KOMODO....

[David Rasberry]

Hmm, interesting article:

https://nofilmschool.com/digital-camera-market-sales-low

A 50% fall from one year to the other for cameras and 60% for lenses. Any industry hit by such drastic numbers are in for a big change no doubt. Really nuts if you think of it, the foto/camera industry is rather old, lot of large companies built over long time that has huge momentum but has difficulty to turn quickly. It will be interesting to see who can adapt if / when this trend continues. Its a steelbath for quite a few no doubt.

My guess, prices for decent cineglass will likly fall drastically and the amount of new affordable/capable small “cine cameras” coming to market will likly be nuts.

Im sure Jarred and team is very aware. If it was difficult to create something groundbreaking back in the redone days its for sure not easier today.

As the article indicated, this drop is largely a result of the current tariff war. Prices for new gear won’t go down when import tariffs are up on both products and the raw materials to make them by as much as 35%, with more increases likely. We have had several rounds of price increases from equipment manufacturers we use. The most recent round in September by as much as 25% on steel products on top of 12% to 18% last winter. It is pushing global markets into recession.

 

[David Rasberry]

I don't think he is because it's the rational response to the competing specs.




Doesn't matter if it's delayed. If it ends up being the best of the mid-tier cameras it's gonna win over the competition due to both being better and having the Red brand. But competing with Z Cam and Blackmagic is tough, it can't be a half-assed attempt at a Z Cam clone, but that's not what I expect from Red.





Both the Pocket 6K and the S1H have cooling. But it's much more low-key than what the Komodo seems to do.



A lack of cooling means a good overall design, but what's even better is robust cooling. The S1H uses the Panasonic military-grade cooling, used in their military laptops, making the camera be water and dust-resistant and still be able to cool the processor/sensor.
Red has always "played" with the military-style of camera gear, so it's a bit ironic that Panasonic actually does military-grade cooling.

Komodo’s large vents could be an indication of support for higher frame rates or lower compression, and don’t necessarily mean the design is not water and dust resistant. It could be for enhanced forced airflow across hermetically sealed heat sinks.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Komodo’s large vents could be an indication of support for higher frame rates or lower compression, and don’t necessarily mean the design is not water and dust resistant. It could be for enhanced forced airflow across hermetically sealed heat sinks.

The Pocket 6K already does 50 fps at 6K Raw 3:1 and it doesn't have much in terms of cooling. I'm not sure there's much cooling needed for higher framerates and lower compression if the processor has lower nanometer structure than current-gen Red's.

 

[Björn Benckert]

As the article indicated, this drop is largely a result of the current tariff war. Prices for new gear won’t go down when import tariffs are up on both products and the raw materials to make them by as much as 35%, with more increases likely. We have had several rounds of price increases from equipment manufacturers we use. The most recent round in September by as much as 25% on steel products on top of 12% to 18% last winter. It is pushing global markets into recession.

Are you sure? US is a big market but cameras is very much a world wide thing. My guess is leaning way more towards the fact that nobody uses cameras any more as people tend to use their smartphones. The new iPhone11 will push even more in that direction. And sure, it´s not the high end cameras that take a beating but the bigger camera companies that have huge investments in DSL:R and pocket camera market for sure will take a huge hit when phones like the iPhone11 is commonly used. If they completely loose their consumer market share they will for sure have difficulty to hold up their professional end. Atleast without doubt they really need to go trough a huge change no matter what Tarriffs are in play.

It´s kind of like the celluloid film business. First it looses some to digital then things change very rapidly. Now when cameras are basically being digitised / becoming apps in our phones I have no doubt that we will see a similar thing happening to the camera manufacturers as we seen happen to Kodak, Fuji etc. Its simply shit hard for such large companies to adapt fast enough.

 

[Joey Ciccoline]

The Pocket 6K already does 50 fps at 6K Raw 3:1 and it doesn't have much in terms of cooling. I'm not sure there's much cooling needed for higher framerates and lower compression if the processor has lower nanometer structure than current-gen Red's.

The Pocket 6K has a pretty beefy fan for the form factor. It's a lot more audible than the 4K (but not loud enough to be an issue) and puts out a lot of heat. It can be hard to hold the camera close to the vents while shooting, because of the temperature.

 

[Homer Dulu]

New BP-A batteries from Core SWX. Grab a couple of these for your Komodo and you could probably go a week between battery swaps :biggrin:

https://www.newsshooter.com/2019/09/11/core-swx-nano-c98-for-canon-c200-c300-c500-mkii/

 

[Christoffer Glans]

The Pocket 6K has a pretty beefy fan for the form factor. It's a lot more audible than the 4K (but not loud enough to be an issue) and puts out a lot of heat. It can be hard to hold the camera close to the vents while shooting, because of the temperature.

Yes, didn't say it didn't have cooling, but what I meant is that it's not as beefy as with the visible one on the Komodo. So, if the Pocket 6K can do 50 fps at 3:1 RAW with that cooling, I seriously hope the Komodo can do better or at least do it quieter with it's cooling.

 

[Brian Boyer]

Couldn't the smaller flange distance in Komodo (along with a presumably more energy efficient sensor) effectively provide more space in the body for cooling, assuming they didn't have to cram components in that space due to the smaller body?

 

[Phil Holland]

The S1H uses the Panasonic military-grade cooling, used in their military laptops, making the camera be water and dust-resistant and still be able to cool the processor/sensor.
Red has always "played" with the military-style of camera gear, so it's a bit ironic that Panasonic actually does military-grade cooling.

Don't know what you mean by military grade cooling in this case, but I've held the S1H and seen it splayed out in parts in front of me, there is indeed a fan as well as ventilation, it's a plastic cyclone style to suck hot air out from near the sensor and blow it out of the vents on the sides of the camera. The rest of the system runs fairly cool, the sensor itself requires cooling to allow for what they are doing with the sensor to ensure all day use. It's a mix of directed airflow out and positive pressure internally for both vents.

Big processor cameras on the market all have fans with usually larger heat sinks with temperature monitoring/control for the sensor and to some degree of the boards themselves.

Couldn't the smaller flange distance in Komodo (along with a presumably more energy efficient sensor) effectively provide more space in the body for cooling, assuming they didn't have to cram components in that space due to the smaller body?

Probably and that's probably what is going on.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Don't know what you mean by military grade cooling in this case, but I've held the S1H and seen it splayed out in parts in front of me, there is indeed a fan as well as ventilation, it's a plastic cyclone style to suck hot air out from near the sensor and blow it out of the vents on the sides of the camera. The rest of the system runs fairly cool, the sensor itself requires cooling to allow for what they are doing with the sensor to ensure all day use. It's a mix of directed airflow out and positive pressure internally for both vents.

Big processor cameras on the market all have fans with usually larger heat sinks with temperature monitoring/control for the sensor and to some degree of the boards themselves.

What I meant with military-grade is that Panasonic makes laptops for military applications and they have them cooled and still be robust against dust, mud and water. They have some video somewhere where they drag one of their laptops behind a four-wheeler through a forest rally track. The idea is having no components exposed, only the heatsink, while the fan can work through heavy particles and water splashes. They've used the same method on the S1H and this means the S1H is on par with the good weather sealing that Canon has, while still using air-cooling. As much as we've seen images of Red cameras being all muddy and splashed, I would call that reckless. So I would like to have a camera as weather-sealed as my Canon instead of always having to wrap my camera in rain protection every time there are some drops coming down.

 

[Phil Holland]

What I meant with military-grade is that Panasonic makes laptops for military applications and they have them cooled and still be robust against dust, mud and water. They have some video somewhere where they drag one of their laptops behind a four-wheeler through a forest rally track. The idea is having no components exposed, only the heatsink, while the fan can work through heavy particles and water splashes. They've used the same method on the S1H and this means the S1H is on par with the good weather sealing that Canon has, while still using air-cooling. As much as we've seen images of Red cameras being all muddy and splashed, I would call that reckless. So I would like to have a camera as weather-sealed as my Canon instead of always having to wrap my camera in rain protection every time there are some drops coming down.

I understand, but you're still not exactly comparing apples to apples. The S1H is splash and dust proof, not water proof or even resistant. Their Toughbooks, which I've owned a few of as they were our on set set notebooks for a bit, are a different thing all together. They were/are IP65 if I recall correctly, had very different mounting and enclosure material to survive a decent drop.

If their marketing as such, but they are so different in what's in there.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Who's it for?

Who's it for?

What is RED's goal for Komodo? Who do they see as their primary market? What are the sales projections?

I see two logical paths:

1) RED wants to sell cameras by the truckload. Higher volume to reduce unit cost and provide an entry point into the RED ecosystem.

2) RED wants to meet the needs of the professional market with a small form factor camera for gimbals, drones, arrays, remote PTZ, etc. Needs to be good enough to cut in with anything.

If the real deal is #2, that's a very different path than #1 and makes comparisons to the BMPCC6K, FP1, etc mostly spurious.

Since I work in the industry, I'm much more interested in a compact high spec camera competent for real world professional use. I understand that will cost more than some other solutions, but if it delivers the combination of image quality and usability needed... No idea how many thousands of Komodos could be sold to the pro market alone, but if it's in sync with the sales numbers RED needs to make the Komodo program a success, boom.

Cheers - #19

 

[Mestizo Devon]

What is RED's goal for Komodo? Who do they see as their primary market? What are the sales projections?

I see two logical paths:

1) RED wants to sell cameras by the truckload. Higher volume to reduce unit cost and provide an entry point into the RED ecosystem.

2) RED wants to meet the needs of the professional market with a small form factor camera for gimbals, drones, arrays, remote PTZ, etc. Needs to be good enough to cut in with anything.

If the real deal is #2, that's a very different path than #1 and makes comparisons to the BMPCC6K, FP1, etc mostly spurious.

Since I work in the industry, I'm much more interested in a compact high spec camera competent for real world professional use. I understand that will cost more than some other solutions, but if it delivers the combination of image quality and usability needed... No idea how many thousands of Komodos could be sold to the pro market alone, but if it's in sync with the sales numbers RED needs to make the Komodo program a success, boom.

Cheers - #19

Strange origins, from Hydrogen module pancake to cube small form factor. It seems to have cover much ground while occupying a specific space in the RED ecosystem. I would have loved the module pancake setup but honestly the lens game would have bumped the package right back up in size. So here we are.... Waiting for solid information, dates, prices and accessories.

 

[David Rasberry]

Strange origins, from Hydrogen module pancake to cube small form factor. It seems to have cover much ground while occupying a specific space in the RED ecosystem. I would have loved the module pancake setup but honestly the lens game would have bumped the package right back up in size. So here we are.... Waiting for solid information, dates, prices and accessories.

I have feeling that Komodo, or something very like it, was well under development before Hydrogen was even a consideration.

 

[David Rasberry]

Since I work in the industry, I'm much more interested in a compact high spec camera competent for real world professional use. I understand that will cost more than some other solutions, but if it delivers the combination of image quality and usability needed... No idea how many thousands of Komodos could be sold to the pro market alone, but if it's in sync with the sales numbers RED needs to make the Komodo program a success, boom.

Cheers - #19

I think the global market size for any video camera, much less a raw digital cinema camera, north of $5k price range tends to be overestimated. There was a factory tour article of a Sony camera assembly facility in England a couple of years ago that focused on one of the newer 1" format fixed lens models in this price range. the typical workhorse camera of down market TV news crews and small documentary production indie shops shooting legal work, industrials, weddings. The entire global market production of this camera was assembled out of the corporate parts bin, calibrated, and tested for certification by one man in 25 camera batches topping out at 100 cameras a month depending on demand.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

What is RED's goal for Komodo? Who do they see as their primary market? What are the sales projections?

I see two logical paths:

1) RED wants to sell cameras by the truckload. Higher volume to reduce unit cost and provide an entry point into the RED ecosystem.

2) RED wants to meet the needs of the professional market with a small form factor camera for gimbals, drones, arrays, remote PTZ, etc. Needs to be good enough to cut in with anything.

If the real deal is #2, that's a very different path than #1 and makes comparisons to the BMPCC6K, FP1, etc mostly spurious.

Since I work in the industry, I'm much more interested in a compact high spec camera competent for real world professional use. I understand that will cost more than some other solutions, but if it delivers the combination of image quality and usability needed... No idea how many thousands of Komodos could be sold to the pro market alone, but if it's in sync with the sales numbers RED needs to make the Komodo program a success, boom.

Cheers - #19

There's a third plausible option; they want to push more people into Red so that future sales of Red's higher-end models are secured through it. The rise of cameras like the Pocket 6K, Z Cam, S1H and so on means there's a big chunk of the market going down other paths than getting a high-end Red, which previously was one of the only options for that kind of quality. Komodo is a way to keep people using Red cameras and keep people from being lost to other brands.

I have feeling that Komodo, or something very like it, was well under development before Hydrogen was even a consideration.

I think the camera module for Hydrogen was the intended path, but when other brands started releasing small body, high-performance models, they switched towards that instead as there's no way they could have a market with the niche setup of a phone with a camera module. No one serious would buy it. Komodo is a much better path forward and logical in the current market.

I think the global market size for any video camera, much less a raw digital cinema camera, north of $5k price range tends to be overestimated. There was a factory tour article of a Sony camera assembly facility in England a couple of years ago that focused on one of the newer 1" format fixed lens models in this price range. the typical workhorse camera of down market TV news crews and small documentary production indie shops shooting legal work, industrials, weddings. The entire global market production of this camera was assembled out of the corporate parts bin, calibrated, and tested for certification by one man in 25 camera batches topping out at 100 cameras a month depending on demand.

True for those kinds of cameras but for cinema cameras with the quality of Z Cam, Pocket 6K and presumably Komodo, a $5000 price is rather good.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Personally I think Komodo is about RED being strategic with the market.

The mid-market is exploding.

Why not dip a toe into it, and yes whet filmmakers appetite for their high end models at the same time.

If they can make Komodo work, its win-win for all - for filmmakers, and RED

 

[Maz Mawlawi]

One thing for sure....RED has much more competition than before. They are going to have to kill it with Komodo both in being feature rich and priced accordingly. There was a time when for a lot of us we would never consider anything but RED...the times have changed...I've seen lot of my DP friends as well as myself using quite often other cameras now.
Fingers crossed on Komodo!

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

I don't think he is because it's the rational response to the competing specs.

If it ends up being the best of the mid-tier cameras it's gonna win over the competition due to both being better and having the Red brand. But competing with Z Cam and Blackmagic is tough, it can't be a half-assed attempt at a Z Cam clone, but that's not what I expect from Red.

Well ... "competing specs" is ONE part of the equation - the BIGGER part of the equation is ... "competing image quality". Just look at the options and prices in still camera market.

And SOME specs are more important to SOME users over others.

BM delivers a good value for the price for sure - but many folks can't handle the moire/aliasing, etc. - if you ONLY looked at the specs of the BM 6K Pocket camera and the price - you would think everyone would just stop making cameras and that would be the only camera, right?

So ... what if KOMODO did NOT "out spec" a ZCAM or BM 6K pocket camera in every spec (codecs/RAW/etc) - but the image quality was FAR superior???

Think about this .... if you looked at every single MOTION camera that is running at this very second - shooting content this very second all around the world .... the vast majority are shooting for the internet (youtube, etc).

And they are shooting on DSLRs.
DSLRs that are not even shooting motion RAW, are using internal H264/5 and also recording externally to 4K UHD to various codecs.

My gut is that Komodo is for that market - and I think a lot of folks are having wildly unrealistic expectations. I don't think this will be a B-camera for high-end digital cinema. I think Gemini Ranger is a killer "B-Cam" for any high end production.

But I have been wrong before.

 

[Bérenger Brillante]

nice to read this, I too think Komodo will some kind of highend mirrorless camera, with less specs, but a to die for picture quality for the market, and a ease of use without too much accessories.