C200: Lenses noisy with autofocus

S

skimmel

Well-known member
I just rented a C200 with the 17-55 f/2.8 and the 70-200 f/4 IS II. I also have a 24-105mm (original version).

All of the lenses make a lot of noise when autofocusing to the point that it is very audible when using the internal mic. Is this normal? (I have use Sony's and didn't have this issue but am new to the Canon C200.)

Thanks.
 
All Canon still lenses are noisy; the APS-C nano lenses make the least noise (e.g. the 18-135 nano).The Canon cinezooms like the 18-80 should be quieter. A well isolated quality shotgun can hide most of the noise: I’ve gotten good results with the Schoeps CMIT5U, C300 II, and 24-70 F2.8 II. Else get the mic away from camera or use a Sony camera+lens.
 
With the Canon C200, 17-55 2.8 IS is noisy and grindy sounding on focusing, 24-105 USM IS II is almost silent, 18-135 STM IS is silent as is the 10-18 f/4.0-5.6 IS. 70-200 2.8 IS II is silent for me and the CNE-E 18-80 T4.4 is silent as well.
Agree with JCS, the internal mic is crap, even for scratch, I use the Audio-Technica AT-875r on camera and it picks up almost nothing from any of these lenses other than the 17-55 2.8 IS and the 28mm 1.8, both of which are really noisy.
 
Most of the still camera lenses video shooters use were originally designed without silent operation being a consideration in their design, not necessary for stills. Most of the later lenses do tend to be quieter. Sony having a much stronger leaning towards video since the introduction of their E-Mount seem to be the quietest. I have some earlier Sony Alpha mount lenses and they are not quite and that's for sure. Never had an issue with manual focusing though :)

Chris Young
 
The 70-200 F4 ii lens is completely silent and fast on focus for me. I have a 17-55 and canon and a 17-50 sigma both of which are noisy.Noisy mics will show up on the internal microphone track as the mic is an omni close to where the lens is mounted. BTW, your hands on the camera and button presses will also show up on the internal tracks and even on tracks fed by a good shotgun mic on occasion, so lens noise isn't your only concern. I second having a sold quality on board mic- I second the CMITU5 - that's my choice. its expensive but you only cry once. I've had my CMITU for 7 years, there will never be "4k, 6K or 8K" sound that obsolete the mic unlike cameras, so get a good mic and mount and press on.
 
Thanks for suggestions on the CMITU5. Are you using it on camera or off? I figure that, quality wise, on-camera mics aren't going to sound great no matter what the quality of the mic unless you're close to your subject.
 
Mark Smith said:
The 70-200 F4 ii lens is completely silent and fast on focus for me. I have a 17-55 and canon and a 17-50 sigma both of which are noisy.Noisy mics will show up on the internal microphone track as the mic is an omni close to where the lens is mounted. BTW, your hands on the camera and button presses will also show up on the internal tracks and even on tracks fed by a good shotgun mic on occasion, so lens noise isn't your only concern. I second having a sold quality on board mic- I second the CMITU5 - that's my choice. its expensive but you only cry once. I've had my CMITU for 7 years, there will never be "4k, 6K or 8K" sound that obsolete the mic unlike cameras, so get a good mic and mount and press on.
Click to expand...

You use a $2,200.00 Schoeps shotgun as an on-camera mic? Why? That seems counterintuitive.
By the laws of physics, almost anything an on-board mic captures will sound sub-par, other than
ambient and the extreme quality of that mic (I've used it several times, it is a sweet mic!)
is kind of wasted capturing narrow angle pickup of ambient in most cases.
Usually I like a hyper or super cardioid for mono ambient recording.

I've been shooting a lot of unpredictable run & gun lately with an on-board shotgun and everytime
I want to use a soundbite, I die a thousand deaths even if the camera was within 5' of
talent because it still sounds like garbage compared to if I would have put even a cheap wireless lav
on talent or had a boom op properly locating the shotgun over their head. Even though I am using one,
on-camera mics are close to useless for anything but ambient.
 
skimmel said:
Thanks for suggestions on the CMITU5. Are you using it on camera or off? I figure that, quality wise, on-camera mics aren't going to sound great no matter what the quality of the mic unless you're close to your subject.
Click to expand...

And even from 2' away, the mic is not pointed correctly, it's also picking up and amplifying all of the undesirable ambienbt behind talent,
that's why boom ops usually work from overhead, there is not usually a lot of undesirable ambient sound happening down on the ground.
 
The Schoeps CMIT5U is a great mic. And perhaps a few years ago it was a reasonable, if expensive, choice for an on camera mic. But it costs US$2200 new and not a whole lot less used (because it's so great and popular as a boom mic).

But there are such limits on what you can get with an on camera mic, and for some verite stuff where you're close to people and need/want to follow a couple voices without always swinging the camera back and forth, I'd want a wider mic on camera (Yes, I've used Schoeps CMC641 and CMC64 mics on cameras at times). And for DSLR/mirrorless/Canon C-series/etc, a shorter mic isn't such a bad thing.

SO ANYWAY, these days I'd look (and am looking) at the Sanken CS-M1. It's $900, not cheap but I do a lot work as an audio guy so I can justify the price.
https://www.sankenmicrophones.com/production/shotguns/cs-m1/

And the less-expensive mics such as the AT DAn recommends above, or something from Rode, can be good enough considering the limits of on-camera audio. And I'm a sound snob. A CMIT5U is still a choice that will work, but for an on-camera mic, I'd buy something else.

Back to noisy lenses... I've had a Canon 18-55 that started out kinda not so loud, and then got louder as it aged. But since I often use camera mics just for backup and guide tracks, I don't worry about it so much... And since I don't use internal/built-in mics on cameras and instead have mics on mounts that isolate the mic away from camera and handling noise, AF lens noise isn't a big issue.

Me, I use Rycote Lyre mounts for pretty much everything (boom, camera, plant). There are other choices, though. But to start check out:
https://rycote.com/microphone-windshield-shock-mount/camera-mic-shock-mounts/
 
I used low cost mics for many years and when finally upgrading went straight to the 'industry best'- the CMIT5U. Incrementally upgrading would have cost more in the long run. The CMIT5U sounds a lot like and pairs well with the CMC641. Does anyone really need anything better than a 416-level mic? Probably not- it's diminishing returns as the cost goes up. How about the digital SuperCMIT at $4300! Is it better then than the 5U? Sure (advanced built-in DSP processing)- but diminishing returns. Perhaps wire that guy up into an iPhone, jump into the Bugatti Chiron and drive through Taco Bell to shoot a reality show segment to really ruffle some feathers! ;)

Here's the CMIT5U mounted on the C300 II with the 24-70 F2.8 II in an extremely noisy environment. There's a loud compressor off camera left- booming straight down (or up from below) or an omni-lav would not help much, though something like a Countryman ISOMAX cardioid* mounted inches from the mouth would work better:

After noise reduction in PP CC (their latest NR is a LOT better):

The older NR algorithm trade-off is "the jingles"- high frequency artifacts not present in the original signal. Newer algorithms don't have this issue. In the near future, AI/machine learning based methods will sound perfectly clean for this kind of shot ('intelligent' deconstruction/reconstruction vs. 'dumb' filtering).

CMIT5U (on camera) + C300 II + 24-70 F2.8 II in an echo-y room (note no lens focus noise):

Would a boom or lav sound better? Not by much- need blankets etc. There are new plugins coming out which can do a really good job with echo reduction (again, using more intelligent algorithms vs. 'dumb' filters):
More advanced (simple to use) plugins for noise etc.: https://www.cinema5d.com/era-single-knob-audio-plugins-fixing-audio-made-easy/

I'm sure other mics will work fine with all but the most terrible noise-offender Canon lenses, however if one has a CMIT5U on hand, why not use it? Also +1 on the Rycote Lyre mic mounts.

Like most of you here (or hear ;)) I care a lot about audio quality (and visual quality and content), and do the best I can with the gear I have at the time+conditions to create the content. Outside of camera forums, comments are always about the content, rarely the production value (and so far, never the audio quality (some tech types comment on green screen)). At a higher budget level I'd write, produce, and direct and have people much more talented operate the camera and deal with sound. For 2019 I'm moving back to smaller cameras (1DX II will replace C300 II as "A" camera, looking forward to the Sony A7S III). While the (mint) C300 II will go to a new home, the CMIT5U will ride on smaller/lighter camera rigs (maybe an iPhone! ;)).

EDIT: here's Curtis Judd testing the 'dual mic' setup (boom + lav) in a reverb-y stairwell:

Shows the boom mic (better rejection) sounds better than the lav (omni), and the plugin works pretty well in removing reverb/echo (in both single and dual mic operations). Curtis says 'you'll never be able to get rid of all the noise'- with traditional filters that's true. With more advanced filters, especially when using deconstruction/reconstruction, there will be effectively zero audible noise (demos currently in the research phase; not aware of any commercial products yet). What do higher budget productions do in these cases? ADR!


*[Higher-end head-mounted cardioid: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...dset-microphone-with-microdot-connector-beige . Headmounted cardioids are something I'll try in the future- visually not an issue for us and no chance of lav-rubbing + higher SNR]
 
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I started using the Scheops a while back on a project in a remote location. I tried both Sanken CS series mics and the schoeps and found the schoeps was affected far less by windy conditions at the location than the sankens given the same windscreens . I would love to have a sound person with me but t costs about 50K just to get a person to the location, support them for a month and get them back, and space is limited... so I fly solo. With the advent of small recorders like the mix pre series, I’ve taken to putting a some wireless out on people , recording iso tracks to the mix pre and locking up code with tentacles PLUS having the schoeps on camera mount. In a solo situation given the time, to get all this rolling , I feel like I’m covered in a doc type situation . I have to say though that the scheops CMITU on camera has saved me a bunch of times in some rough conditions. If I have a more controlled situation where a boom rig is possible - like a sit down interview , I pull it off the camra and use it on a boom in the usual way.
 
If price isn’t a consideration, the CMIT is a great on camera mic primarily because it is the right length and it is really light.
 
YOu are totally right about the length and weight of CMIT- When I first bought the mic, the box came from B&H, I opened it and took the mic out. My first impression was that it was so light that it had to be a fake mic or something. Of course it was just a normal CMIT which is shockingly light weight.
 
I use Schoeps mics all the time. Love them, though they're not the right choice for everything. And I'm still not feeling the love for a standard Schoeps CMIT 5 as an on-camera mic. But if you want to head that way, and if you're using a shorter Canon C-style camera, maybe consider the Schoeps MiniCMIT.

The MiniCMIT is only six-inches long, an advantage with many of today's cameras.
https://schoeps.de/en/products/shotgun-microphones/cmit-series/minicmit.html

minicmit.jpg
 
The CMIT-5U is actually a bit shorter than my first on camera mic for the C100, the Rode NTG-3. It is also slightly shorter than most of the battery powered and cheaper normal length shotgun mics that I see. Unlike the NTG-3, the CMIT-5U doesn't regularly dip into anything but UWA shots. It also doesn't cause the mic holder on the cinema cameras to dip.

Honestly, I almost never do work that requires a shotgun on camera, and I carry the BP-4029 mid-side shotgun mic around with my camera for when I do need an on camera mic. It is also about the right length, light, and it has a stereo option if needed.

Getting back to the problem of autofocus noise, you will need a shotgun mic pushed as far forward as possible and the autofocus noise and IS will not generally be heard in the audio. The on camera mic is only good for sound syncing in post.
 
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