Hot-shoe mount shotgun for GL-2

[Frank Granovski]

Canon DM-50 doesn't count; I've heard nothing but bad things about it.

Steve, I heard the opposite.

There's a lot of great mic info on the audio forum.

[Steve Williamson]

Just a follow-up on my impression of the Azden SGM-X hooked up to my GL-2...

The fact that it uses a 1/8" mini-plug was a nice touch. It came with a short cable and that was mighty handy ... no XLR converters here.

In a very quiet room, I noticed that I could faintly hear the zoom motor, but only when I had the audio levels turned up fairly high. When there was any other kind of noise going on (and there usually will be in my case) I couldn't hear the zoom motor at all.

The sound is definitely better than the stereo mic that comes on the camcorder itself; the on-board mic has a bit more echo to it.

In fact, this brings up a particular point. I was trying to see just how "directional" this new shotgun mic was. So far, I notice very little attenuation of sounds coming from the sides of the mic. It gets rid of echoes but I still hear stuff from the side at just a tiny bit lower volume than in front.

This is my first use of a shotgun mic, mounted on a camera or otherwise, so perhaps my expectation of just how "directional" these things are is a bit high.

I'm not necessarily unhappy with my purchase, as an improvement over the camcorder's built-in mic in a camera-mounted solution was what I was after ... but just how directional are these mics supposed to be, anyhow?

[Ken Tanaka]

. but just how directional are these mics supposed to be, anyhow?

Well, how much do you want to spend? <G>

There are several designs and grades of "directional" microphones, with prices ranging from roughly your SGM-X up to well over $2,000. Most of the higher-end mics are designed mainly with boom usage, rather than on-camera usage, in mind.

Mics with the some of the tightest sensitivity pattern are commonly referred to as "super-cardiod / lobar" designs and have fairly sophisticated circuitry and components to offer better off-axis rejection than the electret condenser in your SGM-X.

But be careful what you wish for. A high-quality, narrow-field mic requires some dedicated and skillful handling to produce consistent sound qualities. For example, aiming one at a subject's chest will produce a different quality of dialog sound than aiming it at his mouth. They're that sensitive. So mounting one on a camera would not really be very practical.

As an epilogue, all mics will pick-up some off-axis sound. It's just the nature of reflections and the general bounce of sound's pressure waves. Also note that the practical nature of placing a directional shotgun mic on a camera orients it in generally the worst possible attitude for sound quality: horizontal. Not only will you pick up whatever subject the camera in pointed towards, but you'll also pick up everything behind him. That's why you'll generally see boom operators pointing mics downward or upward toward their subject(s).

Have fun!