shotgun mounted mic

[Boomerang]

any advice on a great shotgun that mounts on top of the camera.

[Barry_Green]

(pet peeve here, please indulge the rant)

No shotgun that mounts on the camera is going to be great. You've got to get the mic OFF the camera and get it over to the source of the sound, in order to get great sound.

With that said, you can certainly get great shotgun mic's, and you can certainly mount them on the camera... just don't expect great sound from them if they're on the camera.

[oleg]

show me some money i will send you one :-)
l

[gossamer]

i agree with Barry. I did some informal testing (i'm going to invest in a good shotgun mic). I found that an "average" or mid-range shotgun on a boom, over the sounds source, provided better clarity and body than a high-priced, camera mounted mic.

If you can at all do it, get a mic on a fish pole. Get some poor, out-of-work musician to hold the thing - they'll work CHEAP! :D

[oleg]

[quote author=gossamer
If you can at all do it, get a mic on a fish pole. *Get some poor, out-of-work musician to hold the thing - they'll work CHEAP! :D[/quote]

get drummer only , the best boom persons i met (bouth of my regular boomans are) coardination, horse power , rithm for dialog
and they are only half musisions :-)

[24Peter]

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=300615&is=REG - fits great on the top of my DVX 100.

[Rush]

The AT897 is a great mic! ;D

[ransom]

I use an AT 4073a on mine. A little pricey but it comes with a windscreen, mic stand adaptor and nice case when bought in the kit. It is a great mic. But you'll need an in-line attenuator, which cost about $50, to use with the DVX.

[oleg]

http://www.dv.com/columns/columns_item.jhtml?category=Audio+Solutions&subGen re=&LookupId=/xml/feature/2003/rose0303
you can doit inside your cable ,

[mjhardin]

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=271673&is=REG

It's a great mic. I just used it in the field with excellent results both on camera and on a fishpole.

My only complaint is that unless you are using a mattebox, the windscreen gets in the shot when you go wide with the lens. You can take the wind screen off, but I wouldnt recommend it since 90% of the head is sound sensitive.

[menzel]

i am thinking about buying sennheiser me66 but i dont know if i used it mounted on the camera is the microphone successful or not . Does panasonic's unidirectional microphone more successful or me 66 is enough to use on th camera too?

[oleg]

buy audio technica 4073 its better then both you mention above

[PaulK]

I use an AT 4073a on mine. A little pricey but it comes with a windscreen, mic stand adaptor and nice case when bought in the kit. It is a great mic. But you'll need an in-line attenuator, which cost about $50, to use with the DVX.
While my DVX is currently "in the mail" and I haven't received it yet, it's my understanding from talking to other DVX users that an attenuator isn't necessary with the 4073a since you can adjust the db gain through the in-camera menu options.

[oleg]

the problem that to hot signal would crash your preamp befor you would ajust the signal in digital side of the cirquit , you need atleas 10-15 db down to be on the safe side
in camera menu option is only doing it worse , the 15 db is when you comming on -50 you need 25 db if you would change it to -60:-)

check who did you talk to , its seems that it was sony 150 user which have 20 db att on the input, whith good mixer you dont need it too :-)

[PaulK]

I'm sorry, Oleg, I realize there's a language barrier here. Unfortunately, I'm not clear on what you just said.

Are you saying that it's not possible to safely adjust the db gain in the DBX to accommodate the AT 4073a?

[oleg]

the mike input sncitivity menu inside the dvx is -50db for normal mike setting and -60db *for low output mikes (dynamics or *low sencitivity condencers *) setting
so the inside menu is usless for you

the camera potesiameter incrise or decrise the level after analog to dogital conversion ,so if you would record in very noicy invaerments or very high pick sounds your camera preamp would overload *and distort before the prosesess, thats why you need the pad .
those who tell you you dont need it probably used sony dsr pd-150(170) whih alredy have the attenuator of 20 db on the camera input stage or they where using other mike which not the 4073 or were recording very silent sound sorses or mute people that only mimik before the camera so had to increase the camera mike sencitivity input by going to -60db option :-)


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[PaulK]

OK, thanks Oleg. I appreciate the info. I'll have to recheck my sources. :)

[smithy]

I would try to get a mixer thru the boom and mic and adjust before sending it to camera. Much cleaner and you could control the intake since vocals from your actors tend to peak very high at times and can blow out your audio input and create a muddy output.

[oleg]

just use good one , some cheap mixers (like rolls) only would do your mike sounds bad , good mixer is nice ,good preamp is nice , good boom operator is priceless

[phd]

I use a k6/ME64 on top at my camera

[MattinSTL]

The best camera mounted mic should be a Sanken CS1... it's tiny, sounds pretty good, and it's ULTIMATELY directional... The side and rear rejection of the Sanken mics must be heard to be believed. So if somebody standing next to you looks over and says, "Hey is that a Panasonic DVX?", just as your subject drops a great line... you won't even hear the guy at your side... (much).

I've had decent success with the At4073a on-cam... in most of my use there weren't sudden loud noises so I can't vouch for the 10db pad. In my experience the overloading problem wasn't nearly as bad as the me66... no comparison. I also used and Oktava hyper on-cam and I like that one a lot... it just doesn't have the reach of the shotguns when you need it.

I'm planning to use an mkh416 on cam when needed outdoors, the Oktava on cam when needed indoors, and a boom when possible for both.