Lav vs Boom Mic

Mostly, a boom is better than a lav., sound wise.

The lav. is used far too much with horrible muffled sound a lot of the time.
 
Lav gives you the best sound as its the closes and does not change in distance, but they are horrible if you try to hide them under your clothing as clothing noise can occur. But if you can hide or make the lavs less noticeable by just framing out of the shot and not put it under the clothing they sound better and pick up less environment noise. As boom even if most directional can easily get environment noise from cars that drive past, while lavs is mostly pick up any sound in a small area close to the mic and can easily leave out unwanted sound as boom are directional and any sound going towards it can still be picked up. Also indoor you also have different boom mic as some of them pick up tons of reverberation in certain spaces and lavs have less problems with it.
 
Bruce is quite right, get what you need for the context. A boom during wedding ceremonies irritates the congregation, a lav in nude scenes just looks silly.
 
Hard to boom a guy delivering lines while riding a horse.

Sometimes we use both a Lav and a boom, depending.

Again, I will echo what everyone else has already said, pointless without context.

Kind of like asking... Which lens should I use? I can only choose one.
 
andycla said:
Sorry for not giving context, I was talking about an interview shoot.
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That is not enough context. Are the interviewer and the interviewee in a quiet suburban house seated in stuffed chairs in a large, plushly carpeted room with sofas and thick drapes? Are they walking in a forest near a waterfall on a windy summer day while it's raining? Are they sitting on the sidelines of the Superbowl while the game is being played? Are they standing motionless at the bottom of the Grand Canyon just before dawn? Are they jammed into Time Square at seven minutes before midnight on New Years Eve?

I hope that you're getting the point. There are thousands of possible situations and there is a range of tools that can be applied to those situations.
 
Both.. I just did a shoot outside using both.. Luckily when ever noise affected the shotgun it was good on the lab when ever the law was compromised it was clear on the shotgun. now I just have to match sound equipment so the trade offs sound normal and room noise will be ur best friend. But as all said more information would help ur case
 
andycla said:
Sorry for not giving context, I was talking about an interview shoot.
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For that kind of work, 2 mics on mic stands would be the best option in my opinion. Or one cardioid microphone between both persons, which isn't the best, but on a low-budget constraint might work, as the polar patern will pickup both persons at the same time, with a little room echo.
Something I've done in my last short film (includes english subtitles), for a dialog scene (as I was a one-man-crew), was to use a cardioid mic on a mic stand, right above the actress speaking. The Mic (Audio-Technica MB4k) which is unusual as it's an handheld mic, but gave decent results indoor:
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I always do both, mixing the lavs to one side and the boom to the other. Overall I always hope I can use the boom as it sounds most natural to me, but the lav has more often saved my neck. On a sit down interview where the boom doesn't move as pictured above. I want the boom mic.

Be mindful if you're going to mix them that they may be out of phase slightly as the sound will hit the lav first, usually. If you play them both on the timeline and they are out of phase then you will lose apparent frequency response when compared to playing one or the other alone. In this case you can open up the waveform view on a program like Adobe Audition and "slide" one to match the other.
 
David Jimerson said:
Until you turn your head.
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I was in a documentary shoot where I was the presenter. I was to mostly speak by turning to my left. The omni lav mic was clipped to my left side. Well I turned my head once to my right and you know the difference. :( So I may need to do some work to see if it can be salvaged.

There are many interview situations where I cannot put a lav microphone on lady as it would be difficult to hide. In some situations the jewellery they wear interferes with the lav. Boom sounds much better, most of the times (if operated well) and I use it unless I am short of hands or am trying to quickly grab the scene without attracting attention due to a boom pole.

When I don't have a boom operator, I try to place the mic closer with the help of a stand rather than immediately grabbing a lav. Hiding it is creativity.

Over the years, there is lot of good advice given by some knowledgeable folks here. It may be of help if you can find time to go through those and visualise keeping your scenario in mind.
 
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