocket 6K will jump onto an expensive Red after a while or just buy the Ursa mini? Especially when quality of BM cameras is increasing

That's why I think Komodo was not designed for the budget-minded shooter, despite the suspected $6K - $6.5K price point. I think Komodo is designed to fill a niche that the Z CAM could reluctantly, but not abundantly, fill if Komodo didn't exist.

Z Cam is already building reputation, BM too, Sigma is coming. You are looking at their first attempt at higher than 4K cameras, as technology is improving you reach a diminishing return. Up until now, BM and the others haven't even been close to the quality of Red or Arri, but since they are now doing it, Red will lose a substantial user-base of owner-operators to those companies if they can't bring something similar to the table.

Komodo is priced according to what it offers to the high end compared to what their current, more powerful and capable cameras do. Jarred said on FB that people considering selling their current DSMC2 cam to get Komodo will likely be disappointed because they still outperform Komodo at most things.

That all depends on how you interpret it. Yes, it will not give you 8K, yes it will not give you higher framerates. But the thing is, the other brands are doing 6K up to 50 FPS, Full frame, compressed RAW etc. The Pocket 6K lags behind a 6K Dragon mostly in not being widely adopted yet, not having the same amount of stops and not having 100 fps at 5K. But the thing to remember here is that it's $2500. To think that DSMC2 is on par with it is crazy, but to say that it's very close is not. And you can get like 22 Pocket 6K's for the price of one Monstro. The whole point is that owner-operators are looking at what they can do with their cameras and previously no one could compete with the DSMC2 in many areas. Now we have drastically low-priced options that are close to the diminishing return of quality, meaning owner-operators will be able to get such high quality out of them that they can start questioning if their DSMC2 really is a good investment.

The DSMC2 is not replaced by the Komodo, but a Komodo will probably be a replaced investment that generates far better value to an owner-operator. As a business, you will always look at quality versus price-point and what kind of projects you're delivering. Maintaining a DSMC2 is very expensive compared to managing a smaller, less expensive camera. It's easier to take risks, get two cameras to have a backup etc. There are a number of things that far surpass only comparing the spec-sheet of a DSMC2 and a Komodo.

The Komodo needs to match up against the other brands and if it does it unintendedly will match up close to the quality of a DSMC2, especially the Dragon 6K. Doesn't matter if it on paper won't replace the DSMC2, it will for many owner-operators and logically so. And if it doesn't deliver something matching its price-point compared to others, no one will justify getting it over something like the Pocket 6K or the ZCam.

I think this idea of it disrupting RED's current lineup to better compete with BMD and Z CAM is due to misunderstanding what the camera is and who it's for.

So what is it intended for? Jarred said that Phil was close in asserting it is along the line of something like the ZCam. And it doesn't matter what companies want, technological advancement is forcing action whether they like it or not. Other companies will soon be close to the DSMC2 lineup for a fraction of their cost and what then? If Red doesn't have the intention of competing with the mid-tier cameras and just keep on doing the same thing as they've previously done, they will soon only be a rental option for high budget productions. It will be the Ranger lineup and only special builds for the ones with deep pockets. Because everyone else won't be able to justify paying $100 000 for something they can get for $10 000.

Just because it isn't like this at this moment in time, doesn't mean it won't happen. Look at the broader picture, think about where we will be with cameras in 2020-2025. An investment in Red in 2015 was a good business move, way ahead of others. In 2020, not so much.

I don't expect Z CAM to do any better in the states than Kinefinity does. Another reason why RED is not in competition with these cameras.

The states are not the world. The tech news coverage on Z Cam is higher than Kinefinity and BM already has a lot of traction, only getting more with the Pocket 6K. It is not wise to dismiss the impact these smaller companies have when their quality start to match up equally to that of Red and Arri.

Tell me, why would anyone who makes smart business moves buy Arri Amiras over BM Ursa Mini Pro G2's? For what reason would that be a wise decision at this time? And when BM releases a G3?

For years now, people have been saying RED was going to get squeezed out by this and that budget cam. But, many of the cameras that people said would contribute to that scenario have fallen off the radar. It hasn't happened for the same reason the Alexa isn't getting squeezed out by these budget cameras for the higher end stuff.

And they have been wrong because others haven't been able to match up with Red on several key areas. While Arri is still the king of color science and has a lot of coverage in the feature film area. But try and find many owner operators using Arri cameras, other than Amiras. Judging what is going to be, by what has been has never been a wise thing to do. It's the same kind of thing that made the crash in 2008 happen. We've never had cameras matching up so close to Red quality before now and that is a serious thing to consider. Couple that with the Jinni-mag debacle and bad publicity, the world is not the same as five years ago, not in the world of technology.

RED and Arri aren't in competition with them.

Let's hold onto that notion through the coming years and see how many owner-operators and content creators still use Red. I think it's unwise to dismiss the other companies like this.

If you need an analogy, try Hagel's master/slave concept and look at how it ends. In times like these, it's good to have some knowledge in philosophy.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Agreed! as much as I hated Sony and love RED (been a RED user since the original RED One) we now use the Sony A7 cams a lot more than our Heliums...

This is exactly what I'm talking about and the other brand's cameras are getting better and better. Komodo needs to deliver or a lot of owner-operators will start making decisions.

 

[Bastien Tribalat]

Funny i had the exact opposite experiences, the first time i dealt with A7III footage was a celebrity doc style job i had to use the c300mk2, but my AC had the Sony with rokinons he was so proud of, and finally i was fine, shoot, get some broll, shoot everything. when it came time to edit, his footage looked so much more pleasing to me then the C300, it was the C300 that looked way too video-y in comparison. so i ran out and and bought one, for scouting purposes really, and sold my canon, which was too big for scouting these days. since then ive shot a number of doc style projects on the A7III, at 2500 iso as well and it was super clean. i even have these spots on my reel competing with the biggest of jobs and no one has ever said what did you shoot that with? also, you have to take into consideration, there are so many settings on the sony for picture profiles and customizations, it does take some know how to make it look great, you cant just choose a setting and go with the defaults.
Now back to Komodo!
The specs need to be completely released and preorders opened, other cameras are coming out and people are deciding what to buy before the end of the year, release the Kracken!

Haha.
I can honnestly say I have no bias for/against Canon nor Sony in this.
For the sake of the discussion, here are some of the settings for the two cameras (that I can remember) :
Canon C300MK2 :
- Canon Log 3
- Cinema Gamut
- Production Camera matrix


A7III :
- Slog... 2 (I think)
- Cine.Gamut Something

Both cameras used Xeen Cine Primes (24mm T1.5 on the Sony and 50mm T1.5 and 85mm T1.5 on the Canon). ISO on both varied between 1000-ish and 3200 (one shot at ISO6400 on the Canon). It was a dark interior shoot. I was operating/responsible of the Canon and just asked the other guy to give me the Log profile with the most dynamic range (and to match my 24fps... And on Sony, the menu says 24fps but the file is 23.98... So the second day I set the Canon at that...).

EDIT : by the way, there were no DP. "don't have the budget" they said. So it was lit very badly at the maximum of our capacity (me and the other operator)... Oh and the "director/writter" didn't write any dialogue they had to create/learn it on the fly and he made NO blocking whatsoever, No storyboard, gave no instruction and never came to watch what was filmed. #FunTimes #NeverAgain

 

[jordan levy]

Haha.
I can honnestly say I have no bias for/against Canon nor Sony in this.
For the sake of the discussion, here are some of the settings for the two cameras (that I can remember) :
Canon C300MK2 :
- Canon Log 3
- Cinema Gamut
- Production Camera matrix


A7III :
- Slog... 2 (I think)
- Cine.Gamut Something

Both cameras used Xeen Cine Primes (24mm T1.5 on the Sony and 50mm T1.5 and 85mm T1.5 on the Canon). ISO on both varied between 1000-ish and 3200 (one shot at ISO6400 on the Canon). It was a dark interior shoot. I was operating/responsible of the Canon and just asked the other guy to give me the Log profile with the most dynamic range (and to match my 24fps... And on Sony, the menu says 24fps but the file is 23.98... So the second day I set the Canon at that...).

EDIT : by the way, there were no DP. "don't have the budget" they said. So it was lit very badly at the maximum of our capacity (me and the other operator)... Oh and the "director/writter" didn't write any dialogue they had to create/learn it on the fly and he made NO blocking whatsoever, No storyboard, gave no instruction and never came to watch what was filmed. #FunTimes #NeverAgain

yeah rule number 1 with sony A7III, dont use slog in low light, there lies your issue. its 8 bit and cant handle it. that creates the noise you were referring to. the people that have done tests and know what they are doing typically use cine 4/pro but with tweaks to about 10 settings within that picture profile, i found a happy place within those settings.

 

[Bastien Tribalat]

yeah rule number 1 with sony A7III, dont use slog in low light, there lies your issue. its 8 bit and cant handle it. that creates the noise you were referring to. the people that have done tests and know what they are doing typically use cine 4/pro but with tweaks to about 10 settings within that picture profile, i found a happy place within those settings.

Good to know if I work again with that guy. Thanks

 

[Nicholaus James]

Soooo.......should I wait for Komodo or pull the trigger on a Gemini upgrade?

I'm torn because I can justify the expense of Gemini if it will have more to offer in a camera than Komodo because of it's price point, or is Komodo offer just as much as a Gemini, but because it's newer tech, you know how that goes: faster, smaller, cheaper?

Of course RED would like my money on a Gemini over Komodo because they have a business to run too, but I don't want to be cursing them if I jump into a Gemmi now and in just a few months have huge buyer's remorse. I love RED, I don't want to be cursing them.

 

[jordan levy]

Soooo.......should I wait for Komodo or pull the trigger on a Gemini upgrade?

I'm torn because I can justify the expense of Gemini if it will have more to offer in a camera than Komodo because of it's price point, or is Komodo offer just as much as a Gemini, but because it's newer tech, you know how that goes: faster, smaller, cheaper?

Of course RED would like my money on a Gemini over Komodo because they have a business to run too, but I don't want to be cursing them if I jump into a Gemmi now and in just a few months have huge buyer's remorse. I love RED, I don't want to be cursing them.

nobody knows that answer, it depends on what the Komodo actually is and does. i would wait if you can so you can make a better judgement.

 

[DJ Meyer]

Soooo.......should I wait for Komodo or pull the trigger on a Gemini upgrade?.

Definitely go Gemini as soon as possible as that will guarantee that Komodo is released soon after. :laugh:

 

[Mathias Erichsen]

About the EXT port on the back... As this camera will have a Canon mount, could it have inherited something else from Canon, like the EXT connectors that is on the Canon C300 that is carrying video and power to the LCD and XLRs and bringing control signals and balanced audio back?
That could be useful

 

[Bastien Tribalat]

About the EXT port on the back... As this camera will have a Canon mount, could it have inherited something else from Canon, like the EXT connectors that is on the Canon C300 that is carrying video and power to the LCD and XLRs and bringing control signals and balanced audio back?
That could be useful

Maybe BUT what would be the point for RED while they could "just" their own connectors to use with their monitors ?

EDIT : BUT this could be so we can control the camera settings via an Atomos product. You know, since they shared patents and stuff (and since Steven Soderbergh on the photo he posted of Komodo is using it with an Atomos recorder... Well, the EXT socket isn't plugged but who knows ?)

 

[Brian Boyer]

Of course they are, as any other camera manufacturer they are competing with getting their gear used by owner operators and rentals. If these companies start to deliver on qualities that were previously only attributed to Red and Arri, it's gonna eat up a large portion of their customer base.

Like you said, if they start to deliver. That sounds to me like an acknowledgement that they're not. Like I said, until such time as they do, a clear distinction exists.

Their aim is to deliver digital cinema at the highest quality, but most TV, narrative and feature film's are done with rental equipment, so you are excluding the pretty large user-base of owner operators like myself.

I'm not excluding them at all. In fact, I admitted that RED bends over backwards to accommodate us. However, if they lose some people to the lure of a $2,500 camera that gets them 80% of what RED gets them, I think they're going to have to be ok with that, as long as there's a significant market that values the extra 20% that using RED affords them.

But that is and has always been the case - "Should I buy a Scarlet or a Canon 5DMKII with Magic Lantern RAW?" It's old, much traveled territory. You can't be all things to all people. You have to draw a line somewhere. The line is sometimes fuzzy with RED but there has to be one. They aren't Sony and can't release cameras at every price point imaginable.

They have only been seperated by the quality they provide,...

Exactly. That's the most important thing.

...if you close that gap, people will take notice. The Pocket 6K is disruptive, just check the buzz online and it becomes quite obvious it's not the same thing as when BM released their first pocket or even the 4K. They are closing in fast and ignoring that would be devastating.

There's that pesky "if" word again. I'm sorry but I don't think the Pocket 6K is going to be all that disruptive, except on the low end. When that turns out to be true, you won't mind terribly much because it only cost you $2,500.

The gap only closes if RED and Arri stagnate. The Sony NEX-3N I bought for $289 has better overall image quality than my DVX-100. I understand the march of technology. But that would only really matter if Panasonic was still pushing the DVX-100 instead offering the EVA-1 or the Varicam LT.

It doesn't matter why Ursa Mini Pro G2 hasn't taken off. What matters most is that it hasn't taken off.

Everybody in the industry knows who and what BMD are about. If the G1 didn't do it for them the G2 isn't going to do it either. That's the way it goes. There won't be a surge in sales of G2s. I could be wrong but I don't think so.

Also, if you get people into the Red infrastructure with a cheaper mid-tier camera, you might keep them there when they've become more noticed in the industry. Do you think someone with a Pocket 6K will jump onto an expensive Red after a while or just buy the Ursa mini? Especially when quality of BM cameras is increasing.

I think people who buy a $2,500 cinema camera and use it to make money will move on to the next thing once they make their money back and something they deem better comes along. I don't think brand loyalty is that strong at these price points; not for cinema cameras (as opposed to Nikon vs. Canon back in the day) and not in 2019.

Up until now, BM and the others haven't even been close to the quality of Red or Arri, but since they are now doing it, Red will lose a substantial user-base of owner-operators to those companies if they can't bring something similar to the table.

If people aren't seeing the benefits of what shooting any of the current REDs have over shooting with one of the newer, cheaper cameras, they probably weren't fully utilizing the cameras and shouldn't have bought them in the first place.

Perhaps these cheaper, increasingly more capable cameras will help stabilize the market in a way that keeps these folks buying gear more appropriate to their circumstances.

That way, you won't get so many people spending money they don't really have and 8 months later making a YouTube video called, "Why I sold my RED!" You also won't have as many REDs on the used market because people bought things more in line with their budgets and/or abilities.

That might be doing RED a bigger solid in terms of brand identity and image quality consistency on the back end than the money they lose to the cheaper cams.

The Komodo needs to match up against the other brands and if it does it unintendedly will match up close to the quality of a DSMC2, especially the Dragon 6K. Doesn't matter if it on paper won't replace the DSMC2, it will for many owner-operators and logically so. And if it doesn't deliver something matching its price-point compared to others, no one will justify getting it over something like the Pocket 6K or the ZCam.

I think Komodo will fit better with what many owner-operators actually do with their cameras, if they're being realistic about what they truly need.

It's probably intended for the same uses people would look to a Z CAM for on the mid/high end. Like I said, the difference is those productions will more readily choose s RED for that purpose than a Z CAM.

Beyond that, it will also make a fine A-cam for budget minded-shooters who are willing to pay a little more (but not as much as they could be) to get into the RED ecosystem.

Other companies will soon be close to the DSMC2 lineup for a fraction of their cost and what then? If Red doesn't have the intention of competing with the mid-tier cameras and just keep on doing the same thing as they've previously done, they will soon only be a rental option for high budget productions. It will be the Ranger lineup and only special builds for the ones with deep pockets. Because everyone else won't be able to justify paying $100 000 for something they can get for $10 000.

Technological advancement isn't exclusive to the low end. You talk as if RED or others won't be doing any advancing of their own. Plus, if what others have said in this thread is true, everybody is using the same sensors for all these cameras you claim are going to end RED if they aren't careful. You call that innovation? Also, what RED costs $100K?

I'm always looking at the broader picture. I'm also looking at history repeat itself to some degree. Sometimes, past is prologue and a good predictor of future events. I don't see this going any differently than it has in the past, given what I've seen announced recently.

The states are not the world. The tech news coverage on Z Cam is higher than Kinefinity and BM already has a lot of traction, only getting more with the Pocket 6K. It is not wise to dismiss the impact these smaller companies have when their quality start to match up equally to that of Red and Arri.

Name one camera that's popular in the rest of the world but not the states. Z CAM being new could explain the press. Once the buzz dies down, we'll see what's what in use. BMD don't have any more traction today than they had 6 months ago.

They are what they are, which is pretty good for the money. The Pocket 6K isn't going to change that significantly, I don't think.

Let's hold onto that notion through the coming years and see how many owner-operators and content creators still use Red. I think it's unwise to dismiss the other companies like this.

I'm not dismissing those companies. I'm saying until they produce a serious contender to RED's lineup, now or in the future with DSMC3, nothing much will change and RED will continue to attempt to produce the best cameras they can at prices they feel the market can bear.

RED invented the digital cinema camera owner-operator. You can get a Dragon-X body for $3K less than the original R1 and the Dragon-X is a whole lot more camera. You freely admit it outclasses the Pocket 6K. Yes, it's only $2,500 but that's what makes it seem like a throw-away to me.

My feeling is consumers and BMD themselves will treat it as such as soon as the next Pocket comes out. There doesn't seem to be enough sense of stability for these cameras to cause the revolution you think they will. I'm a musician and I'm well aware of how smaller companies can take down high-end behemoths.

It could happen here but many things would have to change and I don't see them happening enough to separate this period from a few years back when everyone and their mother had a cinema camera on offer.


If BMD were truly targeting serious productions for A-cam work or B-cam gimbal/drone work with the Pocket 6K, they wouldn't have put it in a DSLR form factor with an EF-only mount.

RED, on the other hand, put Komodo in a more flexible, production friendly body with an RF mount, which can be adapted to just about any lens with relative ease. Which company sounds stuck and which one sounds forward thinking in that regard?

Komodo is not going to be the unbelievably spec'd camera the wishful thinking in this thread hopes it will be. It will sit nicely alongside RED's current offerings. To suggest anything different is to blatantly ignore the facts.

I get where you're coming from and, to be clear, if I were in the market for a camera today with the same resources I had available when I bought my Scarlet M-X back in 2011, I'd seriously consider a BMD or Z CAM over a RED. That doesn't mean RED is doomed. It simply means I'm not currently in the market they're courting with their cameras.

It also means I'd knowingly be compromising on certain things I deem important to the image that RED continues to be better at/offer more of and BMD still struggles with to some extent, although they are getting better.

 

[Misha Engel]

I'll just wait till this https://news.panasonic.com/global/press/data/2018/02/en180214-2/en180214-2.html comes to the market at an affordable price.

 

[Savannah Miller]

I think even Blackmagic is now getting hard time from other brands. Before 2013, when people still used DSLR, dynamic range, codecs, color, etc. were very poor. RED made images that were well above consumer level cameras. Now, cameras have 4K+, higher dynamic range, 10-bit, slow motion, autofocus, IBIS, etc.

One day when a mirrorless camera maker decides to put RAW, Prores, or timecode in one of their cameras and Blackmagic will have a hard time.

 

[Phil Holland]

One day when a mirrorless camera maker decides to put RAW, Prores, or timecode in one of their cameras and Blackmagic will have a hard time.

Hmmm.