Is there a shotgun vs hypercardiod shoot off in the offing?
 

Well it sounds like there are several different valid quality ways to mic interviewees while keeping the mic out of the way. To bad we didn't have a sound clip of the Rode NT3 at the same distance as the 416 so we could have seen the relative sound differences between the shotgun and hypercardiod.

Dave: It was VOs, and the mike was about 6-8 inches on a nice shock mount.. I actually have a picture somewhere.. also, forgot to mention, about nine years ago I did another VO with Pat Morita for BEYOND BARBED WIRE at a studio in Las Vegas, and they used a 416 too...

I have used mine in every sort of situation imaginable.. having shot nearly a hundred documentaries in public schools, you can imagine the potential for abuse.. Mine still works like new...

The dvestore shotgun shootout has samples of these two mics at roughly the same distance.

link

Great Microphone Link
 

thanks the wonders of modern science neverfail to amaze me ;-}

There's also another nice demo of the NT3
in the DV eStore Theatre. Go there and look
at the video "Indoor Microphones". The first
half of the video is a good demo of the
reach of the NT3. This is similar to how
I used it about 4 feet off with a singer, and
was impressed with the reach. Another thing
I've noticed about the NT3 is shown in the
second half of the video, and that is that
it is rather sibilant. At this point, I think
of it more for use at a distance rather than
real close up, as it may tend to really
pick up mechanical mouth noises.
I just got the mic recently so these are
just initial impressions after only a few uses.