homestar_kevin

Yeah, You're good to go with that speed booster. Nikon G adapters like that are just Nikon F adapters that have an aperture control mechanism built in for nikon G lenses without external aperture rings.

Generally speaking all macro lenses are very sharp and very good, it's hard to go wrong really. What lens system are you looking for? What's the budget? Is auto focus or IS important for you? I have some legacy manual focus macro lenses including the Nikon AIS 55mm f/2.8 and the Tamron Adaptail 90mm f/2.5 that are both great. I also have the 60mm Samsung NX Macro lens for the NX system which is wonderful too. There are tons of good options, so another thing to think about is working distance/focal length.

Hey Andrew, Just wanted to take a second and send some good vibes your way. I know it's been a truly dark and shitty time and that often times it's unavoidable to get trapped in darker thoughts and moods, But I do know that this community is definitely a source of goodness and light (For as good as camera info can be) I've learned a ton off of threads and people here and have really enjoyed my time active on this forum. A lot of times it's easier to lurk than it is to log in and contribute, but there's still so many cool things to keep up with born out of this community. So much anamorphic knowledge, the nx1 hack, the AFX module and so many other things I wouldn't know about had it not been for this community. I love the discussions and speculations/conversations, but I also had a wonderful time with the $200 and under camera challenge. I know it's not easy to continue to find novelty and fulfillment in this world of endless revisions and new models, but I think we have a pretty good group of people active here to do that. I hope you're in a position where you can take a weekend away and clear your head or something, even if it's just some place local. Also, I really appreciate you being open and sharing with us. Be well man!!

Hey all, I grabbed both these lenses the last few weeks as funds allowed. Definitely a great deal going at adorama on Nikon Mount Rokinon Cine lenses. $220 for the 14mm 2.8 and $230 for the 24mm 1.4 $230 for a new 24mm f/1.4 is insane to me. https://www.adorama.com/rkcv14mn.html https://www.adorama.com/rkcv24mn.html They're on sale for all mounts, but that Nikon mount is really cheap right now it deserves mention!

I actually managed to get a Z Cam E1 for the $200 camera challenge in 2019, but they prices have come back up on them. I will say for what the camera is, it's pretty amazing and I've used it a bunch/rigged it into different spots. The control via app is huge and the camera has been really a pleasure to own. It's crazy how small it is. Not sure where I'll go with this challenge, but grabbing the e1 last time around was great.

One inch is tiny, it's 2.5cm so 25mm diameter. The only lens I have close to that small a diameter is the Pentax 110 24mm f/2.8. This lens is TINY TINY TINY and still has a front diameter that takes 25.5mm Filters, so just slightly over 1inch. But it does cover APS-C sized sensors and MFT. If you can get an adapter with an aperture build in, the lens cleans up pretty nicely when stopped down. Not nearly as sharp as the Pentax 110 50mm or 70mm, but sharper than the 18mm.

Kye--I'd look at the Nikon 80-200mm 2.8's They're more expensive than some on your list, but can be had for cheaper than the contax or canon FD 100-300mms. The nikon has a push pull version that can be found really cheap. There's also a 2 ring version of the lens for not a lot more. It might be worth taking the step up to a lens like that. Nikon has a bunch of older cheaper teleconverters that would play pretty nice with it too

I completely agree. Hopefully this summer will see them implement some of that, with the next Z camera, or continued firmware updates, or maybe both

That looks great. I hope the Z line keeps going and gives us more internal recording options, I really like everything I've seen from the z6.

You can absolutely use your ipad to do this, but you need a mirror set up of some type. Having a true mirrored prompter set up with the camera shooting from behind the text really is essential for it to look right. Check out amazon and ebay and look through the cheaper options and find reviews of those. There are some nice basic ones out there. The ipad works great with a bluetooth remote as well. We have one that can slow down/speed up the text scroll speed as well as pause, restart, etc. Ipad prompters can be a great option if your talent is fine to see/read something that size.

I have the gx85 and love it as a travel camera. Went on a trip with the gx85, g7, 12-32mm, 45-150mm, 14mm, 25mm, and more all in a smaller/light backpack. Had a great time. The kit zooms are slow, but they really are nice and compact. Definitely worth having around IMO But I also have the nx1 and nx500. It doesn't make sense for most people to buy samsung nx stuff at this point, but you might be an exception. The nx500 is pretty sweet. It doesn't have all the feature of nx1, but feels very similar. It has the 16-50 PZ lens that is super tiny. It's slow, but it's a good kit lens. You could also get some of the NX Prime lenses, which are faster, but with slower/noisier AF. The nx500 also has a pretty crazy crop in 4k. It is hackable, but out of the box the 4k is really zoomed in. Again, it might not make sense for most to buy more NX gear, but it depends on how you like the nx1 and how long you plan on sticking with it, and also what samsung lenses you currently have. If you keep an eye out for a good deal, the nx500 may be a worth while addition to your NX gear

I think this is definitely true and has been for awhile. It seems with current production methods/ideas, the more electronics and software go into lenses the less serviceable they will be. I remember with the Samsung NX glass they did the same thing. You could go on Samsung parts website and buy 'Parts' lenses, which were just brown box replacement lenses for a much cheaper price. This was because they rarely or didn't service lenses, they just replaced them. Now the other side of this is that everything seems to be getting to this point. There are pretty nice 2x1 flexible bi-color LED panels like the 3060a that are like ~$150-200 bucks. That's what I'd call cheap enough to be almost disposable, or at least if I'm on a shoot and it goes down I wouldn't be as concerned as I would've been 8-10 years ago with a $2000 Kinoflo Diva or something.

I believe the 24mm is known to have a pretty big swing in sample variation between lenses. Seems like most of these Rokinon/Samyang ones do.

I've never used one of those, but have only heard good things. Seems as well built/better than the Canon 17-55/2.8. I've almost picked one up several times, but have mainly stuck to FF lenses. The nikon 16-80mm f/2.8-4 is really tempting too.

I'm in the same place. The ability to go to 20 is huge! A friend bought the sigma 10-20mm 3.5 years ago when I bought the 11-16mm and the ability to get to 20 made me really envious of that lens. It makes a huge difference to be able to go from Ultrawide to just wide. They 11-20's are getting so cheap now too that I'm sure I'll buy one over the course of the next year or so, but for now the 11-16 has just been so good to me I have no reason to change it. If I start shooting something a bit more run and gun the 11-20 would be on my short list of things to buy

Love the nikon zooms, I have older ones than you, but have enjoyed my time with them. I have the 20-35/2.8, 28-70/2.8, 80-200/2.8 set and like them a lot. Depending on how things go I'm considering getting into the Nikon Z system, if I did that I'd be tempted to upgrade my trio to your set. I love that 16-35, I've been tempted to upgrade to that one before. Your shots look great.

Yeah, I have the tokina 11-16 and it has served me very well. It's the champ of fast wide angle lenses With that said I STILL sometimes almost upgrade to the 11-20. The range it provides is amazing and the price is great. It is 82mm front thread though if that means anything, but it can be had really cheap used. Same thing with the 11-16, which is 77mm front filter thread. I have the 20mm 2.8 and like it, but to be honest with the Nikkors I like the 18mm 3.5 more. The aperture never really bothered me on that one. (Mine are all AIS) If you're after something fast tokina also makes a cheap 14-20mm f/2.0 which is pretty interesting and cheap too, though I think it's an 82mm front filter too

Nice, good find! Thanks for sharing. Looks like the Neewer and konova are pretty much the same rails/carriage with different motor/remote designs.

Yeah, I ordered direct from the konova site and they have 4 size options total from 60cm-120cm, all priced within $25 of each other, so it seems like a great option for timelapse stuff. I'll report back soon

Bump this up because today I found this out newer konova slider exists: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1550975-REG/konova_p1_s2_80_motorized_carbon_slider_p180cm.html I have used sliders over the years and have an earlier konova slider with a motor and all this stuff and I never really used it that much. I got a gimbal and eventually just kinda of used that for most video movement. My main gripe with my konova was I had an earlier controller that didn't have proper timelapse functionality and although motorized sliders are cool for video, I feel like they're better utilized as a timelapse tool. I went ahead and grabbed this one because the controller has that functionality now the new design looks good with that built in parallax thingy and the price was right. I'll post back when it arrives and I get to check it out, but I thought it was worth sharing.

I also downloaded and tried Samsung Remote Studio using my surface pro tablet and couldn't get it to work correctly' I've been trying to use my nx1 as a webcam so I recently bought the El Gato HD60 S+ I have had issues with it using NX Cameras. Whenever I hook the nx1 or nx500 up to the device, regardless of the output settings, I get an image that is tinted yellow. This happens on both my nx1 bodies with the latest 2 firmware updates. So weird. I also tried a friends capture device, the Avermedia Live Gamer Portable 2 Plus and that just showed a black screen when the nx1 was hooked up to it. All my other cameras work fine with the el gato hd60 S+, so I think it's something with the nx1 output or how the el gato is reading it. So weird because the nx1 outputs fine to my smallHD monitors and other devices. I've reached out to el gato tech support and they've responded, but no solution this far.

So my ZF.2 25mm arrived and sadly has a small touch of fungus right on the center of the front element, so that's a bummer. It's going back today. I Should've bought that cinemodded one, it ended up selling for $430, oh well. Next time.

That's totally fair. I have a few of them and they're very solid options for the money. If that's the case, I think you may need to adjust your parameters a bit, true cine lenses are more than 2500 each, let alone for a set. Kye is also right. Are you worried about declicked apertures? Focus gears on the lenses? Uniform front filter size? If Rokinons/Samyangs are too cheap for your blood and would be an embarrassment, definitely don't get them. Take a look at the Zeiss Z series lenses. They were replaced by the Milvus line and as a result are pretty cheap now. I've been building a set of these out and have gone with the ZF.2's for Nikon mount. These are the classic zeiss designs in modern, all metal, super solid format. They have that zeiss look and are very cool. That said, they're not a uniform size, the 50mm 1.4 is small like a Nikon or vintage prime. But you can find them cinemodded by duclos. Now I think it'd be too expensive to send them in to be cinemodded by duclos on your budget, but if you look for them preowned, they've gotten pretty cheap on ebay. You could definitely get a 3-4, possibly 5 lens kit put together for your stated budget. The problem there will be obtaining longer focal lengths, they're all generally still pretty expensive. (135/2, 85/1.4, 100/2 macro)

Sounds like you should look into Rokinon/Samyang lenses. The Nikon 20mm 2.8 and 85mm f/2 are both fantastic lenses, but are also both small, which you say you don't like. The samyang/rokinon lenses are all faster aperture and bigger in size. They're widely available in a ton of mounts, cover full frame, and are cheap/easily replacable.

I legit almost bought that one, but actually stumbled into a non duclos version zf.2 for a lot less and snagged that. I can't stop buying the Zeiss ZF lenses. They're all going so so cheap right now and are very attractive to me as I've been putting together a series of more modern looking primes. In the past 8 months or so I've gotten deals I couldn't pass up on the 21mm 2.8, the 25mm 2.8, the 28mm 2.0, the 50mm 1/4 (ZF.1, but still) They've been great. The 28mm was duclos modded, had the EF Mount hard adapter, declicked iris and the 80mm OD front cap and stuff, the rest have been stock. The same guy listing the 25mm you posted sold the 50mm zf.2 Duclos modded for $400 shipped the other month. Wish I had caught that auction.