What's your go to Matte Box for Komodo

[Chris Weatherly]

I see a lot of people on using the Basecamp PolaPro. I lean away from it because it's proprietary filter sizes. I'd love to have something small and light weight. I have a WC Universal MB, but it's pretty big. I was looking at the BT Misfit MKII. I just don't have a sense of its size.

What are you using on the front of your Komodo?

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Small and light? Bright Tangerine Misfit Atom with 114mm adapter for us. Works great. Super lightweight.

Stephen

 

[Chris Weatherly]

Small and light? Bright Tangerine Misfit Atom with 114mm adapter for us. Works great. Super lightweight.

Stephen

Good suggestion. I've thought about that as an option. I want to do the rota pola thing and I know they have a version that can do that. I already have the regular Mistit Atom.

 

[M Harvey]

I share your concern about the non-standard filters for the Basecamp, so have stuck with standard 4x5.65.

I have a Tilta MB-T12, which is similar to the Arri LMB series. If I were buying today, I'd most likely go for the new BT Misfit Kick.

For ultra lightweight, though, I now have the Tilta MB-T15, which is tiny! Holds a single 4x5.65 filter. A show I was working on bought it for when the Komodo is working in an unusual mounting situation, e.g. as a "helmet cam." It can screw into threaded lenses or mount on a single rod. Cheap and quite useful.

 

[Alec Eriksson]

I've been using a Wooden Camera Zip Box Pro for a few years. Ironically, it was the smaller lighter replacement to my original Letus35 Hurlbut matte box many years ago, but when I picked up a Komodo-X last week it seemed huge dangled off the front of my 80mm diameter DZO Vespids. After a ton of research I realized that the 4x5.65 standard I was clinging to was really only necessary for wides and larger diameter cine glass I don't tend to use, which led me to Tilta's Mirage box.

I'll crank out a little Pro/Con list off the top of my head about the Tilta...

Pro's:
- it's really low profile but has enough top flag to shade the lens
- has a ton of smart, unique, features like venting and a sacrificial filter holder, and ability to strip it down to just a filter holder
- super light
- well suited to gimbal setups
- SUPER cheap to get started
- well built
- will accept 2 or 3 (if I remember right) 4x5.65 filters by adding a couple of holders/trays
- has a VND by default, that you can add a motor to for ND pulls while shooting
- and the proprietary (95mm round) filters are seemingly good quality and sit in really nice trays
- proprietary filters include a full set of IR ND's, streak, mist, pearl, CP and only cost $60-ish each
- can stack their proprietary 95mm circular filters with a clever combo of trays (up to 3 filters max)
- can add a 15mm rail mount for a reasonable cost
- carry case is kind of unnecessarily nice (considering I leave it at home and keep the matte box in my pelican)

Con's:
- at 20mm-ish and wider, you can't use the additional (second) round filter tray without seeing it in frame. BUT you can use the single-tray-dual-filter tray to still run 2 rounds (no issue if you add the 4x5.65 trays tho bc they're obviously much wider than 95mm)
- the VND has color issues at stronger settings (nothing you can't easily correct tho)
- isn't a "standard" in the industry I guess
- mounting it to the lens is a tad fiddly if your lenses aren't the native hole size (95mm I think?)
- adapter donut is metal and needs to be tightened with a small hex, not a lot more convenient than threading on step-ups
- can, ironically, get expensive if you add literally all the options

If you want a picture of the setup I can take one. Just holler. Overall I think it's a really really solid buy. I also think it's funny/interesting that the guys at Global Dynamics built their crazy bulletproof mattebox around the Tilta system (and promptly overengineered all the light plastic bits).

 

[Bérenger Brillante]

I see a lot of people on using the Basecamp PolaPro. I lean away from it because it's proprietary filter sizes. I'd love to have something small and light weight. I have a WC Universal MB, but it's pretty big. I was looking at the BT Misfit MKII. I just don't have a sense of its size.

What are you using on the front of your Komodo?

So for filter as well ?

I've bought a Donut set from them and was really pissed it was labelled as 114mm, and acutally is not. They didn't even want to refund me, or do some kind of gesture.
You're right to lean away from that brand.

I use 3 matteboxes mainly for Komodo's.

The Mistfit Atom is my go to setup, for small shoot)
The Smallrig MIni mattebox (in 95mm, for DSLR like setups when I'm alone)
The Abracam Clip One 3F114 Evo for lightweight studio setup.

They all fit the Komodo great in different way.
The big Tilta is ok, but heavy.
I don't like going with Arri LMB5, it's too big for these kind of bodies, and every other matteboxes brand are a no-go.