Hi,
I need some suggestions for a shotgun mic to attach to my hot shoe. I'm not looking to use any type of pre amp and/or additional equipment due to being mainly videoing on the fly.
I "was" considering the Rode Videomic (retail $149.00), but heard that the mic gets in the way of using the handle along with it's zoom control due to being off set. Is this true?
In addition, I went to the Rode web site in which they have an x/y stereo videomic svm (retail $250.00). Has anyone used this mic? It doesn't appear that it would get in the way due to not being off set.
If you have any other brand suggestions as well as what works well for you, please let me know. Your help would be most appreciated. Thanks!

It's not the offset, it's that the VideoMic's shock mount body leaves only a thumbwidth of space above the handle zoom rocker. The main zoom rocker is fine. But if you want reasonable access to the handle zoom rocker I'd consider the Rode NTG-2 shotgun along with a conventional shock mount that doesn't crowd the zoom rocker. The NTG-2 is battery operable, very similar sounding and by some accounts a tad better than the VideoMic, and with a metal body of conventional barrel shape.