I'm about to shoot a documentary-style project with my XH-A1s. It'll be mostly interviews, along with some outdoor location work. I don't have the luxury of working with a mixer. My mic is a Rode NTG-3. I'm interested in hearing people's opinions/experiences/recommendations with using the onboard audio gain control and other on-camera audio functions while shooting. My audio input will be the NTG-3 and poosibly my onboard mic. I can learn a lot of this stuff through trial and error, but understanding a few of the major pitfalls in advance will probably save me some time and trouble. Thanks in advance!
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best audio configuration on xh-a1s
- Thread starter jthabel
- Start date
Never use auto settings when in a controlled situation such as interviews. Practice with the camera until you are comfortable with using the manual setting.
Ideally you should have a lapel mic rather than gun mic. If you don't have the budget to get another mic then do what you can to place the Rode mic as close as you can to the interviewee - do not have it on the camera as it will just be doing the same job as the camera mic. Suspend it over the head of the interviewee, or hide it behind some table ornament in front of them etc... The closer you get the mic, the better the audio will be...
And remember - its a GUN mic, so aim it like at gun at your target - i.e. the mouth... Be weary of any background noise too - e.g. if you have the mic pointing at the interviewee but there is a noisy road behind them, the mic will pick this up a lot, so either move the mic so that it is not pointing at the noisy road (but still pointing at the interviewee of course) - or move the interviewee so that they don't have so much noise behind them. This is why suspending the mic above them can be good because it is pointing to the ground and thus should be pointing away from most sources of background noise...
Be very careful to avoid over modulation - i.e. distortion because the mic level is too high. I have found that these cameras can be rather susceptible to this, so make sure your audio isn't peaking too high... Err on the side of caution - if the level is a little low you can bring up the gain, but if it is too high and distorts, there is nothing you can do to get rid of the distortion...
Good luck,
Chris D
Ideally you should have a lapel mic rather than gun mic. If you don't have the budget to get another mic then do what you can to place the Rode mic as close as you can to the interviewee - do not have it on the camera as it will just be doing the same job as the camera mic. Suspend it over the head of the interviewee, or hide it behind some table ornament in front of them etc... The closer you get the mic, the better the audio will be...
And remember - its a GUN mic, so aim it like at gun at your target - i.e. the mouth... Be weary of any background noise too - e.g. if you have the mic pointing at the interviewee but there is a noisy road behind them, the mic will pick this up a lot, so either move the mic so that it is not pointing at the noisy road (but still pointing at the interviewee of course) - or move the interviewee so that they don't have so much noise behind them. This is why suspending the mic above them can be good because it is pointing to the ground and thus should be pointing away from most sources of background noise...
Be very careful to avoid over modulation - i.e. distortion because the mic level is too high. I have found that these cameras can be rather susceptible to this, so make sure your audio isn't peaking too high... Err on the side of caution - if the level is a little low you can bring up the gain, but if it is too high and distorts, there is nothing you can do to get rid of the distortion...
Good luck,
Chris D
re_curly81
Active member
You have the S model, so I would suggest recording 1 channel at a slightly lower recording level, so in case your subject peaks channel 1, your have a back up. my 2 cents.