best thing about the h4n...

T

thegoldfi

Active member
is the fact that it came with that little handle. it sucks to use on the actual h4n, but it works swimingly as a little stabilizer on my 7d.

i'd strongly recommend trying it.
 
Just be aware that too much weight on it can cause the plastic top to come loose, possibly taking your camera with it! It's just a plastic cap with a screw in it glued into a plastic tube. It doesn't hurt to reinforce it with gaffer's tape!

As for the H4n, it does not suck to use the handle at all. You don't ghold it, you put it in the clip holder of a mic stand and connect the inputs to the output of a boom or wireless mic. Having the h4n on a mic stand means that barring a complex moving shot, you'll always have a nice stereo field recording to complement the boom signal.

Another h4n tip is to go into the settings and configure both the onboard mics and the inputs to use 'studio' type compression. This is a very gentle form of AGC that only kicks in when the volume exceeds a certain threshold and adjusts the input volume slowly enough to avoid the pumping and breathing that AGC normally generates - very useful if you are recording regular dialog that has occasional jumps in volume.
 
Just tried plural eyes for the first time tonight with an XLR feed into my h4n matched against the internal 7D mic audio.

I'm impressed. Today was a good day for my h4n.
 
I think I'm going to love the h4n.
This happened by fluke..had literally bought the h4n and batteries, and on my way home stopped by to see a friend to buy him a birthday beer (The bald guy )...it was an open jam, so spur of the moment him and his buddies got up to play and I got the recorder going with just the onboard mics and with my 7D handheld ... this was the result:

 
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That's an awesome clip. I loved it enough that I immediately went on eBay and bought an H4N. (I've been wanting one for a while and this just convinced me)

What lens were you using for that clip? What settings were you using?
 
really?? The jello is quite "not funny" in the first 2 seconds of the clip as I flip the camera up to shoot...
seriously..it was a grab n go....but whatevs, I love it when they play that song lol
But...yes, audio wise, I was pretty freakin' happy with my 'out of the box' experience.
I shot 24fps /1080p/ iso was auto I think and with my kit 15-85mm...the barebones h4n was propped up on it's stand on a chair beside me on the stage.
I converted the footage (like always) to prores 422 and imported into FCP...imported the audio from the H4n into FCP and synched with PluralEyes to get what you see.
It's a ridiculously easy process actually. And coming from film, and wanting to work on films and other projects with separate audio, I'm in heaven right now.
 
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^^ Your friend (Michael Chiklis?) is in the way a lot, histrionics notwithstanding. The lead guitarist (with the hat) is incredible, BTW.
 
Jordan_Sopinsky said:
^^ Your friend (Michael Chiklis?) is in the way a lot, histrionics notwithstanding. The lead guitarist (with the hat) is incredible, BTW.
Click to expand...

haha...yeah 'Curt' was trashed on birthday Jagerbombs and having a good time and all over the place...but yes, his guitarist Johnny can really tear it up. It pisses me off when I see him play like that and make it look so easy.

But does it really look out of sync? I don't see it.

And NoxNoctus:
That's a sweet clip too. I gotta get myself a couple of decent mics to complete my setup
 
Hey would one of you guys mind telling me what the distance from the tripod mount to the side of the h4n would be?

Thanks!
 
Keep the front of the H4m about the same distance away as the camera, ie just behind the lens. In an ideal world you'd like to have it perfectly in line wih the camera (eg directly above or below) but that's not practical; you can be off by about 30 degrees (the angle between H4n, Actors, and camera) before things start to seem unnatural - of course, that depends to a large extent on your shot. A single static actor can be recorded more easily than 2 or 3 talking, or one who is moving around a lot.

Also, if you're shooting exterior, be prepared for the fact that the supplied foam windscreen is not too good in high winds. In such a case, bunch up a woolly hat and use a hairband or something to secure it on top of the onboard microphones, in addition to the foam softie - 2 different materials sandwiched together will do a much better job of eliminating wind howl.
 
Thanks for the response. I should have been clearer - I meant how many inches apart is the tripod hole on the bottom from the sides. THanks!
 
the outter edge of the hole is 1 1/4" from either side - 2 3/4 " from the bottom - and 3" to the top of the onboard mics
 
Been using the h4n in the recording studio and it's wonderful. The 4ch mode rocks. We have one line in from the master mix - one line in from the talk back mics and click tracks - and the on board mics cranked way up to pick up all the control room chatter.

Loving it and the clarity at 48/24 gives you so much headroom in post.
 
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