who uses a small 3.5mm or 2.5mm shotgun mic on their DSLR?

T

tikigod19

Well-known member
hi all,

ive been getting a lot of helpful info over here about the Zoom H4N vs Tascam Dr-100 as a DSLR audio recording solution during wedding speeches and ceremony.

However, I have recently been thinking that in order to save battery life on the recorder and weight on my camera (and seeing as I hardly use any audio from any other part of the day other than a bit of ambient sound) I might use one of the lightweight mics such as the MKE400.

My question is what sort of quality difference would there be between audio recorded in camera via one of these mics and audio recorded in the portable recorder?

i like the idea of putting large shotgun, wireless receiver, and zoom H4N or tascam on a flash bracket which I remove and stick in the car after the ceremony and reattach for speeches.

Would love to hear your thoughts
 
Rode VideoMic Pro. +20db. Turn manual audio almost all the way down.

That's if you want a shotgun.

I'd stick with lavs and external recorders for best audio.
 
Thanks for the reply. Is that a commonly used mic for this sort of thing? It's 3.5mm I take it?

What do you mean by +20? does the mic have that built in which is why you need to turn manual audio down?
 
Rode and MKE400 are probably the most commonly used (non XLR) shotgun mics.
The +20db is a switch on the mic. By sending a hot signal to the camera and turning the gain all the way down, you'll get great, clean audio.
 
Thanks again jordy. What if I put it on my 60d or a 5d mkii, would the ACG cause problems or is that not really an issue anymore?
 
The 60D and 5DMKII don't have AGC. So you'll be able to plug and go with the Rode VideoMic Pro.
Then only video-enabled Canon DSLRs with AGC are the T1i, T2i (which can be disabled through Magic Lantern) and the 7D.

I'm not sure about the 1D, though.
 
thats great thanks for the info Jordy. I have been looking at mics available and I think the videomic pro is the one for me. I'll make the purchase this weekend.

just to confirm i can plug directly into the 60D put the mic to +20 and turn down audio volume on the cam and I'm good to go. In order to use on the GH1 I just need to buy a 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapter and do the same thing with the +20dB. Is that correct?

Can anyone recommend a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter thats confirmed to work with the GH1. I bought one in the past and it didnt seem to work for me...
 
Is the Rode VideoMic Pro available? I thought it is still under Pre-Order. At least that is what BHphoto status is right now.
 
ive found a few places selling it in the UK so I assume so.

Would love somebody to confirm this will be ok to use with both GH1 and 60D without issue
 
Wait a minute! Are you guys telling him the best solution for recording speeches at weddings is to switch from a wireless lav and H4N to a Rode Videomic Pro mounted on the camera? If that's the case, sorry dude but you're getting some really bad advice here. You always want to get the mic as close to the sound source as possible. Your current setup lav+H4N is your best bet for wedding situations no matter how inconvenient it may be. Maybe get the recorder off the camera shoe and put it in a shoulder sling pouch or something. That way you can still have it on you for monitoring but it's not hanging off the top of the camera. You'll just have to do sound sync in post.
 
Use lavs for the ceremony and switch out after.I routinely use onboard mic for non critical work. But I think that getting a smaller recorder than the h4n is worth considering, for these kinds of events. olympus?
 
roxics, I think that as long as I understand correctly, the advice I've been given is yes use the H4N shotgun and Lav combo for speeches and ceremony (indeed, any important audio) but I'd like to remove this for example during a 2 hour photo call to get a bit of a lighter set up. In that case I just need a mic to capture audio on the VERY rare occasion that it'll be used. It is for this purpose that I'm going to get the videomic pro. Especially after this weekend and the amount of stress with load/batteries/different clips and cages to mount all of these accessories.

The introduction of DSLR into my shooting has really made me earn my money again...
 
tikigod19 said:
roxics, I think that as long as I understand correctly, the advice I've been given is yes use the H4N shotgun and Lav combo for speeches and ceremony (indeed, any important audio) but I'd like to remove this for example during a 2 hour photo call to get a bit of a lighter set up. In that case I just need a mic to capture audio on the VERY rare occasion that it'll be used. It is for this purpose that I'm going to get the videomic pro. Especially after this weekend and the amount of stress with load/batteries/different clips and cages to mount all of these accessories.

The introduction of DSLR into my shooting has really made me earn my money again...
Click to expand...

I gotcha. I was under the impression people were suggesting you only use the Videomic pro. Now that I understand, that's probably a pretty decent setup.
 
excellent :) ordered one yesterday.

Can anyone recommend a guaranteed to work 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapter cable? I bought a cheapy off of ebay in the past (may have even been a headphone adapter by accident) and it didnt work. I'm in the UK but will purchase from abroad if necessary
 
jordy2324 said:
The 60D and 5DMKII don't have AGC. So you'll be able to plug and go with the Rode VideoMic Pro.
Then only video-enabled Canon DSLRs with AGC are the T1i, T2i (which can be disabled through Magic Lantern) and the 7D.

I'm not sure about the 1D, though.
Click to expand...

I plugged this mic into my 60D but got a huge amount of hiss no matter what the mic was set to (-10, 0, +20) I assume this is because the manual audio on the cam was turned quite high but without it turned high I wasn't getting a lot on the onscreen audio monitor. I will try again tonight and turn the cam audio right down, I forgot you'd said to do that.
 
in other news, I did my first wedding with the H4N and I'm really disappointed. I found that when connecting my Sennheiser ME66 it either distorted to hell or recorded virtually nothing. I think I'm going to find this really hard in the long run not having any kind of auto levels...

The on screen display seemed to be doing fine, just clipping 0 but when I viewed the levels in premiere pro they were virtually not visible! Why must this DSLR audio be so difficult...
 
well guys I finally found a 3.5 to 2.5 adapter in the UK that works on ebay (this one from ebay seller connexion-3000 if anyone is interested) and I'm a little disappointed. I didnt realise the Gh1 had no manual audio control like the GH2. I get a lot of hiss in the background when using this mic and it sounds like it has some sort of ACG that kicks in in quiet times. I know everyone else probably expected this but I didnt as my knowledge of the camera isnt perfect. I suppose the main reason for buying was to remove excessive handling and breathing noise which I think it will help with so I wont be putting it on ebay just yet but I can see it being a much better asset on my 60D and GH2 if I get one.
 
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