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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Monstro vs komodo whats your thoughts?

I got a monstro allready, and I will not trade it for a Komodo. But as I have monstro it makes Komodo the only other red camera that interesting me. Its light weight, small formfactor, mount options and most of all global shutter does not come with any other red camera, or many other cameras what so ever for that matter. So it would as I see it be a great compliment to Monstro and give me features that monstro simply dont have, where as the other REDs, as I see it is all sub standard to monstro, doing the same but not as good.
 
Like Björn said, it's going to be a great compliment to the Monstro but in no way a replacement for it.

Komodo could make shoots a bit faster and nimble when paring it with the Monstro. Instead of having to rig your Monstro to a Movi, you may be able to get away with using a handheld gimbal for a particular shot or put the Komodo in hard to reach places. Spec wise, Monstro has the Komodo beat on the resolution/frame rate front. Just having higher frame rates at higher resolutions on the Helium has been a huge benefits in some of the work I've done over the years.

George - do you have any specific thoughts you're thinking of?
 
I so love my Monstro as well as the PV DXL2 (rehoused Monstro) but the next action film where I am the 2nd Unit Director/DP, I will also have a Komodo or 2 with inexpensive Canon prime still glass for shots that might be a little more dangerous. Also what Benjamin said about leaving one on a gimbal makes a ton of sense.
One more tool in the arsenal
 
Peter Lyons Collister said:
I so love my Monstro as well as the PV DXL2 (rehoused Monstro) but the next action film where I am the 2nd Unit Director/DP, I will also have a Komodo or 2 with inexpensive Canon prime still glass for shots that might be a little more dangerous. Also what Benjamin said about leaving one on a gimbal makes a ton of sense.
One more tool in the arsenal
Click to expand...

Love this. Thanks for sharing Peter.
 
Peter Lyons Collister said:
I so love my Monstro as well as the PV DXL2 (rehoused Monstro) but the next action film where I am the 2nd Unit Director/DP, I will also have a Komodo or 2 with inexpensive Canon prime still glass for shots that might be a little more dangerous. Also what Benjamin said about leaving one on a gimbal makes a ton of sense.
One more tool in the arsenal
Click to expand...

Agree, and if they get the inteligent autofocus to kick then komodo with regular EF glas will kick as for gimbal work. phone or ipad display wireless with touchscreen / ac point at actors nose and lock on target kind of focus will be a game changer.

Also to me the superball spot Michael bay did partly with komodo with really quick camera moves is really something new, the none rolling shutter really shined in that one. High speed car chases, rapid steadycam takes, drone shot etc all will I think all look much better with the global shutter.
 
Totally different beasts from my perspective.

I plan to built a small self-contained Komodo kit that can go anywhere. Going to be able to put this camera into a lot of tight spots where the Monstro doesn't quite fit or is too risky. I see Komodo being an extremely versatile little camera system. If it will do everything I think it will, a Komodo will go everywhere with me.
 
Something to keep in mind. Komodo with speedbooster gives you a FOV almost identical to Monstro.

Obviously it doesn't have the high frame rates and DR of Monstro, but for those with an indie mind Komodo is a gift.

Tell your story.
 
Nick Morrison said:
Something to keep in mind. Komodo with speedbooster gives you a FOV almost identical to Monstro.

Obviously it doesn't have the high frame rates and DR of Monstro, but for those with an indie mind Komodo is a gift.

Tell your story.
Click to expand...

True, but its important to remember a speed booster just change the lens. Its usually better to use lenses fit for the sensor size. So for example much likely a Leica sumilux C will preform better than a Thalia together with a speed booster giving the same fov. But sure if using the same FF lens set on both then Komodo would benefit from having a speed booster.
 
From what I seen so far komodo looks alot like monstro in terms of highlights and lut of gamut colors. More so than helium. But yes, have not done any testing of my own so can not say for sure.

Monstro is so good I still get fascinated by the picrlture quality everytime I look at its images. if komodo is even somewhat close to 6k monstro and got the small size, global shutter and prize... I think for a lot of people komodo is a really good option, especially for owner/users. You can always rent the bigger cameras if you need them, workflow etc will be the same.
 
George,

Monstro vs Komodo is a question more for your clients. Your personal situation should dictate this choice. If you are shooting medium to big budgets for well paying clients then Monstro makes sense. If your clients are corporate and lower budget then a Komodo becomes a more logical choice. If you are starting out in the business then an investment in a Monstro would likely never see a return on that investment. Do not forget that technology moves very quickly and this years shiny toy will be replaced by a newer shinier toy very quickly. Your camera needs to working and making you money right away not some time in the future. While Monstro is a "better" camera when pushed to the limits you will undoubtably be able to create wonderful images with a Komodo.

So in summary to answer this question requires a helluva alot more information.

PS What Björn said
 
I mean, I'm here for the answer you are all really looking for.

On a purely physics basis if I throw DSMC2 Monstro and Komodo at each other I do think Komodo would budge when it comes to mass and momentum.

However, it's hard to tell which camera body would sustain more damage.

As a Monstro owner, I can get Komodo footage to play well with it. It is REDCODE RAW after all and the post workflow is very much "the same", a smidge of a tweak here and there they match closely.

This is a little talked about thing a lot of productions have been after btw. It's happened in the RED world as well as the Arri world and is truly the reason why both expanded product lines exist on professional productions. While ACES and those of us who profile cameras uniquely to match solves the major headaches of getting footage from multiple cameras to work well together, on bigger productions there's been a a bigger desire to keep to one ecosystem to minimize workflow and pipeline issues related to the footage itself. How that's been going down from what I know mainly on films and streaming productions is mixing and matching smaller POV cameras often using a pretty gnarly blocky and low bit depth codec, but really what they are after is some sort of codec synergy both in terms of just practical workflow as well as general image quality.

Komodo is going to be used in a variety of ways by a variety of filmmakers on all sorts of producitons, but squarely positioned here where this has been a large chatting point on higher end shows and films, this is one production workflow rift RED is solving with this camera. When Jarred stated early on it wasn't exactly designed for A-Cam or whatever, this is pretty much what he was referring to. Komodo is however designed to play with A-Cam nicely while solving some rigging and shot related conundrums. That's sort of the whole point.

The general market and camera comparisons these days, things like people comparing Alexas to iPhones are "fun" and likely good for views, but truthfully we look to cameras that inspire creativity and confidence in image quality and durability with a worry free post workflow. On larger productions where the cost of what camera is chosen isn't exactly a major factor, from there you are mainly looking to button up workflow related stuff and likely figuring out what tools you want to use to film a scene, sometimes on a shot by shot basis even. In those situations its nice to have everything playing nice.

That in effect was why I moved up to multiple RED bodies some time ago. You can certainly use other cameras for B-cam or whatever, but having a few Monstros all singing in harmony is smooth world. Then from there probably expanding it to other RED bodies, then from there going rogue into the chaotic discussion of wait, can I actually match Monstro to iPhone footage?! At that point however, you've likely been fired anyways for not being prepared with another camera when one was called for :)

I posted equivalent FOVs in my little Komodo thread if you are really trying to do a 1:1 format side by side. Critical for me is just getting Komodo to the accurate height when working with DSMC2 brains as well, that's already been done though.
 
For VFX / CG / matchmoving stuff komodo with its global shutter will be prefered over monstro by many. For chroma key work Monstro will still be king with is clean image.
 
Jens Jakob Thorsen said:
Not many...And PLEASE stop calling it an ecosystem, to make it and you sound more important. It's nauseating to read all this selfimportant plabbering...Year in and year out...Its just a fucking camerasystem. And it's a good system. Go shoot something worthwhile FFS.
Click to expand...

Guess that's aimed at me.

if ($descriptor eq "ecosytem) {
$descriptor = "camerasystem";
}
exit;

Check. Have a good day.
 
Originally Posted by Jens Jakob Thorsen
Not many...And PLEASE stop calling it an ecosystem, to make it and you sound more important. It's nauseating to read all this selfimportant plabbering...Year in and year out...Its just a fucking camerasystem. And it's a good system. Go shoot something worthwhile FFS.
Click to expand...

Jens,

Maybe you are the one who should get off Reduser and go shoot something worthwhile FFS
 
GeorgeAgazarian said:
Monstro vs komodo whats your thoughts?
Click to expand...

As much as I love full-frame and would take that any day over s35 in order to get those wide-angle short DOF shots that looks like 65mm shots, Komodo is much more indie-friendly and easier to actually work with physically. I don't like heavy cameras, I don't like carrying around case after case just to get simple shots. Whatever people say about them preferring heavier systems for stability and whatnot, you are always more creative with a smaller system because you have a much greater pool of choices when working with it. Heavy systems may be good for doing traditional camera work, the usual, establishing shot, full shot, medium, closeup standard of filmmaking, but a small and light camera body makes you free to explore the visual language far more than you can do with heavier stuff. It's also easier to just bring the system to places where it would be unpractical with other cameras.

So, a Full Frame sensor in a Komodo body would have been the perfect system, but if you can cheaply solve the wide-angle part with a lens that gives you the same aesthetics as a fast wide-angle on full-frame, then Komodo is much better in my opinion and for indie feature stuff.
 
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