New to the board so here goes, I was wondering how to get interviews w/ a hand held recorder? I really don't want to shove the camera in the interviews face so I can get the audio. Is There any other way I can do this? Here is a video I did documentary style and the audio turned out alright. Could you let me know what you guys think. Here is the story of what happened:
I am involved in jetboat racing, My father-in-laws boat had sunk during the race. It took 12 men, 2 boats, and a Tow Truck to get it back! Mind you my battery was dying so I was limited to what I could record. The whole incident took over 2 and half hours to recover the boat. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2nVosEFe10

Looking for feed back on both posts, I put another in the welcome forum.

Thank You Everybody

Chris.

Chris:

The "Now Hear This" forum is where various audio issues are explored.

Watched the film on YouTube. Nice job. I think you may be thinking that naration would be better than the text explanations, and I think that may be true. There are a lot of sound only options out there that would fit your needs, including .dat recorders, HiMD recorders, and maybe even the Simple IRiver recorder.

A good microphone off camera, is another issue to be dealt with.... a lot of choices to explore in the Now Hear This forum here.

Thanks I'll take a look.

I don't connect with TV news crews very often, but whan I do I'm always interested in their equipment. I often see omni directional hand held mics in the hands of the on-camera correspondents.

I own a very old EV omni 600 series mic (I think it is a 635, but the label has long disappeared). I found it one Spring while cleaning up an outdoor party area at a resort hotel. The mic had spent the entire winter covered with snow. It still performs admirably. In any case, it is an interesting omni, as the pick-up pattern appears to be more of a hemisphere, as it tends to reject sounds from the shaft, but will pick up any sound from 0 - 90 degrees around the mesh screen.

Anyway, omni hand helds are easy to use as the mic doesn't need to be moved very much when in an interview situation.

An omni hand held might fit your needs well, but please research more. I don't have a lot of experience with omni hand held mics.