D300s and mic input

[Tracey Lee]

So after I realized that you can control the levels (to a certain extent) of a mic plugged into the D300s, I tried it out and it's not bad at all. Anyone have experience? I hooked up a AT lav mice and it produced really decent results.

[Michael Carter]

You should be able to use an XLR adapter if you want to use, say, boom mics. There are also small battery powered mixers with phantom power, etc. As long as you have some sort of audio in (specially if it's not crippled with automatic gain) you should be able to get useable audio - a mixer will let you keep your levels under control; some of the better ones have very transparent limiting, which is handy if you don't have a sound guy and don't want to be watching your levels along with everything else.

Is the 300s stereo or just one channel? I'd like to get one - I have some great wide lenses that are a little crippled by the D90's sensor crop. (On the other hand, it sure makes your long lenses LONG...)

[hepabst]

I have some great wide lenses that are a little crippled by the D90's sensor crop. (On the other hand, it sure makes your long lenses LONG...)

I was under the impression that the D300s and the D90 had the same sensor and/or same crop, 1.5.

[Michael Carter]

Doh - I was thinking of the full-frame Nikon.

[evanbutson]

The audio into the D300s isnt bad, at least it is actually useable compared to the Canon, but after using a seperate audio recorder, we have a little 4 channel solid state recorder, I would never use onboard audio ever again. We did a whole bunch of side by side tests into a Panasonic 202, a sonpy V1P and the Nikon, and even on the Panny and the Sony, the noice in the audio as compared to the audio onto the Solid State recorder was very noticeable, I suppose if you look at the size of DV tape and then realise how little of that space is set aside for audio it makes sense. But recording 24bit 96k to a solid state recorder and 4 channels to boot, results in such a better result its crazy, all I do then is depending on the location I might take a feed from the mixer into the camera as a safety or use just the onboard so I have a sync track.

[Michael Carter]

I did some "guitar demo" videos with my DVX, and instead of "lip synching" (guitar synching??) the solos, I plugged a Sure 57 into one DVX input, mic'd the amp the same way I would in a recording studio situation, plugged the backing tracks into another DVX channel for synch, and recorded a good dozen takes of the solo, mainly to get good video of the performance. I had a separate mic going straight into my ProTools rig, but never used that track.

I was pretty amazed that I was able to bring the DVX guitar tracks into ProTools and mix them - the DVX converters and preamps are really pretty good. I mixed the song the same as if I'd gone straight into ProTools, used compression, EQ, reverb, delay like I normally would. One of the best "guitar solo" tones I've ever gotten.

The guitar itself was a heavily modded vintage electric and I was playing loud loud LOUD through a well-modded amp and vintage speakers, so my source tone was good. But the DVX pre's did nothing to kill any of that mojo and caught a very punchy & honest version of the sound - a sound with a ton of charcter & complexity. I imagine if I was trying to capture real delicate female dialog on set, I'd see a difference with a dedicated recorder, but damn - the DVX rocked it, didn't muffle or compress the sound, and had a nice sparkly presence. Well done panny!