Microphones

kyoshinikon

I have become rather fond of the video on the D7000. The one thing (other than shake) which drives me nuts is the sound quality. While I have an external mike, it is cheapo and in dire need of replacement so I need a better one. Any suggestions or user stories?

JJ_SO

My suggestion would be, get a better record device anyway. I don't recall where I read it, but a sound engineer was checking the sound quality of Nikon cams (in general) and they all suffer from weakness in low frequencies. I think, record the video as usual with the inbuilt mic and replace the audiotrack with the one of the external record device. There are a couple of good manufacturers such as Zoom, Tascam or Olympus doing great mobile recording devices. More stuff to carry around - I recall a quote from Orson Welles (?) "A writer needs a pen, a painter a brush, a filmmaker an army"

sideways

I bought a used rode videomic pro - the more common shotgun style. It's an easy fit onto the hot shoe and has a boost switch to improve signal to noise performance on DSLR's.

Haven't used it much yet but had fun piping it into an old minidisc recorder to capture the dawn chorus. First impression is positive.

I notice that sennheiser is about to launch something very similar with inbuilt micro SD card recorder. That's something that rode have been talking about for over a year but haven't released yet - may well be worth looking at....

Ade

When I can, I use a Tascam DR-100 external recorder with a variety of mics. I also use the Rode VideoMic on the D7000 itself to improve the internal audio as backup to the Tascam.

Aside from sound quality, I feel the biggest drawback of the D7000 is the inability to monitor the audio. Without monitoring, I have no idea of the sound quality being recorded, e.g., any popping/hissing, the sound of the mic rubbing against the speaker's clothes, hum from nearby equipment, a deafening frequency from the air conditioner, etc.

Once, during a performance I forgot to turn on the Rode mic on the D7000 (it's battery operated) and had no indication that anything was wrong until after the performance ended. Thankfully we were in a studio so I was able to use the studio recording.

With the Tascam, I can attach a nice pair of headphones during the shoot and know exactly what's being recorded into the cards. There's no guessing involved.

Golf007sd

Ironheart

I have the ME-1 and it is only marginally better than the built-in mics on the cameras. It looks cool though :-)

kyoshinikon

Thanks...