quality of 5DII's on board mic. Not bad.

F

f64manray

Well-known member
Very little is said about the on board mic on the 5DII other than: It's crap. Dont use it. I thought some might find this useful in regards to using it to record a live music performance. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality.

The camera is on a tripod about 2-3 feet in front of the PA speaker. The auto gain worked well and remained transparent. The camera was in the 640 setting to keep file size minimal for web use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMTFQErXHNY

Click the high quality setting for best image. This was very, very dim stage lighting. I continue to impressed by the capability of this sensor in low light.
 
Yes, it's not bad...if you are deaf.

No bass, honking mids and brittle highs. It picks up every breath the operator takes and if you focus, zoom or otherwise touch the 5D MKII body, it picks it up.

Sorry, I disagree. You need to listen to some real mics, then you will realize how bad it sounds. http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/right_mic_brockett.html I should revise that, all on-board mics sound bad, some worse than others. I know for a fact that the on-board mics on most sub $10k camcorders are made up of about $3.00 worth of parts.

Enjoy,

Dan
 
puredrifting said:
Yes, it's not bad...if you are deaf.

No bass, honking mids and brittle highs. It picks up every breath the operator takes and if you focus, zoom or otherwise touch the 5D MKII body, it picks it up.

Sorry, I disagree. You need to listen to some real mics, then you will realize how bad it sounds. http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/right_mic_brockett.html I should revise that, all on-board mics sound bad, some worse than others. I know for a fact that the on-board mics on most sub $10k camcorders are made up of about $3.00 worth of parts.

Enjoy,

Dan
Click to expand...

That's kind of funny. I said it wasn't bad, and you post a link to mics costing hundreds of dollars more which of course blow away the onboard mic on the 5DII. I never said it matched a Neumann M149 with a Manley Vox Box.

I was expecting miserable performance from the 5DII mic, and I found it to be acceptable when placed on a tripod 2-3 feet in front of a very good quality JBL PA speaker with some hefty volume. It works fine in the link that I posted in my first post which I monitored on my crappy computer Sony Vaio speakers which is the kind of enviroment it will be most listened to on. I didn't try the Mackie 824's or Yamaha NS-10's in our recording studio.

Of course if you're filming narrative with actors, I'm sure it would fail miserably. You're going to need a good compact mixer, boom mic and probably some good lavs into an external recorder.

As soon as we get this home remodel out of the way, I'm going to set up a Mackie 1402 with some crown CM 700's, AT4050, Shure KSM44 and feed it directly into the 5dII's mini jack to try a properly lit live performance.
 
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At least with the on-board mic on the HPX170 and EX1, they are fairly isolated from handling noise. My 5D MKII picks up every physical noise connected with the camera, even when I push the record button on the Zoom H4N on the hot shoe.

The only use for it is that it is really handy for syncing up double system sound. ;-)

Dan
 
I have to agree with puredrifting. If we're comparing onboard mics between HVX and 5Dmk2 it's no contest. 5d's really sucks- focusing and operator noises are SUPER loud. This could be the AGC, but without a way to turn it off, there's no way to know.

Here's another toast to Hudson's fine work.

-Tom
 
puredriftingMy said:
5D MKII picks up every physical noise connected with the camera, even when I push the record button on the Zoom H4N on the hot shoe.
Click to expand...

How do you like your Zoom Dan? When I find the 5D kit in stock I was thinking about picking the H4N up to go with it.
 
So far, it seems pretty good. I haven't really used it for anything where audio quality was super important yet. I may try teaming it up with the juicedLink CX231 that I have for an article, that way I can compare the preamps in the Zoom with the juicedLink preamps. I know the zoom works very well with line in but that requires you to use an outboard mixer. Fine of you have a sound mixer on the shoot but if you are one man banding it as most 5D MKII users are most of the time, not practical.

I will be doing a doc shoot in Europe beginning this weekend for a few weeks. That will be for b-roll on the street as well as interviews with the Countryman B6. I was going to bring the AT-875r but I have no room in the luggage for a boom stand so I will probably just use the Countryman and will bring a Tram as a backup.

Will report back at the end on June when I get back, not sure if I will have Internet access much while over there, I am all over the place.

Dan
 
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