Monstro Opportunity

[Jason Montalvo]

Wondering if I can get some advice here. I currently have a Gemini and 2 Dragon-X's. I have an opportunity to trade the 2 Dragon-X's plus cash to move to Monstro. Do you view this as a no brainer or having 3 DSMC2's outweighs Monstro. I know this is all dependent on type of work. I'm mainly in the commercial space but also shoot a fair amount of interviews.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

IMHO, I would not take this trade. I would rather have two Dragons than one Monstro. Redundancy is more important than outright image quality, within a given budget. That's my mindset as a photographer, but I think as an owner-operator, I'd have the same mindset. That's just my take on these kinds of questions.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the Monstro would be a burden on you, more than a help. Some of your lenses won't work properly, and the ones that will work are going to be bigger, etc.

 

[Jason Montalvo]

Thanks for sharing your opinion Karim! So couple of things, I would be keeping the Gemini, and all my glass with 1 exception is full frame. I’m just wondering if there’s that much of a wow factor to monstro.

 

[M Harvey]

Personally, I’d take the Monstro. For me, I’d like to have a full frame option and, depending on your market you may find it’s very appealing to some of your clients (or directors). And you’d still have the s35 body (for me, I also like s35 because of the lens choices). So I see Monstro as providing a significant new visual option.

The difference in resolution doesn’t personally sway me, but could be a plus for some. And I actually don’t think you gain anything in frame rates vs. resolution (both M and D-X are 120fps at 4k), but you will get a wider field of view at those crops, and also better noise performance.

As for sheer image quality, Monstro wins in certain stats, but those are probably mostly significant only at the margins. (Like a half stop more dynamic range—but day-to-day, shot-to-shot, your lighting and other factors are probably still gonna make more of a difference in look/quality.)

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

M Harvey makes good points, too. The problem is that you now have one camera instead of three. It does help that your lenses cover the bigger sensor, so that's basically not a question anymore. You will have to stop down a bit more than usual, but that's par for the course.

I just wonder if your lenses are proper cinema lenses? Do they cause vignetting on the VV sensor? Do they have clean corners? That sort of stuff matters.

 

[Jason Montalvo]

Thanks M and Kerim, lenses will cover VV properly set of Zeiss Otus lenses and sigma Cine primes. @Kerim I’m only getting rid of the two Dragon-X’s so once the trade is done I’ll have Monstro and Gemini.

 

[Leonardo Newman]

I would not trade 2 cameras and still pay extra money to get a Monstro. That's a lot! One dragon x and cash is fine. But two cameras, that would be a definite no.

 

[Andrew Dease]

Wondering if I can get some advice here. I currently have a Gemini and 2 Dragon-X's. I have an opportunity to trade the 2 Dragon-X's plus cash to move to Monstro. Do you view this as a no brainer or having 3 DSMC2's outweighs Monstro. I know this is all dependent on type of work. I'm mainly in the commercial space but also shoot a fair amount of interviews.

Thanks in advance!

Ketch Rossi was just selling monstros for 10k in mint condition.
Do the trade but do not put up more cash, in fact they should be offering you more.