KOMODO....

[Bob Gundu]

A Hard mount RF can be whatever--- with workarounds, don't you got tired to hear that "some"cameras need workarounds.
DSMC3 will be more than Komodo with PL. I hope.
So why not give a chance for PL uses to choose PL variant? And for anybody who feel need in changing mounts RF?

All my lenses are PL and I don't have an issue with an adapter. I don't understand what the big deal is. A lightweight cage usually have a securing point for the adapter anyway which make it an extension of the camera.

 

[Alex Stolpakov]

There are so many PL mount options for you, including all of REDs previous cameras, DSMC1 and DSMC2, all ARRI, some black magic, Sony, canon etc. The Komodo might not be right for you.

The thing is, Komodo does have the ability to use PL lenses and it does give you a chance. Using adapters is not “a workaround” at least not for many people. For me it’s a blessing. I can use my PL lenses, RF, EF, MD, M42, FD etc. Use a lens support on the mount adapter and you’re all good!

Photo optics are so good these days that you can definitely use them on cinema projects, albeit for more indie projects, but films like mad max use canon L lenses for their crash cams. Remember, Komodo is a crash and gimbal cam that has autofocus. Why develop autofocus for a camera then not have a native mount that allows for it to be used?

DO you reed ?
Why not to have TWO mounts? Buy RF or PL as you please.
About Mad Max and L series is a speculation.
And what is the idea that on gimbal you don't need to pool focus.

 

[Alex Stolpakov]

All my lenses are PL and I don't have an issue with an adapter. I don't understand what the big deal is. A lightweight cage usually have a securing point for the adapter anyway which make it an extension of the camera.

You speak about this camera as of your own aka owner-operator.That is nice.
But how many films will be shot with rental cameras vs owner-operators?
I have seen several times when taking Sony Alfa in cage somebody before putting on gimbal will take off a cage.
PL variant is not only bulletproof but also foolproof.

 

[Alex Stolpakov]

I really don't feel it's a workaround at all--think of it like the Sony FZ mount. It's just that instead of only taking adapters, it can also take lenses, enabling small setups.

Is your concern just the pure strength of the mount? It doesn't matter what the mount is, at some point, you're going to need a lens support anyway.

On PL do you need support for Cook 5i or Master Primes ?

 

[Jeffery Anderson]

I think people are already saying they want 2 versions of Komodo

1 with titanium locking RF mount, V-Mounts, Cyberpunk 2077 stickers, mirror shades, Johnny Silverhand special edition ..etc
2 normal cheap version

I'm not sure why you would take a camera that's small and light and add a v-mount to it. or a heavy lens ... power output for a lens motor would be cool... same for power to a monitor

how much do the GDU bats weigh? (1.2lbs?)

 

[Bob Gundu]

You speak about this camera as of you own aka owner-operator.That is nice.
But how many films will be shot with rental cameras vs owner-operators?
I have seen several times when taking Sony Alfa in cage somebody before putting on gimbal will take off a cage.
PL variant is not only bulletproof but also foolproof.

Hey why not wait to see what the Komodo will be? No point arguing about something that isn’t even out yet. Until then I was just pointing out what your options will be if you only have an RF mount.

 

[David Rasberry]

I don't think that Panasonic is still working on it, since it sold it sensor division to Nuvoton recently. Hopefully Novuton and/or TowerJazz keep it alive.

Panasonic sold off their fabrication division but, like most other camera makers including Red, will probably continue to design new sensors for their products and farm out the manufacturing.

 

[Alex Stolpakov]

Hey why not wait to see what the Komodo will be? No point arguing about something that isn’t even out yet. Until then I was just pointing out what your options will be if you only have an RF mount.

Sure we will wait. You having only PL glass would go for PL or RF mount if you could choose?
When people talk about lens support mostly they mean this

And support for adapter

Somehow I don't find it extremely reliable.

 

[Phil Holland]

Why not to have two variants RF and PL ? Be it- PL will cost more, but it will be easily "rentable", will use a lot of beautiful optics without breaking head how it will react to movement and so on.
I see only pluses for uses and for Red if there will be two options.

I don't know if there will ever be a native PL Mount Komodo.

Phil days ago, you promised to show Komodo in cinema configuration with PL glass. Something like with radio focus.

You see cinema cameras are like racing cars, very specific beasts. Not every car can be competitive on a track. Don't tell there will be no comparisons to the counterparts. Still cameras are not Komodo will be compared to.
RF gives variants, but is it so much steadier than EF. BlackMagic 6K, Sony Alfas, Canon 5D can have some play with adapters to PL when you put radio focus on it.

What did I promise?

Once I have a Komodo to play around with "regularly" I guess I can show a few things to inspire your rigging potential. I do already have a decent amount of Komodo AKS laying around.


As for PL again since this is a rather circular conversation. What you can do right now is:

You can securely mount a RF>PL Adapter to the native mount and by using a longer baseplate for solid metal support that can hold your heavier lenses. Rod support for much longer lenses, unknown as no AKS exist for it just yet (but there will be), but I use 19mm support for longer glass. Hell I use 19mm for damn near everything except for my rodClaw, which I use a single titanium 15mm rod.


There are two sides here. We get that you want a native PL Mount Komodo. Most of us are telling you how you can get a pretty damn rigid PL mount on the body given what's currently known. But the interesting thing is you also aren't seeing what you lose by having a native PL mount in this instance.

And that is the ability to use rear of lens ND solutions, Kipper Tie teased this already:

Don't know what's going on under it, but it would surprise me if John didn't put some sort of mounting hole down there.

And with fixed PL, you'll again have a notably heavier camera from the get go and go never go to RF. And again, clearly the focus is making Komodo possibly be the smallest shooting package that RED has offered to date.


And yes, this coming from somebody who will primarily be using Komodo with PL glass.

 

[Jarred Land]

DO you reed ?
.

You need to chill man..

How many cinema lenses have RF mount?

Same thing people said when we were one of the first cinema companies to put an EF mount on a cinema camera. Now more cinema lens are available with an EF mount than are not.

Yes... most rental houses still prefer PL. And PL mount is "bombproof" . but it's also an outdated mount made almost 50 years ago that has shit for power, piss-poor electronic capability and is designed for a flange distance to protect for something that no longer really exists in this industry and doing so adds another inch to the front of your camera. A shallow flange distance has so many benefits in both size and design opportunity for lenses. That is why the still camera world almost immediately deleted the 50mm(ish) flange distance of Nikon and Sony Alpha and Canon EF mounts the moment their cameras went mirrorless.

And yes you are right that it is not as solid against rotation as a PL mount.. Neither was the EF but we all evolved to make products that fix that. And As phil said you can hard mount your RF to PL adapter to the body in multiple ways to eliminate that slop completely.

Alas... we can all agree that there isn't one perfect mount. But the RF is damn well the closest there is to something that is looking to the future right now and that is why I chose it.

I've been championing the lens community to come up with a new standardized mount for the last few years. PL mechanics with the brains of an RF. I'd do it myself... but it shouldn't come from a camera company. Nor should it come from a single lens company. The L mount alliance has the right idea but they focused on the still world so it shares the same mechanical weakness of the RF and the RF beats it in many electronic ways. The new XPL from ARRI, well Arri wont give out the protocol so that pretty much keeps that in their walled garden.. but it didn't solve the electronics problem of the PL anyways so its not looking that far forward.. but at least they pulled back the flange distance.

AF pixels on sensors and the software in cameras are getting so good that there will be a day that 1st AC's are just touching eyeballs on an ipad to pull focus and all cinema lenses will have motors built into them. That day wont happen for a while.. but it probably should of happened already. We just all need to get out of our own way.

 

[Andy Jarosz]

AF pixels on sensors and the software in cameras are getting so good that there will be a day that 1st AC's are just touching eyeballs on an ipad to pull focus and all cinema lenses will have motors built into them. That day wont happen for a while.. but it probably should of happened already. We just all need to get out of our own way.

This industry is so focused on keeping up appearances that we stifle innovation almost every step of the way. When a new piece of gear is introduced, the reaction is "Great, how is *this* gonna screw me?" instead of excitement. We chide gear when it fails, badtalk manufacturers when their equipment breaks, and get upset when things aren't backwards compatible. It causes manufacturers to be overly conservative and leads them to spend time building features that facilitate stubborn crewmember's old-school ways, instead of innovating.

Film needs to become more tolerant of failure if we want to start seeing some really cool shit. If you asked cinematographers what they wanted, they would have said Faster Film.

It's why I've supported RED from the start and continue to advocate for them to this day. You guys innovate--and people can either get on that train, or watch as it whooshes by.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

The RF mount sounds limiting, but it's not as limiting as one would think. You can use M mount lenses with a short adapter. You couldn't do that on the Raven. You can also use almost any SLR lens as well - FD, R, F, OM, CY, K, M42... You couldn't do that on the Raven either.

And there will be third party AF lenses eventually - it's not like Canon lenses are required purchases. There will also be AF adapters for manual focus lenses. Such products do exist, such as this adapter which allows AF with M lenses on Sony bodies:

https://techartpro.com/?product=techart-pro-leica-m-sony-e-autofocus-adapter

Should I point out that Komodo is not the only camera that Red makes? People are still shooting on Scarlet-X's and Epics.

The only thing I would say that I do not like at all is the fact that Red chose the RF mount over the E mount. But maybe one day that could change. Red is not ARRI, and they are a much more nimble company. Red won't charge you a licence fee to pretend that you are shooting 4K when you're really not.

Bonus for film makers: Komodo is going to be cheaper than the 1DX Mark III, while being lighter, more compact, more powerful, and more flexible.

When Red announced the 3K Scarlet, I was ready to slap down $3,000 for it. Alas, I'm still not a Red customer. But if the Komodo can offer me something that I really love, I will buy one for sure.

 

[Robert Hofmeyr]

Hey Jarred,
Any chance to have the option of using the new GDU batteries?

I'm sure someone, if not Red, will build a V-lock plate that mounts on the battery slots on the back of Komodo and has a short cable to the power input.

 

[Robert Hofmeyr]

Once I have a Komodo to play around with "regularly" I guess I can show a few things to inspire your rigging potential. I do already have a decent amount of Komodo AKS laying around.


As for PL again since this is a rather circular conversation. What you can do right now is:

You can securely mount a RF>PL Adapter to the native mount and by using a longer baseplate for solid metal support that can hold your heavier lenses. Rod support for much longer lenses, unknown as no AKS exist for it just yet (but there will be), but I use 19mm support for longer glass. Hell I use 19mm for damn near everything except for my rodClaw, which I use a single titanium 15mm rod.

Hey Phil. When mounting PL glass, or any heavy lens for that matter, and assuming you are not adding a huge amount of weight to the camera or swinging it around like crazy, would you be happy just securing the lens and hanging the Komodo of the back of it?

 

[Phil Holland]

Hey Phil. When mounting PL glass, or any heavy lens for that matter, and assuming you are not adding a huge amount of weight to the camera or swinging it around like crazy, would you be happy just securing the lens and hanging the Komodo of the back of it?

I'm not much of a camera dangler, but it's doable on longer lenses if you're doing wildlife work and will help make your life easier in terms of kit. Personally I'll still be plate mounting to some degree, but if we're talking about filming elephants in South Africa with like a 500mm, balance-wise it's not a bad idea for sure.

The key to really stable long lens cinematography is always a well balanced system on a decent fluid head and sticks. Then from there a good old fashioned windshield.

 

[Lee Saxon]

The L mount alliance has the right idea but they focused on the still world so it shares the same mechanical weakness of the RF and the RF beats it in many electronic ways.

That's interesting, I knew the L didn't have physical dimensions as favorable as RF and Z, but I wouldn't have thought the three would be that far apart in terms of bandwidth and that sort of thing. Then of course for volume reasons most third party lenses will probably need to be adaptable to the more restrictive FE mount so the great diameters of the RF and Z are wasted....

Who knows, though, maybe as the market continues to contract the walled gardens will just become too small and we will see that standardized mount idea come to be. M42 or PL for the 21st century.

 

[Alex Stolpakov]

And yes you are right that it is not as solid against rotation as a PL mount.. Neither was the EF but we all evolved to make products that fix that. And As phil said you can hard mount your RF to PL adapter to the body in multiple ways to eliminate that slop completely.

Alas... we can all agree that there isn't one perfect mount. But the RF is damn well the closest there is to something that is looking to the future right now and that is why I chose it.

I don't try to diss RF mount or even ask why this mount and not that. I think as it is short flanged mount- It is brilliant with all the possibilities of different glass and AF for anybody who needs it.

Just for rentals that invested 100 thousands in PL glass, makes sense in my poor understanding of the question, to have PL mount baked in. And glass investments lasts for years.

Sure good owner-operator like Phil will overcome easelly what ever it will be rigging or shimming the mount.

But in rentals the same situation will be different. You will never know, when you get the answer yes it's PL, which mount you will get (in what part of China it was made, does it have back focus adjustment, can it be rigged well). As there is no standart with so many variants (sometimes cheaply made). And that's for 50 year old technology.

If and that's my if, without dissing anyone, or expecting anything from anybody, there will be a PL version, it's only fair to cost that much more, for such a mount https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1527313-REG/red_digital_cinema_725_0047_dsmc_pl_mount.html just for a example. And RF version will stay RF :001_smile:

 

[Alex Stolpakov]

I don't know if there will ever be a native PL Mount Komodo.

What did I promise?

Once I have a Komodo to play around with "regularly" I guess I can show a few things to inspire your rigging potential. I do already have a decent amount of Komodo AKS laying around.

There are two sides here. We get that you want a native PL Mount Komodo. Most of us are telling you how you can get a pretty damn rigid PL mount on the body given what's currently known. But the interesting thing is you also aren't seeing what you lose by having a native PL mount in this instance.

And yes, this coming from somebody who will primarily be using Komodo with PL glass.

Sorry.
Maybe I misread, what you answered to me.
My only "quarrel" with you can be that you will get Komodo to play around with "regularly" much faster than me. :thumbsup:

 

[Jarred Land]

That's interesting, I knew the L didn't have physical dimensions as favorable as RF and Z, but I wouldn't have thought the three would be that far apart in terms of bandwidth and that sort of thing. Then of course for volume reasons most third party lenses will probably need to be adaptable to the more restrictive FE mount so the great diameters of the RF and Z are wasted....

Who knows, though, maybe as the market continues to contract the walled gardens will just become too small and we will see that standardized mount idea come to be. M42 or PL for the 21st century.

I think if you fast forward a few years there will be the most amount of 3rd party lenses outside Canon offered in an RF mount, just like right now there are more EF lenses then any other. Sony did a really really great job with the a7 cameras, they deserve some sort of award for pushing the entire dslr market forward , and I bought everything they released. The GM lenses sony makes for that system is fantastic. But since the release of the R / RF system I haven't picked up the a7/a9 once... and the new RF glass is outstanding. I don't need to tell you how much I am in love with it.. I released the first cinema camera with an RF mount... before even Canon.

But the problem with the RF mount is that its owned by a camera company and Nikon will never use it, nor will Sony nor will Panasoinc on their little mirrorless cameras. I like to think we knocked down some of those walls when we introduced the changeable lens mount into the cinema world.... now almost every cinema camera company offers a canon mount for their cameras. That was awesome in one way but in another for the customer it made things a bit more difficult... we actually kinda fucked things up. Before we did the whole removable mount thing you could ONLY buy cinema glass in a PL mount. Now you need to buy a couple different lens mounts as well as making a decision on which mount to buy your lenses in. It would just be EASIER if we all reverted to just one mount... and every camera and lens company followed.

But for that one lens mount to work , you need to make sure its better than everything else that it is trying to replace... and there can't be any politics.

 

[Robert Hofmeyr]

I'm not much of a camera dangler, but it's doable on longer lenses if you're doing wildlife work and will help make your life easier in terms of kit. Personally I'll still be plate mounting to some degree, but if we're talking about filming elephants in South Africa with like a 500mm, balance-wise it's not a bad idea for sure.

The key to really stable long lens cinematography is always a well balanced system on a decent fluid head and sticks. Then from there a good old fashioned windshield.

Thanks Phil. The time you donate to this forum is always appreciated.