Best ENG Shotgun Mic but cheap enough?

S

Speedster159

Active member
Looking for a Shotgun mic to put on the AC 90 and I'm not quite sure what the best option is.

Can you guys recommend one? Battery powered is not a requirement but might come in handy in the future.
 
What do you want it to do?
Do you want it for Fx only?
Do you want it to pick up spoken voice?
Will most of your video be shot wide or tight?
Mono or Stereo?
Do you want to mainly use it indoors or outdoors?

ALL these factors will need to thought through.
 
If I read your post correctly, you intend to mount this on the cam. That is always a bad idea, always, but if you must….

You didn't mention a budget, but here are a few comments.

In the economy range of battery powered units there is the Rode NTG2 and the AT-897. Both have there fans. I have the 897 and it is OK, and delivers good value. As mentioned above, the AT875 is a very good mic for the money, but is not battery powered. It is one of the shortest shotguns on the market which if camera mounted, is an advantage. I own both AT mics and they are similar in sound, except the the 875 has a slightly wider patter do to its shorter length.

If you have a larger budget, the Rode NTG3 is entirely superior to any of these.

Grant
 
AT875 is an excellent general purpose mic for ENG as it has a small form factor so can be used hand held too, I have mine mounted in rode PG2 grips with the WS6 softie.
 
OzGizmo said:
What do you want it to do?
Do you want it for Fx only?
Do you want it to pick up spoken voice?
Will most of your video be shot wide or tight?
Mono or Stereo?
Do you want to mainly use it indoors or outdoors?

ALL these factors will need to thought through.
Click to expand...

It will be used for ENG and event coverage.
FX?
Yes
Both.
Mono since the other channel will be used for another source like Wireless Lapels or handheld Mic's. The Shotgun will also be used for emergency cases where setting up a Lapel or handheld is not possible due to time.
Both.
ggrantly said:
If I read your post correctly, you intend to mount this on the cam. That is always a bad idea, always, but if you must….

You didn't mention a budget, but here are a few comments.

In the economy range of battery powered units there is the Rode NTG2 and the AT-897. Both have there fans. I have the 897 and it is OK, and delivers good value. As mentioned above, the AT875 is a very good mic for the money, but is not battery powered. It is one of the shortest shotguns on the market which if camera mounted, is an advantage. I own both AT mics and they are similar in sound, except the the 875 has a slightly wider patter do to its shorter length.

If you have a larger budget, the Rode NTG3 is entirely superior to any of these.

Grant
Click to expand...
I'm thinking no more than $ 450 new. Not going to be able to buy used since it's going to be hard to find that here locally.

I don't really need battery powered mic's since I am using it almost exclusively on the AC 90.


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The content recorded will ultimately be ending up on YouTube.

Based on my own research the Rode NTG 1 or Sennheiser MKE 600 might be a good choice.
 
Rode has a couple new Shotguns out, NTG4 series. One is battery powered, not a AA but a proprietary Li-Ion. There is certainly some debate about that, otherwise they are the same and in your price range. There aren't to many reports just yet on either of them.

The NTG1 and NTG2 are identical except the NTG2 has a internal battery option. Recording to your AC90 via phantom will work fine with these lower output shotguns. If you are going to go with dual audio at some point, many many threads have appeared here grousing about the less expensive recorders not having enough preamp power to work well with the NTG1 or 2. The same has been said for the AT897, but it has worked out ok for me, and there haven't been much mention of them by comparison. I've never looked at the specs, but it seems that the 875 might be just slightly hotter. Again, it won't matter when recording to the AC90 since it has somewhat stronger preamps than say a basic Zoom model.

Grant
 
If I had to choose between the NTG 2 and MKE 600 which one would be the best choice?

I've read that the MKE 600 is a cheaper version of the MKH 416?

And come to think of it now, the difference in price for battery only and one with phantom power mic is so small it might be worth just to get the one with the option of the battery, since I could use it on something like... a GoPro for covert recording.
 
Your not going to be very covert with a shotgun microphone attached... especially once you stick it in a ze" so you are going to need an adapter anyway.
 
You are not going to be very covert with a shotgun microphone attached... especially once you stick it in a zeppelin...
 
It will be used for ENG and event coverage.
Click to expand...
You may note that the people who do ENG and "event coverage" don't use shotgun microphones mounted on their cameras. Clearly that would be convenient, but the reason they don't do that is because the microphone is NEVER in the right place to pick up decent audio when mounted ON the camera.
Of course, we don't know what "event coverage" means here, either. But I would wager that there is almost no "event" you can name where a shotgun on top of the camera would do even a halfway-decent job.

I could use it on something like... a GoPro for covert recording.
Click to expand...
So you are saying that you will take a large microphone, and mount a tiny camera on it with a "fish-eye"lens which will certainly feature the mcirophone is a large portion of the frame. And proposing using a shotgun microphone for "covert recording" almost sounds like a joke. How do you propose to hide a shotgun mic of any significant length? And especially if you have the proper wind-screen (zeppelin) and furry-cover required for outdoor use except in a dead-calm.

hqdefault.jpg
 
While I agree a camera mounted mic is not ideal, I'll go against the grain here and say that the majority of the ENG and event folks I know always run a channel of on camera shotgun style mic for nats when needed.
 
David W. Jones said:
While I agree a camera mounted mic is not ideal, I'll go against the grain here and say that the majority of the ENG and event folks I know always run a channel of on camera shotgun style mic for nats when needed.
Click to expand...
No, I don't think many (any?) of us would disagree with that.

HOWEVER, not 1 in 100 people who come thought here are asking about a mic for capturing "nats". They probably don't even know what that means.
They come through here asking "how do I get nice, "present", broadcast/film quality dialog with a camera-mounted mic" (shotgun or otherwise).
 
None of the cameras I have had over the years had a shotgun, most had a very similar looking longer mic that was just a hyper in performance. Even something like a rode or 416 on e camera is a real problem when you look at mounts. They all MUST have a windshield, and those foam types really don't cut it in anything other than gentle breeze. Trouble is, these things weigh a lot, and this gives considerable amounts of inertia when you turn around very quickly. Many of the slide in mounts are plasticy, and the force applied by a proper shotgun can snap them off!

With a a gopro, you'd be better to attach the gopro to the top at the front of the zeppelin, and use the pistol grip.
 
Well I always have an AT875R on my camera feeding tracks 3+4 and certainly for news it is a must and if you can get close enough it may be the only sound you can get in a news scrum.

OK I agree it should not be the first choice for any user and an omni stick mic or even a hand held 875R etc should be used to get closer to the action, but that doesn't say you should never have a camera mic feeding a second track just in case.

I find the 875 an ideal length and also have some of those mics with captive leads pictured above, I have a rode WS6 softie with around 2 inches cut off it to help with any wind noise.

I would have thought an 875R camera mic and an AT8004 omni stick mic would be a good budget starter package for ENG work.
 
Last edited:
I think I have to vote on the dark side also. While it's NEVER a good idea on a narrative film I have seen a fair amount of camera mounted mics used in doc and ENG situations. And it can be OK. Often it's because of the logistics, there is the money but a two person crew in some situations is a liability. And I have heard sit-down interviews done with a camera mounted mic that were also OK. Those were done mostly on doc's and were because of the cost jump in doubling the travel costs. I would say in my experience in a lot of doc's that maybe 10% of the footage on average will be shot with a one person crew in the field and much of that 10% will have been done with an on board mic. It is also generally not "bad" for B-Roll.

The thing that is always true is that more depends on how well a tool is used than on what tool it is. IF you really understand the limitations and work with them you can get away with less than ideal micing and still get decent recordings.

I don't want to encourage folks to use a camera mounted mic because it often leads to some really awful tracks. But just switching to a boomed mic or a lav is not going to on it's own jack up the quality. You have to use those mics properly also. For Doc and ENG work the "sound" of an on camera mic is often acceptable and if people don't know what they are doing will often turn out better than a badly boomed mic. The camera mounted mic is more distant and in the wrong space can be very echoey, but a mis aimed boom is not a lot better and a lav placed badly getting hit by wind or rubbed by cloth can be completely unusable.

In general (IMHO) quality is about 10% equipment and 90% technique.
 
OzGizmo said:
I've used these on broadcast back pack cameras, they seem to deliver good results for Fx but NOT suitable for dialogue recording mounted on the top of a camera.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/330932965582?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Click to expand...

:)

I find it interesting, and it's really a no/low budget film and TV thing, that SFX are seen as not needing quality. On big budget films the production mixer is going to have a more expensive package in general than the FX recordist but most of that is related to needing a lot of wireless and monitoring etc. The actual equipment the FX recordists cary is often higher end. They are also generally recording at higher sample rates etc. Dialog has a relatively narrow range dynamically and spectrally and you generally will have multiple takes. A lot of FX are excessively dynamic and one shots or random. They also often are a bit dangerous to record, or at least a lot more than production recording. And are often remote or hard to get to. If you are down range recording cannon ball passes you are not using a low fidelity mic to do it!


On the flip side FX recordists also generally have a bunch of cheaper mics also for doing things that put the mic in harms way.

But I think what you are really talking about is B-Roll and what sound editors often refer to as "garbage fill", something to throw in the deep background so the VO doesn't sound so sterile on a project that is not going to have a real sound post.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top