This just in: Jarred Land, President and co-owner of RED digital cinema, just dropped the news that he’s now taking exclusive orders on the RED Komodo 6k for anyone who has his personal email. He’ll only be making a few cameras per week for the time being, so this is a very limited run. In this early bird sale, the Komodo will be priced at $7,000, and then the price will drop to $6,000 for the full production release in a few months (date to be announced). Buyers will have to basically purchase blind without having seen any footage from the camera and only going off an unofficial specs list. We’ve done a separate write-up on the Komodo specs which you can read HERE.
Image courtesy Jarred Land
Message from Jarred Land on Facebook
This is quite a big ask, Land admits, but this is for those special customers who don’t care about throwing around seven thousand dollars and are willing to be essentially guinea pigs for the new product. Jarred notes, this is “not normal” and mostly for irresponsible people, which is quite funny. We’re hoping this initial price hike is purely to offset pandemic setbacks, but it does also seem like a way to “test the waters” with this new camera before they commit to full production. None of us want this camera to be a repeat of the Hydrogen One, so we’re all rooting for this to be a successful camera system. The good news for the rest of us that aren’t ordering yet is that hopefully we’ll be seeing a lot of new footage from the Komodo very soon!
So let’s briefly compare the Komodo to some other similar cameras in the market.
Blackmagic Pocket 6k: RAW in 6k Super 35 - $2,000
Panasonic S1h: 4:2:0 10-bit in 6k Full frame - $4,000
Canon 1dx Mkiii: 4:2:2 10-bit in 6k Full frame - $6,500
The Komodo fits neatly into the end of that list as far as price point goes, with specs to match. The shining factor of the Komodo will be that it still uses RED’s beloved r3d RAW codec, however it’s sensor is closer to Super 35 than full frame, and it lacks some other features that its competitors have including internal IBIS and dual native ISO. As with most cameras in this price-range, frame rates are still lacking in the resolutions we want. It definitely seems like buyers of the Komodo will be getting it specifically for the R3D codec and the prestige of the name brand itself, however it’s awesome to see how many great options there are out there nowadays and how accessible incredible imagery has truly become!
We at Neuway Media have just picked up our Komodo Storm Trooper and will be releasing a full test video/vlog very soon. Stay tuned!