G'day,

Purchased a Panasonic TM900 to film my sister's wedding (in 2 weeks...)

Will also be using my old Canon MVX430 MiniDV camera as a wide master shot... then closer tripod/hand-held with the TM900.

Now deciding between a Rode video mic, or Zoom H1... both cost about AU$120 but only 1 will make it in this budget....

What would be the better option? Am leaning towards the H1...

Cheers

Travis

I'm a big fan of Rode, but you might as well grab the Zoom H1 and get a beaut stereo field out of it. Don't forget to position yourself close to the PA speakers at the church, or grab a line in from the audio desk (given your budget).

Andrew

Thanks for the reply, Andrew.

Will certainly see if I can get hooked into the system - hadn't even thought of that, but will be great, if they do have a system - it's being held at a winery, only about 30 guests.

Cheers

Wouldn't happen to be a certain Sirromet Winery at Mt Cotton by any chance?

Andrew

Edit: Funny. I thought you were in Brisbane for some reason. Not to worry.

:) I was a Brisbane boy til a month ago...

So, the wedding came and went... and my ZoomH1 sat in the post office in Brisbane... (Mail redirection failed...) Ended up making do with camera proximity and my iPhone next to the "alter" (a small table with flowers on it at the front of the gathering).

The vendor will now need to recall the package, and said he can send me another one once he knows the original is coming back to him...

He also sells the Rode Video Mic for about the same price as I paid for the H1...

So am thinking I'll ask if he can send me one of them instead... figure I'll get more use long term from a good quality mic on the camera, than a stand alone audio recorder...

Brisbane still wants you and it's keeping your parcels hostage. :-P

Andrew

A stereo mic like the one on the zoom is not really the right tool for wedding work. Stereo is never a good idea for dialogue. Stereo recordings are best when capturing ambiance or music. If you are recording dialogue with something like the zoom H1 you will pick up everything around the mic, and the voices will never be evenly in both speakers. You want a directional mic that rejects as much side noise as possible. Even with that, to put a mic on a camera is also not the way to go for serious situations like a wedding. One would do best with wireless lavs on the groom and officiant, or at least take a feed off the soundboard if they are using a PA to amplify the ceremony. With the H1 you can get a cheap wired lav like "Giant Squid" and put the H1 in the groom's pocket, and the lav on his lapel - plugged onto the H1. That's a total cost of about 130.00 US for better sound than ANY shotgun mounted on a camera from 20 feet away. The key is getting a mic as close to the mouths as possible. Sure, have mics on the cameras as well for backup, but beyond 2-3 feet from the mouth, and mic sounds bad. It's just physics.