Let's talk about audio...and cheap microphones...

Jarek Zabczynski

Jarek Zabczynski

Veteran
So while all the "pixel peepers" are peeping about the image side of this camera, I got some audio questions.

I'm not concerned with getting good audio with this cam. I know it has solid XLR inputs with phantom power and all that jazz and records uncompressed PCM. I know how to get good audio into this cam.

My question is what's going on with the audio we don't really care about?

When I shoot much of my stuff like commercials and music videos, I'm not concerned with sound. If anything I use the onboard mics to pickup whatever is going on to use as a reference or just my amusement later. From what I understand, the AF doesn't have a mic built in. What do we use when we want that "bare bones" cheap audio? What's a good "cheap" mic we can get? Preferably something really small. Don't need a big shotgun here.

Also, I'm pretty sure we can option not to use uncompressed audio right? Would be nice to save space on the cards. One thing I couldn't stand about the HVX is that you're stuck recording 4 channels when shooting HD, even when you don't need or want them...that's a ton of wasted space on the P2 card. Can we option not to record audio? Maybe just one channel? Would it have any effect on the bitrate or image quality?

Any thoughts?

- Jarek
 
Hi Jarek,

The AF100 does have a built-in (internal) set of microphones. As for recording only one channel or using compressed audio (to save card space), I say to you that it is not a problem when you consider the low-cost media you will be using. With the P2 cards, you would be right-- Why bother recording 4 channels when you might only need one? But with SD media, you get oodles of recording time, even on a 8 GB card which will give you something like 48 minutes of record time! With P2, an 8 GB card would last you like, 5 seconds!

Cheers! - And love your music video!
 
Hmm...that's really interesting. I've never seen one on there. Where is it located? I like this cam even more now!

Glad you like the video! :D
 
Ah..I see it...under the top handle. I think I see some mesh/grill on there. And it looks like the little speaker on the one side there on the top as well.
 
Although I already have a lectrosonic wireless lav, a sony wired lav, a sennheiser 441 "narrator" mic, an AKG with shotgun and omni heads, I went ahead and got this nice short little shotgun from B&H for just over $100 for "wild sound"... it is a nice size and has a shortie XLR cable built in. It doesn't get in the way of the mattebox and the shockmount goes on the hotshoe.

PEDUSM1 1 DUSM-1 Universal Shockmount for Camera Shoes and Boompoles

MXFR303 1 FR-303 Professional Short Shotgun Microphone
 
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