Figure 3 shows a good cross section of the types of microphones you should be
considering for your shoots. Let’s briefly identify them, and then
cover the three characteristics of microphones you need to learn before
buying.
Figure
There are two ways to
connect external microphones to camcorders, though not all camcorders
offer either or both options. First, of course, is your microphone
port, which comes in two general categories. One is an XLR connector,
which is typicall
So those are the microphones and the ways they connect. But how do they perform?To
test performance, we used a high-quality, digitized recording of a
woman speaking, played back over computer speakers at a standardized
volume. To create ambient so
So, if you want to use a high-end microphone with your camcorder and
you don’t have an XLR jack, you’ll have to find a way to convert from
the XLR cable to the 3.5mm connector on your camera. We explored two
alternatives.The first was a “line matc
This leads us to the three issues you need to address before buying
a microphone. Note that you have to ask the same questions whether the
microphone is wired or wireless, since the issues are identical.What is the pickup pattern?First
is the pick
When you attach an external microphone to your camcorder, you’re going to have to change some settings on the camcorder to tell it to ignore its internal microphone and record from the external. You’ll also have to set gain controls to make sure that
It generally only takes a video shoot or two before you realize that
the weakest link on your camcorder is the microphone. Don’t worry: It’s
not you, or really your camcorder for that matter, just the simple fact
of life that all onboard microphon