Need some help with shotgun mic choices

B

Brandon

Hey IndieTalkers, I come to you in need of help. I am scraping together odds and ends to get the equipment I need to start working on some indie films. I currently have the Canon Rebel T3i camera, and I'm very happy with it, but I need something to get good audio, because as you all know, the built in mics are crap.

I figured that for the shots I am going to be doing, a shotgun mic would be the best overall choice for the first mic to buy. I'm on a budget of around $150 bucks, and I've been searching amazon, craigslist etc. I want your opinion on what mics are the best for that price range that work with the T3i. I figured other filmmakers would have a better handle on good mics than regular consumers.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and share your time and knowledge with me! I appreciate it and look forward to hearing from you!
 
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A camera mounted mic plugged straight into your cam isn't going to sound that great either. You really need to put it on a pole and record separately to an actual audio recorder. Hard to get all those pieces for $150 though.
 
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I've got a Zoom H1 that I got for about $60 off of eBay, and that's working fine for me for YouTube videos, but I'm planning on getting a Røde Videomic (or Videomic Pro) once I get into serious filmmaking:
Zoom H1
Røde Videomic/Pro
As far as the Rødes go, I can't speak from experience, but they seem to be the best things on the market for a low budget.
 
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Really not a fan of the Rode videomic series. They're cheap, but.. well, sound cheap.

The NTG-2 and Audio Technica AT897 are what the audio guys here generally recommend for lower budget mics. As far as recorders, the Zoom H4n and preferably the Tascam DR-100 are both about $300 and the least expensive entry-level recorders.

Don't pair a NTG2 and H4n though. It puts out a little lower levels, the Zoom records a little lower.
 
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Of course that means you have to have a sound guy. It's a good thing, but you won't be able to one-man-band. And finding someone to do sound well is tough. I once saw some film students shooting in a perfectly cubic cinderblock room. Actors were in one corner, super-cool sound dude was catty-corner, crouched down holding the boom pole straight up in the air.

I bugged me until finally I asked him if he didn't want to get in tighter. "I can hear them," he said, in an I've-been-to-film-school manner. I realized then that he was uneducable and left it. It's not a question of "Can you hear them?" - it's signal-to-noise ratio: how clean is the dialog?

We had a Sennheiser on-camera shotgun for our HDSLRs (now replaced). My partner thought it worked pretty well if the subject was four or five feet away, but I never did try it myself.
 
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I've written dozens of posts on this topic, you may want to check them out. They run the gamut from recorder & mic choices to techniques.

Proper boom technique is very, very important and not as easy as most people think.

You may want to check out my blog on Production Sound Basics; I haven't updated it in a quite a while, but the most of what you need is to know there.

http://www.myspace.com/alcoveaudio/blog

You may also want to check out this article on boom technique:

http://www.colinhartonline.com/?p=336
 
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harmonica44 said:
The Tascam DR-100 is a much better choice from the H4n I hear, if that's true.
Click to expand...

Any idea why it's 'better'? I'd noticed the Tascam, but the side-facing mics put me off. That would be fine for basic 'everywhere' ambience, but it seems like it'd yield a poor stereo image if the sound was within ten feet of the instrument. I don't know - just asking; the X-Y configuration of the Zoom H4n (plus some reviews I'd seen) are what sold me on it. I got a groovy little windsock thing for it ( http://www.redheadwindscreens.com ) and it works very well. I've seen some rigs that put the H4n right on top of an HRSLR, on the hot shoe, but I've never tried it. I mostly use my Zoom for voice over recording, but it has proved it's worth in ambience recording and getting foley for my "Web of Lies" short.
 
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I prefer the DR-100 for use with mics; it has physical volume controls, has a more robust build and to my ears the mic pres are marginally smoother. Otherwise the differences are minor; if you like the built-in mic configuration of the H4n that's fine. My own personal choices - FR2, PMD-661, HD-P2 - don't use built-in mics at all; I use a stereo mic for ambiences and other mics for sound FX, etc.
 
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