Ryan Earl wrote:I think that's more or less the draw to the Komodo. It's not the form factor itself, but the cost of the box plus the rigging can be done much lower than ever before in that eco system.
When I tried the Komodo I used most of the Wooden Camera parts I have from the Blackmagic Micro to get it going right away.
Same here Ryan. As a narrative filmmaker, I pretty much have many of the rigging add ons - from monitors, EVF, magic arms, handles, you name it. And I used it on my different cameras, from the URSA to the pocket 6K. I can assure everyone that most if not all the filmmakers I know in Southern California who does this for a living have pretty much the same stash. So when I rented the Komodo for the project, I was using all the rigging attachments that I already owned. That is the draw to the box form factor, be it the Komodo, the mini Alexa (although I will put this in a different category), the Z-cam, the kinefinity, or the Panasonic bg1. I really think this is the way to go for narrative filmmaking and filmmakers. I’m not including the Youtubers as audiences for such cameras. They can all use DSLRs for all I care and there’s so many to choose from. But I am talking about pro filmmakers and I assume that is majority whom Blackmagic is or was appealing to. If not, then we’ll have to do our business with RED, Kini, and others who cater to narrative filmmaking.
robert Hart wrote:If the box form was doable at a profit, then BM likely would have already gone there.
In the box form, there would be required significant redesign of the circuit board layout and indwelling ribbon cables that BM uses with permanently connected ancilliaries like switches and sockets.
Then there is the technical issue of the global shutter which BM examined for the 4.6K sensor and abandoned.
Adding one more product similarly specced to the 6K pocket may cannibalise sales of the existing 6K. It could boil down to one or the other but not both.
When it all boils down, the 6K DLSR and box form factors when built out both end up being frankenrigs with all manner of bits and pieces hanging off to get caught on the rose bushes.
The global shutter and more DR will be a nice touch but it’s more of a want. They don’t need to have that. The pocket design, I think, was a big flaw in the first place so it is about time to cannibalize it. Just like the 6K pro has superseded the 6K, I don’t know if that cannibalize the sales of the P4K an P6K in particular but it doesn’t seem to bother BMD when they decided to make the pro version. I think having different options covers the spectrum of users and needs. The box form factor not only gives the flexibility to build out rigs depending on the use case, but also provides for configurations that the Pocket is an oddity to be used for - one clear and common example is on gimbals.
I don’t know what a frankenrig is when it comes to a box form factor because that is what it is meant for. frankenrig is more apparent for cameras that are not meant to be rig with odd cages - like DSLRs and of course the pocket. My 2 cents and expert opinion of course, from the perspective of a narrative filmmaker who only use these cameras for narrative filmmaking. Everything else, I use my IPhone’s camera. :p
Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2021 6:08 pm