M Carter

Super 16 sensor… zzzzzzzzz…. (Sorry, that's just me).

I mean the little kit lens, tiny thing, goes for about $140 on eBay. Sweet little steadicam lens, and if you own an NX1 its kind of a no brainer. TINY thing. I put a 52mm step up ring on it and use 52mm filters for steadicam and ditch the matte box. You can pick up Tiffen or BW ND's on eBay for next to nothing in 52mm. It's f 3.5 at 16mm to 5.6 at 50, but I only use it wide and generally with steadicam you go wide and F4 - 5.6 anyway. If you stop it down to F16 or so, it's just absurdly sharp - too sharp. I've only used it wide open. Very fast AF, but with steadicam or handheld, you have to really work to keep the focus point on the subject so I usually go MF or at least do takes with and without AF.Shoulder mount I go with my big old Nikkors. Big fan of the 28-70 2.8 for fast moving gigs on the shoulder mount. I don't think Came makes the model I own anymore, but I've been happy with it and gotten some great shots. Really, really nice with slowmo for corporate stuff, manufacturing, b-roll, etc.

I've got a Came carbon-fiber, pretty simple model, no battery rig at the bottom. As far as operating, yeah, you need tons of practice, but I've gotten very useful shots, corporate gigs, b-roll stuff. I can't imagine it being any better for what it is, very well constructed and smooth, quality piece of gear. I've balanced it pretty quickly to different cameras, lately I find the NX1 with the tiny 16-50 kit lens to be excellent on it with the optical OIS turned on, sometimes even use the AF. I use the manfrotto release plates everywhere, I had to mount one to a little plywood block so the release knob would clear the release lock on the Came, but I can switch from sticks or shoulder to steadicam in a flash and give the balance a quick tweak. I skip the matte box and use screw-in ND on the kit lens, I just got a 52mm step ring and a rubber hood for it. 52mm filters are all over the place, whatever flavor you want can be found pretty cheap. Generally for steadicam you shoot wide and stopped down so I haven't had a reason to stick any big glass on the thing and the Samsung kit's an impressive little lens. I haven't looked seriously at gimbals due to the expense and hassle factors, but they are coming down in price and the usability bugs seem to be getting ironed out. Gimbals are, to some extent, like drones. Drones are just killer to cheaply get very high-dollar shots, like huge crane moves and helicopter stuff. But most drone ops are like "look at all the stuff this can do" and suddenly a classic cinematic move starts screaming "look!!! I'm a drone!!" Gimbals aren't quite as bad in that regard, if someone executes a well planned shot - the clip that sold so many on gimbals was the roller blader with the taxi cab shot, a good example of shot design that's exciting but not something that would pull the viewer out of the scene. To me the gimbals seem like the kind of thing where I'd rather just hire an op that knows it well and cans et it up quickly. My brain is too full...

And I'll add - look at the buzz for "The Witch", produced on the cheap by Hollywood standards. The buzz was "truly scary, cerebral horror, Kubrickian, verisimilitude, obsessive production design, amazing child performance" and so on. All that shit perked me right the hell up (haven't seen it yet though, but will in the next few days). That's just what i want - a grown-up horror flick that actually scares me at a deep level. Hell, the "Prometheus" trailers had people saying "the next 2001", but what looked amazing in the trailers was a film that was just insulting to anyone with a brain. So what do I want in a genre film? Real characters that I care about - and a sense of awe of the unknown. In horror or sci fi, that's what's missing to me - I think we want to be awed by our fears and by the unknown and by the "great mysteries of life" and so on. I do anyway, apparently the "young audience" just wants gore and jumps scares. So what I should do is make the film that doesn't exist for me and pray I'm not alone in these deep, almost subconscious reactions or desires. Make the film I'd see five times - I haven't loved many films in quite some time, especially not genre films. (man, I did love "Black Dynamite" and "Hedwig", but it's easier to make me laugh than to make me awed). I do a lot of marketing work for small business and I think of "the invisible hole in the market" - the product or service that, the minute it's introduced, is instantly accepted as "why didn't i think of that??" The product that makes people realize they've always needed it and just didn't know it. Remember the iPhone launch - when you first saw visual voicemail? (OK, you young kids assume the iPhone always existed, right?) That feature alone was a stunner - anyone remember how long it could take to plow through your voicemail? So maybe think of that for filmmaking or writing. What story do you want to be told? How does it look and feel? What films started out exciting you (or their marketing excited you) and you lefty disappointed? Why did that happen to you? Why not to others? If you want to be a businessman, look at the data and demographics and plug it all into a computer. if you want to be an artist, make art for you first. If the art you want to make seems obscure and niche-market, spend at that level. If it seems blockbuster - still spend at that level for your first go-round.

The OP seems to be musing about some magic formula. Film execs have been thinking the same thing since the 20's. The answer is, "there isn't one". Good stories, powerfully told and technically well-crafted often die. Meanwhile, there's a huge audience for (what I feel anyway) is pure crap. (I have no clue why every movie now has a "marvel" logo and adults go to see superhero films by the millions. I love me some "escapist" entertainment, but I got my limits!!!) One big differentiator is a hook or gimmick - Blair Witch for instance - some hated it but I found it a decent flick and very, very "new" at the time. That "Tangerine" flick, filmed on the iPhone - that got people curious, and many reviewers felt it was a very good film (and that the iPhone's particular color rendering actually worked and wasn't just a gimmick). Having something that gets your film talked about can help. But "new" or unique is very hard in this era. A lot of it is likely pure luck, or the luck of catching the eye of someone with connections or a "voice" that gets heard in the media or whatever - someone that champions the work and starts things snowballing. The key - if you want to do this for a living - is make compelling content in a way that you won't lose a lot (or any) money. So you can go on to the next one vs. bankruptcy. Many people are succeeding at that as well.

I've got no idea if there are any cameras other than the NX1 that shoot in H265; as for the NX1, the folder structure doesn't matter. It's a pile of clips - not an AVCHD situation. There's no "card structure" or benefits, other than the H265 files are very small, so it's no issue to archive the raw shots along with your edit and effect renders and so on. When I use the NX1, I copy the card to my drives and transcode to prores immediately after a shoot (I feel better when my backup runs each night and I don't erase the card until I have two copies - on the raid and on my backup drive). My work goes faster with Prores from the start. And I've got Prores handy of I have to send any media off to anyone who wants prores (believe me, nobody asks for H265). I render my final edits to Prores and use that as a master for web and H264 and MP4 and so on. That's me - for now I'm a Prores shop and I see no reason to work from the H265 files. To me they're a shooting format and not an editing format - they're being transcoded somewhere in the pipeline after all - I just prefer to do it once, and at the beginning. Maybe when computing horsepower picks up… but then, I tend to buy a new system every three or four years. As far as the OP - try EditReady. It's a great buy for the money - great conversion, batch processing, frame rate interpretation, etc. And instant support, and reasonably fast. But I'd shoot at the luminance level you intend to edit with.

Ummm, yawwwwwnnnn - that's the kickstarter/crowd funding risk and has been discussed numerous times above. They didn't "release an email", they're announcing a new camera and nobody knows jack about it. It's not like they have a gun to anyone's head. There's certainly room for a cinema cam (vs. a stills cam that shoots video) in the $1k - $2k range. Do it right and you'd sell a lot of them. Look at the NX sensor - it's certainly capable of doing much more - prores or raw, etc. We're seeing leaps in this sort of power every year. For me, nobody's done it quite right. I want the features of the ursa mini, with affordable media, global shutter, gobs of DR and so on. I want 120 fps @ 2k and at least 60 at 4k, that doesn't seem so big in this day and age. I don't want a camera that I can't white balance (so there goes several of the more affordable BMCs). We've watched Canon and Nikon disappoint us year after year, we've seen Samsung show us what's possible with a clean slate (as flawed as that camera is, it's an amazing amount of power for the money). It doesn't seem that impossible that someone could release "the" camera everyone in that range has to have. I just waded through gobs of 5D footage from a (supposedly) pro media shop, and - ehh. But the 5D was the thing for that kind of work for years. Time for a new one.

I don't think you'd get an "MF Look" though. People talked about an MF look for The Revenant, but that was shot with a huge sensor and they needed MF lenses to cover it and used hassy lenses that were designed for a 6x6cm image. Then there's the 645 format, which is closer to FF 35 but still pretty big. I don't know that you'd see much difference other than any specific character that comes from the lens (or from only the center of the lens without a speedbooster). When you get into "character" you may have to go farther afield than MF glass that was designed to be really precise. I've been shooting video with 1960's era Canon FL lenses on the NX1 and it really does have a gorgeous look, probably good for music video or fashion stuff, kind of like it has the perfect amount of diffusion yet is still very sharp - and the color is really gorgeous and a little muted. But hey, I'm tearing up a zoom to paint all the insides silver and make a really flare-heavy lens, so to each their own. But the FLs and wildly jacked-with lenses are going for specific character rather than optical perfection. I shot color and B&W on Mamiya 6x7 for years and I can't say there was anything specific about it other than amazing quality when you mix great glass with really big media. I still have my 4x5" view camera, same deal. Though i could stick an old petzval lens on that thing and get some wild stuff certainly (but a large format petzval may not be as badass on a sensor 1/100th the size or whatever the math is). Anyway, post some tests as you progress with this, we're all geeks here!

If I were doing a kickstarter/etc type of campaign and had a teaser and a release date, for about a half dozen reasons I'd have the $$ down there from the first launch, as long as there was an announce date. (For what it's worth, I've got 30 years of writing marketing plans and all the consumer psych crap. Still applies in the new era, but you have to "apply" it in new ways.)

Ahhh, I dunno. We're in this kickstarter age where traditional funding has been thrown for a loop and nobody knows what the formula is ($30k to make a sandwich??) (then again, that cooler with the blender motor and wheels and bluetooth music player made a fortune - a fantastic idea that was pulled off well and excellently promoted on kickstarter). Everyone's throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. What we do know is a fairly revolutionary product or a "wish I'd thought of that" will do well, and some consumers like the "got in on the ground floor" feeling. I'd guess these guys developed the idea for a camera, decided to go for it, planned to crowdsource or at least use new channels for funding and sales, and their plans included $500 down. I imagine when the specs come out, it will still be $500 down. Plenty of folks have gotten burned on Kickstarter (that espresso machine looked pretty badass, didn't it - got a lot of press as "a product that should have made it"), and we all know that's the risk for that realm. Some folks are optimists and some folks have a huge need to differentiate themselves (see the Mamiya lenses on a mirrorless cam thread here. Hell, that's a big reason I still make prints in a darkroom). Being an early adopter in the hopes they'll be first on the block with something really new and groundbreaking - whether a cooler or a camera - is up that alley. We'll see how it all plays out though.

Those things could be handy when all the light coming from everywhere is the same color - like outdoors and not in the shade, or all in the shade, or in a tungsten-only room. But in most cases, it seems you're balancing to a specific fixture or spot and you put the card where the subject will be. But it wouldn't be bad to have in your kit, I'm sure there are times you'd realize it's just the thing. For the price it's not gonna kill you to see how it fits with your sort of day, you may find you use ti all the time. hazy day outdoors when the light is really uniform, that sort of thing. I was cleaning out a box of glass photo filters from the film days - I only shoot B&W film now - and had a bunch of 77mm color correcting filters. I stuck an 82A (really mild cooling filter) in the case with my 4x4's and so on. I don't shoot through it, but I white balance through it really often - just hold it in front of the matte box when I hit the button. Pushes the balance just a tad warmer, like adding 1/8 CTO to your lights. Really nice with daylight fixtures to give them some warmth. Kind of an example of "ya never know", y'know?

Well, the adapter thickness is to get the lens in the proper place in relation to the sensor plane (film plane in the old days). If you extend it by using a speedbooster, you'll just make a macro-only lens, like using an extension tube. Unless the SB is made specifically for putting a specific brand of MF lenses on a specific mount, (like a mamiya to nikon SB), which… I wouldn't hold your breath for that, seems like a micro market.

I think - unless there's some specialty look you're after that yo can only get from an MF lens - it's kind of chasing your tail to stick something made for a giant piece of film (compared to your sensor) on your camera. Unless you're shooting 120 film on a 645. I still shoot B&W with Mamiya 6x7 gear, not knocking it and those big negs look 3D on the light box. I can't see the benefit other than just being different (nothing wrong with that though). Many MF lenses are crazy sharp and the "sharpness for different film plane whatever" stuff above sounds questionable to me. My MF negs and transparencies are plenty sharp if you crop a 35mm-sized piece from it.

Magnifying for initialfocus is really handy, but for run & gun - your first frame will be in focus at least... I get great results my Nikkors, and I only have the 16-50 kit lens, which is nice for steadicam and such, but more for the OIS. First thing is (and no sarcasm intended) you really have to learn to focus manually. It's an art/skill that you can never stop getting better at. You have to get 2nd nature with your lens, know what directions are near and far and how long the throw is. If you're having issues, practice every day. You have to learn to anticipate people's movements and how to shift focus for tiny movements you're making. I made my living shooting catalogs and stuff (stills) in the 90's and did a few years before AF - you had to be really good at it or you weren't working long. Keep your camera handy and practice every day. I tend to use a follow focus handheld (shoulder mount), and I have rail handles that can slide around to get where I can hold the camera and focus, but it's imperfect - you just have to adapt and be able to focus with one finger on the wheel sometimes. But an FF can be a big step up. The Fotga DPII is an amazing bargain, too. I think a lot of people's handheld focus problems are in part because they're poor at moving the camera handheld - I just did a huge medical project with footage supplied from (supposedly) pro media companies, and a lot was just junk - jello and bad pulls and an inability to hold focus and stability on anything long enough for me to use in the edit. The client was sitting with me and we were both cussing like sailors. "oooh, nice shot - aww, F&@$!!! Come on man!!!". 5 good frames in a 10 second clip. When B roll that I shot came up, she was like "what a relief". You can even get smooth footage from a jello-king D7000, but you have to learn to move it like butter. (and shoot the NX1 1080 whenever you don't need 4K, it's got about the best sensor skew in its class when it's not 4k). With the NX1, I use peaking and try to use the VF when I can, it's really a very good combo. With the LCD or external monitor, I wear a pair of cheap "reader" glasses which is a big improvement, too. (I wear contacts but with the readers, i can get really close to the screen, it's a huge cheat for me and I buy those things by the dozen from Amazon). (Sorry of any of this sounds condescending and you may know some of it already.)

I've never used the manual kelvin settings since I don't have tint control with that, but many people report odd colors, or suddenly 2 or 3 frames where it seems one channel drops off. Been getting good results manually balancing to a gray card, that's been solid for me. I keep an envelope of small gels and camera filters to balance through, usually an 82A light cooling filter -the NX seems a little cool to me sometimes, I like pushing the WB a hair warmer. You could use a 1/8 CTB to do the same thing (hold in front of the lesn when you press the shutter). I do lots of corporate shoots where I take raw stills when scouting and suss out the practicals using camera raw, and then gel my lights to match and WB to the gelled fixtures. Works really well for natural looking locations without gelling every light in the office.

I don't get the fascination with "cages" - it adds hundreds every time you get a new body. I've been using the same rails & baseplate setup for a couple years now. Though I don't stick a microphone on my camera, I kinda like it next to the talent (for true event and run & gun shooting without a boom op, I use a "real video camera" with mics and XLRs and NDs). I once stuck a battery-powered cheap lav inside the front of one of my rails for synch when i couldn't get a recorder-out working with a motion shot and it sounded about as good as any other mic stuck to the camera, and was invisible - I'll probably make that permanent for when I'm moving too much. I have a little 15mm rail clamp with a lock for two cables, that gets 8" HDMI and camera-in-extensions with female ends, so I'm not fiddling with the camera ports to hook up. Haven't spent a dime on camera rigging in a couple years now.

My first month with the NX1, I shot everything 4K unless it was higher frame rates. The image is pretty extraordinary; if you have a planned project and are lighting, it's an impressive image with some usual compromises (limited DR and sensor skew); if you're doing doc work and using available light, it's still pretty amazing, and I haven't had to NR more than a handful of shots, even at 1600 and up. After buying 8 more terrabytes of drives (could have bought a decent lens for that money) I've been more selective; at least with the NX1, rolling shutter is better at 1080, and the image is still really nice. I shoot 4K if I want to reframe (for 1 man band interviews, reframing with 4K is pretty much a life changing experience), if I know I'll be doing motion tracking or keying, or if the shot is complex or special (did a bunch of night stuff with HMI moonlight and a crane last week). But I'm delivering 1080. Hell, I mostly deliver a 720 render of a 1080 master since most of my stuff goes on line and the corporations I deal with have IT guys and SEO staff who feel 1080 is overkill.

Looks good to me, but it's very slow. My workflow has been editready full rez to proress 422. From there I can do trims in streamclip and output 4k trims to Prores (for shots that will get reframed, tracked, stabilized, whatever) and 1080 for general editing. Prores in excellent for doing this sort of thing, there's just no visible generation loss that I have ever seen. Plus, the H265 files are so small, I keep them around, in case I want to run one out some other way.

I agree. Sounds like the new Sony may be an equivalent body, but I don't see anyone catching up in the $1k market any time soon. And even when they do, the NX will still have every feature it had when you bought it. Ridiculously capable camera. Wish there were less RS, but I'm learning to deal with that, just really watch yourself when handheld and get out the steadicam more (and hell, I shot some gigs with a D7000 years ago - great camera for jello commercials). (Though the color was lovely.) BTW, the NX1 with the 16-50 kit zoom? Amazing budget steadicam setup - OIS and useable AF - and who shoots Steadicam at 2.8 anyway? At 3.5 or 4, that lens is really attractive. Not as gorgeous as a classic, vintage wide prime - but you could stick 5 of the kit zooms on your rig and still be lighter than some classic 18-20mm glass. Get a 55mm step-up ring and get some cheap ND and maybe a diffusion filter (ever see how cheap quality 52mm filters are??) I just leave the step-up on mine and use a 52mm cap. get a rubber collapsible hood for when you need it. Really really dig it.

Keep in mind - I'm still using a 2009 Mac Pro and cutting with FCP7!!! And my focus is interview quality and effectiveness, marketing effectiveness. I (think) I'm a pretty good interviewer and marketer. For AVCHD or H264 cameras - do trims in MPEG Streamclip - batch process as prores to a useful folder structure (IE, establishing, interview, details, manufacturing, whatever - often A and B folders. Flag really killer shots. Usually I use the clip file name but may add "good" or tags for post work "NR" {needs noise reduction}, "track", "reverse", "stabilizie", etc.) So "clip#12345.mov" may be "Clip#12345-NR-retime.mov". For 4K H265 - convert a full rez folder with Editready, conform any slowmo while converting. Batch the 4k down to a copy-set at 1080 (yeah, I buy a lot of drives). Will be the main edit but I'll have the 4K for tracking or reframing, etc. I do a lot of interviews, one 30 minute clip that may get cut to 5 minutes and often scattered amongst the edit. I work through the interviews and find the most powerful/useable stuff and spread edited chunks across an interview timeline (won't be the main edit timeline, just interview storage). I usually fix a lot of "umms" and re-arrange sentences at this point and figure out the "story" and sequence. I may send the entire interview clip with timecode burn as a 480 file to the client if I'm not an expert on the product/service and ask for notes. Usually I don't want the client to see all the interview footage - they want to hold on to too much stuff that's not needed marketing-wise. A business video will not sell your product or service - it's to get them to return your damn calls or get you a new lead. I cut interviews with a 1080 clip on the timeline, and a 4k clip above with viewing turned off. I delete one of the camera audio tracks and add the recorder track and synch it. Check for drift every 5 minutes or so, usually get a frame or two after 20 mins. So when I cut, I'm moving 2 tracks of video and 2 stereo audio tracks around. First edit; add titles in the NLE and export as prores for timing placeholders for AE (when does the title and sub fade in and out, how long overall - this is a great trick if you're doing titles in AE and want to be sure you're seeing real-time); usually add music that's close or even choose music I feel will work. First pass at titles and lower 3rds (or tell the client the NLE titles are placeholders). For interviews, hide edits with b-roll or (for 4K on a 1080 timeline) do my punch-ins and reframing. Some of my cameras have very good internal audio (even the 7100 and NX1 sound good using the recorder's camera out and often gets used in the final). But I usually go ahead and synch up front. Fix any egregious image stuff, generally noise reduction but I usually light and don't need much NR passes. Do motion graphics, tracked graphics, and (I do a lot of master planned communities) get the (often supplied) drone footage and track in better skies, sunsets, lens flares, etc. (I have a gigantic sky library). First edit to client with note that it's not graded or mixed. How complete is their first look? Depends on the client. Make client changes, if they're simple, do timeline grading, full-on AE work, special grading in AE, finalize titles and graphics, finalize music. Interview audio gets a basic timeline mix for any quiet spots or spikes, and goes through protools, my usual chain is Noise Reduction or gating (usually not needed) 7-band EQ or one of my vintage EQs (I really like the t-racks vintage); often add a 1-band EQ if I run out of bands; Massey CT-5 comp or Renaissance Voice; on the master channel I may use Ozone or Analog Channel if I want that tiny push of analog in the high end. Long ago used exciters on voices, but my current mic and technique have all the sparkle I need. (But for wireless an exciter may be the thing). usually bring in the music track to see how the EQ works with it. I usually master the whole interview and replace the track in the NLE. The interview audio work only takes a couple minutes so often it's in the first rough edit. Final to client for approval, then upload to whomever is using it.

That makes sense, as the global shutter is scanning the sensor differently. But I'm definitely in the mood for something global.

Canon FL 100mm 3.5 - 1960's era. LONG focus throw. This example looks like it had some fungus cleaned from an internal element, it's a little "scarred" looking when you shine a penlight down the barrel. Little metal tank, 48mm filter thread. $15. Love the colors, detail, and softness-where-you-want it. All from 4K grabs, shot wide open. Minor grade in Photoshop (just upped the blacks a bit) and a touch of sharpening, about what I'd normally do for non-people shots. In particular, there's some really lovely stuff going on with greens and blues. I've played with the FL 35mm 2.5 ($20), 50mm 1.8 ($20) and 19mm 3.5 R ($200, a real legend of a lens, almost zero distortion and hard to find) and they all render similarly. Looking for an 85 next, but that's a highly regarded lens to find this cheap. I could really see doing something narrative-short, fashion-beauty or music video with these. You could build a full set of primes, including the $15 adapters, for a couple hundred bucks (minus the 19mm which usually goes for $350 and up). Lens range also includes a 28mm, 58mm, some of the normal glass in 1.4 and 1/2 variants I believe, a 135mm 2.5(?) and a 200mm f3.5 or f4.

Looking at their site, 60p 1080 is rolling shutter only, all other speeds have a choice of global or rolling. No other mentions, but wouldn't be surprised if DR or low light ability takes a hit?

When Prores first came out, early testers rendered the same clip again and again, like ten generations. Even when pixel-peeping, they couldn't spot any artifacts. Prores is freaking solid. And keep in mind, doing a render to only reduce noise - even from a prores file - will give you a clip with significantly improved IQ. (If you're doing, say, 4k on a 1080 timeline to reframe, I'd go as minimal as possible on the NR and be very easy on the sharpening). If you're shooting to crush blacks and not using LUTs, you could amp your shadows up a notch on that render pass as well - basically treat this pass as a "raw conversion" to get your footage to its optimal starting point. Axel's workflow seems really solid as well, just toggle NV on for your final render or to check how NR and sharpening affects color choices (you never know). My workflow with non-prores original footage (I shoot NX1, H264, AVCHD, depending on the gig or the shot) is to do my trims and shot organizing with MPEG Streamclip to Prores HQ at the highest resolution I have and tag clips that need NR or stabilizing, retiming, whatever. If my workflow aligns with it, I'll do all the after effects work I know needs to be done along those lines and render while I'm at a meeting or overnight. So my sort of "philosophy" is get everything done I know needs doing before I begin my edit. But hey, I'm STILL cutting with FCP 7 so process time and native-file issues are big for me. That often means I've tweaked clips that won't end up in the edit - but then again, after client input, some of those unused clips get called in at the last minute, so for my workflow, it keeps the last hours of a project moving fast. In Axel's scenario, last minute edit changes may mean lots of rendering time. It's a YMMV situation and depends on your workflow. (And yeah, I need a next-gen Mac Pro before long, but I do a lot of Protools work and it will be a pretty giant upgrade, ditching internal raid for thunderbolt raid, a ton of enclosures, a new PT interface as mine is firmwared-out, and about $1k in non-Adobe software upgrades… it's an entirely new system for me or, say, a kitted-out Ursa mini…)

You had me at "global shutter". Wonder what the tradeoffs will be with GS switched on? Keep in mind, for a lot of people in the market for this camera… we already have everything we need to rig it. Monitors, VFs, rigs, etc. Could easily be a quick $1500 that broadens the scope of the kind of shots you can achieve. (And I say "$1500" because for many of us, super-16 is a non-starter and a speedbooster will be an autopilot purchase). With the popularity of the pocket - and now this - seems there would be a market for something like an 8mm-30mm 2.8 zoom designed for super-16. Come up with one for under $500 (seems doable as the glass would be pretty small) and you could move some units. (Or does something exist beyond the vintage 16mm lens market crap shoot)?