RED Komodo-X and V-Raptor cine cameras are now available in Z-mount flavour

Ever since Nikon’s acquisition of RED in March last year, the filmmaking and photography worlds have been wondering what’s going to happen. Will Nikon bring RED tech to its mirrorless cameras? Will we see Z-Mount RED cameras?

Well, while Nikon said little about their plans, the latter has now been answered. RED Digital Cinema has announced Z-Mount versions of both the RED Komodo-X and RED V-Raptor-raptorX cinema cameras.

RED Goes Z-mount

The initial acquisition of RED was very much shrouded in secrecy. Nikon said at the time that things were going to essentially keep going along as they had been. It would still support RED’s existing cameras and customers, but beyond that, there wasn’t much.

Since then, it was revealed that Nikon paid a relatively modest $85,000,000 to acquire RED. We also learned that Nikon did indeed plan to implement RED tech into its mirrorless cameras and release Z mount RED cameras “in the future”.

The future is now, as they say, as the company has now announced two Z-mount versions of the Komodo-X and V-Raptor-X cameras. But those heavily invested in RF-mount lenses don’t need to worry. Nikon says that the new Z-mount cameras are in addition to the RF-mount versions and not replacements for them.

New PL-mount Adapters

Along with the announcements of the two cameras, the company has also announced four new Z-mount to PL-mount adapters. Two of them are for the V-Raptor-X and two are for the Komodo-X, although other than camera compatibility, the two pairs are essentially identical.

The first adapter is a straight Nikon Z to PL mount adapter. Nikon says that these titanium-core adapters transmit Cooke /i data and record triggering. They can also be shimmed and are temperature resistant to minimise thermal expansion and compression when shooting in extremes.

The second adapter is also a Nikon to PL mount adapter. This adapter offers the same temperature resistance and shims as the above, but it also comes with a built-in 2-7 stop electronic neutral density (ND) filter.

This is just the start of Nikon’s integration with RED. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out over the next year or two and what we might see the Nikon brand releasing.

Price and Availability

The RED Komodo-X Z Mount camera is available to pre-order now, starting at $6,995. The RED V-Raptor-X Z Mount camera is also available to pre-order now, starting at $29,995.

The Komodo-X Z to PL adapters are priced at $1,500 and $3,500 for the standard and electronic ND versions, respectively. The V-Raptor-X Z to PL adapters are also available to pre-order for $1,500 and $3,500 for the regular and ND versions, respectively.

All items are expected to ship in the coming weeks.