KOMODO....

[Jarred Land]

Yeah, and I shouldn't have responded. Just wild sometimes how much speculation and extrapolation the least comment (or a little phone snapshot) from you can start.

Question:

Since that top port isn't monitor-out signal like DSMC, and we know a lot of indies are going to want this as an A cam despite its intended usage, I'm curious about the choice to go SDI-only since an HDMI port would've allowed far more affordable monitors.

Also, since you've mentioned that Komodo was not at all conceived as a "Hydrogen camera module", can you say more about the choice of the CSI interface? Was the camera originally not going to have its own screen? Can you talk yet about any of the use cases you're imagining for what y'all will do with the CSI link?

I understand lots of indies will use Komodo as an A cam, but that's not what it was designed for. HDMI is now vacant on most high end productions ( and high end camera like the Alexa and our own Ranger no longer have HDMI ports ). If nobody is going to use that port in the market Komodo was designed for It is better to use that monitor path for something else instead of just having it sitting there dormant and/or making the camera grow to accommodate. But don't worry, Most 3rd party camera monitors , even the cheap ones, have an HD-SDI version now.

CSI came after I inherited the Hydrogen Program before it was cancelled. But don't worry.. we will still put it to good use. You mentioned low cost monitors.. and cell phones are probably as cheap of an option you can get to put up there, with the benefit of also being the smallest and lightest option since they have their batteries built in.

 

[Gregory Karydis]

For anyone concerned about HDMI monitoring, you can always grab one of these: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1361575-REG/atomos_atomccvsh2_connect_convert_4k_|.html when it's released (probably around the time Komodo comes out)
Or the existing blackmagic one.

SDI is the industry standard.

Or, as Jarred just mentioned:

... ...You mentioned low cost monitors.. and cell phones are probably as cheap of an option you can get to put up there, with the benefit of also being the smallest and lightest option since they have their batteries built in.

 

[paulcurtis]

For example Helium actually has improved a bit over the last couple years from a hardware standpoint by the engineers and Graeme's work continues to squeeze more out of the sensors from a software standpoint, but I reference Helium #0001 so it is a fair worst case not taking improvements into consideration.

That's an interesting statement, implying that the sensor itself is versioned internally and has made improvements on each batch perhaps. So now we're adding 'vintage' to a particular sensor as well

The only thing i'd add to DR is that i believe the software has a lot to do with it - by messing around with cameras that output open DNG files means getting to the real captured data - but actually most end images include work on highlight reconstruction, which in the case of these DNGs you have to do manually, so you're more aware of how much image can actually be 'reconstructed' at the top. I'm pretty sure closed RAW formats like R3D and ArriRAW this all happens in the SDK automagically - certainly that was a big improvement in IPP2.

There's a whole crop of current cameras apparently using the same 6K sensors but all reporting different marketing results despite the fact that the source has to be the same. The difference IMHO is software.

This kind of reconstruction is particularly good at wedge charts. So Phil doing broader tests is much more useful.

Drumming fingers waiting for Pre Orders to open....

Cheers
Paul

 

[adam r]

https://www.instagram.com/p/B6gejq0hQcS/?hl=en

This looks very cool!

Does anyone know which monitor and handle are in Jarred’s Instagram photo where the camera is in the snow?

 

[Gregory Karydis]

Looks like a GDU side handle and the usual Small HD monitor we've seen in other shots.

 

[adam r]

Looks like a GDU side handle and the usual Small HD monitor we've seen in other shots.

Thanks!

 

[Eric Lange]

I understand lots of indies will use Komodo as an A cam, but that's not what it was designed for.

<snip>

CSI came after I inherited the Hydrogen Program before it was cancelled.

But don't worry.. we will still put it to good use.

<snip> .

[Emphasis added]

Dumb question here …

Do you have some scheme by which multiple KOMODOs can be synched* (very precisely/accurately/ in a stable way) ?

Is there something other than genlock for that given HYDROGEN "Legacy" ?

Anyone have any idea on that ?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

* I'm not pressing for differences there for Globally shuttered versus rolling shutter / scan for multiple camera synching.

 

[Eric Lange]

I've brought up similar thoughts on other forums many times before. I started out back in the 90's on SD analog Betacam. What we have available now is insane compared to just a few decades ago, BUT it's ironic that now we have cameras with so much more DR and the ability to shoot in LOG and RAW and the ability to literally 'fix it in post', but I see so much more over exposed, blown out shots with horrible color than I ever did when we "had" to get it right in-camera. We were more careful and mindful. Now because so many think that it can all be done in post, no care is taken during acquisition.

Yeah,

I don't necessarily "diss" what young digitally inclined cinematographers and their associated workflows get up to theses days...

My first digital "experience" on a lengthy imaging project was with a Leaf Digital Camera back (medium format), but was a Peltier cooled giant brick affixed to a Hasselblad with three Kodak Wratten filters in a filter wheel / separated channels. The bit depth with true separated channels was very decent (for it's time) but if memory serves me right Dynamic Range was of the order of 9 to 11 stops. ~ The BEST 4 million pixels on the planet for 1991 ! :smilielol5:

Nowadays you could completely reshoot Barry Lyndon effortlessly on a Gemini lol. (no calculations for reciprocity failure required nor extremely hard to source ( yet fun) lenses required .)

https://www.instagram.com/p/B6MkDF3hdtc/

This shot ^^^ posted by Jarred on "Instajarred" seems super interesting, ~ subtle yet challenging conditions -

 

[Eric Lange]

Yes sir and I suspect I'll be writing about it more coming up.<snip for clarity / all good stuff>


The fun thing here is we also are not just showing a still of a Xyla, Patches, or Measured Stops; we also show it in motion, which I've started to upload in my public tests more often. That's where it gets hairy because on a still image you see one measurement and in motion a different one.

<snips various>

Just to remind people, motion picture film is 13 stops of Total Captured Dynamic Range. If you really know what you are doing you can squeeze 15 stops out of it. It's really how film sees light and color and translates that into an image via it's own unique properties and development methods. Much of that in truth is related to how film is exposed layer by layer. Digital has surpassed this on technical merit, that's not even really a question at that point. For me however it should be the baseline of what we should want and where we can go from here.


I'll end the evening on a mind poisoning thought. It's all about how you use those stops.


Just my opinion, but if Komodo lands where Jarred is stating, everybody should be pretty happy especially at this price point.

^^^[Emphasis added]

Re: Difference in motion and the tests you carry out + perception through motion (sounds awesome) !


Back in the day (film wise) some cinematographers and VFX folks you'd speak to would talk about how the "gitter" in the film gate gives this extra sort of 3d ish or "life like" quality, some would even go so far to say that if you squint slightly one eye on a tracking or panning shot (viewing in the cinema) that the visual pathway between your dominant eye and your non dominant eye are at slightly different processing speeds, so your left eye and right eye essentially see different frames out of such a sequence creating a temporally induced (half arsed) stereoscopic effect.

Nowadays film is scanned and registered so that extra "lively" gitter is ironed out.

I think it's gonna be interesting to also gauge the differences between more regular (cinematic look) rolling shutter* versus globally shuttered dynamic sequences (Given KOMODO's capabiltiies) .

I have to admit at 24 fps- ish, panning / panned shots I see the images as separate images rather than persistence of memory smoothed out kind of thing - fractured distracting transitional imagery. (old school shutter artifacts.).

Some globally shuttered imagery can have that more sterile / video game look dynamically. ~ But with modern display devices there is a higher tolerance for that now / acceptance (more so now than there used to be).

Presumably globally shuttered and captured imagery once munged through various VFX pipelines could have some sort of re-rendering that makes it look more like rolling shutter / older film look. Nice to have higher resolution imagery to work with that can be more tolerant of such steps (if needed) ~ Fewer unintended sampling artifacts (even if the whole rendering scheme is concatenated into one set of transformations, the extra resolution / more captured "pixels" in the frame is helpful.).

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


* I remember Jim Jannard saying (online), how he liked the rolling shutter look as it mirrors regular film / cinematic imagery more .

 

[Christopher A. Bell]

Yeah, and I shouldn't have responded. Just wild sometimes how much speculation and extrapolation the least comment (or a little phone snapshot) from you can start.

Question:

Since that top port isn't monitor-out signal like DSMC, and we know a lot of indies are going to want this as an A cam despite its intended usage, I'm curious about the choice to go SDI-only since an HDMI port would've allowed far more affordable monitors.

Also, since you've mentioned that Komodo was not at all conceived as a "Hydrogen camera module", can you say more about the choice of the CSI interface? Was the camera originally not going to have its own screen? Can you talk yet about any of the use cases you're imagining for what y'all will do with the CSI link?

HDMI needs to die in the pro world and should never have been allowed in, to begin with IMO, but cost isn’t really an issue, nowadays. Perfect example: smallHD’s Focus line are the same price in SDI or HDMI: $299. I’m not even a huge fan on HDMI in the consumer world. I’ve had cables that were never touched after they were initially plugged in and fail after some time, whereas I have BNC cables that are over a decade old and have been plugged and unplugged God-only-knows how many times and they are still as rock solid as the day I bought them. Maybe just a little dirtier... ; )

 

[Han Vogen]

I understand lots of indies will use Komodo as an A cam, but that's not what it was designed for. HDMI is now vacant on most high end productions ( and high end camera like the Alexa and our own Ranger no longer have HDMI ports ). If nobody is going to use that port in the market Komodo was designed for It is better to use that monitor path for something else instead of just having it sitting there dormant and/or making the camera grow to accommodate. But don't worry, Most 3rd party camera monitors , even the cheap ones, have an HD-SDI version now.

CSI came after I inherited the Hydrogen Program before it was cancelled. But don't worry.. we will still put it to good use. You mentioned low cost monitors.. and cell phones are probably as cheap of an option you can get to put up there, with the benefit of also being the smallest and lightest option since they have their batteries built in.

Personally I can’t understand the push for HDMI when monitoring from a smartphone with little lag will be an option. Modern smartphones have perhaps the best screens available and can be had in sizes large enough to pull focus from. The battery life is great on them and they can charge to 80% in less than 15 minutes. You can even do screen grabs and they are connected devices. As they are software based any feature one desires can be added. And to top that off they can work wirelessly. I can’t think of any dedicated monitor that can come close. Smartphone is by far my preferred monitoring option.

 

[Jarred Land]

Personally I can’t understand the push for HDMI when monitoring from a smartphone with little lag will be an option. Modern smartphones have perhaps the best screens available and can be had in sizes large enough to pull focus from. The battery life is great on them and they can charge to 80% in less than 15 minutes. You can even do screen grabs and they are connected devices. As they are software based any feature one desires can be added. And to top that off they can work wirelessly. I can’t think of any dedicated monitor that can come close. Smartphone is by far my preferred monitoring option.

yes yes and yes.

 

[Jarred Land]

^^^[Emphasis added]

Re: Difference in motion and the tests you carry out + perception through motion (sounds awesome) !


Some globally shuttered imagery can have that more sterile / video game look dynamically. ~ But with modern display devices there is a higher tolerance for that now / acceptance (more so now than there used to be). .

I know what you are saying and I know you know but it's important to separate motion blur from rolling shutter artifacts. With a global shutter you still get motion blur.. that's a good thing.

 

[Luke Marcus Rosen]

Jarred, anyone test 3D with 2 Komodos yet. Will the hydrogen be able to display in 3D or is that pretty much an impossibility.

Now THAT'S something to look forward to in the years to come...!

 

[Karel Šimůnek]

Hi, how long this camera can record on those two batteries?
And will there be a Canon Dual Pixel AF? edit: Ok I read it. So no

 

[Karel Šimůnek]

yes yes and yes.

Wireless monitoring and changing ISO, WB etc via some app on your phone would be amazing!

 

[Eric Lange]

I know what you are saying and I know you know but it's important to separate motion blur from rolling shutter artifacts. With a global shutter you still get motion blur.. that's a good thing.

Very nice …

Looking forward to that

So far KOMODO sounds really good beyond just useful / potentially super useful.

 

[Gavin.Benjamin]

Wireless monitoring and changing ISO, WB etc via some app on your phone would be amazing!

if you go over this thread you will see that has been covered the answer is YES, but no to wireless monitor/control via smart phone. i don't know if any thing has changed since but that was has been said on the past

 

[Manfred Baulig]

if you go over this thread you will see that has been covered the answer is YES, but no to wireless monitor/control via smart phone. i don't know if any thing has changed since but that was has been said on the past

Foolcontrol??? Since dsmc1

 

[Gregory Karydis]

Wireless control definitely!
There's even a dedicated ANTENNA on the top left side.
To me, FoolControl and PhilmColor are the two absolute MUST HAVEs for the RED Cameras !