Hi all,

I am doing only wildlife filmmaking and I would appreciate any advice regarding an excellent telescopic microphone and an audio recording device.

Thanks,

Ofer Levy - nature photographer
http://www.oferlevyphotography.com

Moved from XL H1 to UWOL.

Look here:

www.telinga.com

Best,
Peter
www.parkfilms.com

Ofer, the truth is there is no such thing as a "telescopic microphone," that is there are no microphones that do to sound what a telephoto lens does with an image.

A shotgun mic merely has a more narrow field (pattern) than other mics which helps reduce background noise.

A parabolic mic uses a reflector that collects sound waves--all the sound waves in front of it--and focuses them onto a receiver.

No mic can "zoom" in on just one sound the way a lens does with an image. The shotgun mic would come closer, I would think, to accomplishing that (due to its narrow pattern) than a parabolic would.

Here's a place that specializes in mics and recorders for nature audio: http://www.mineroff.com/nature/parabolic.htm

Don't know if you could change the mic for a quality mic or if it would neeed changing for this device , or maybe the company could supply an audio recording snip of this in use: http://cart.eyespymag.com/index.php?p=product&id=286&parent=264

a decent shotgun and mic pre should be sufficient. No, you cannot "zoom in" on a subject. But, if you have a hypercardiod mic pointed a subject with gain from a decent micpre you kinda are "zooming in". Your only other option would be to capture the wildlife in question and bring it to a studio. That could be difficult ;)

Ofer,

Foley sounds is pretty much the norm in nature docus. It is an art itself and I have not really done much of it. Planet Earth has much of the audio done using Foley. You can bet that the helicam shot of the wolf going after the caribou (?) is not original audio at all. The original audio will definitely be alot of "pan left, focus.....damn!" Not to mention all the engine noise from the chopper itself.

Cheers

WeeHan