For those of you videoing with a DSLR, how are you capturing your audio? On board Mic? Shotgun Mic? Wireless Mic? External recording device? Looks like I will be using my Sony A57 for the immediate future until I can get my hands on the new Sony PXW-X70. Just curious what's working for everyone?
Just got a Rode Videomic GO for my Canon T3i and EOS-M. Haven't had much time to play around with it yet though. Also thinking about getting a Rode SmartLav too.
If you run a cannon, you should check out Magic Lantern. It lets you cut out auto gain control, and makes a world of difference in audio. For the Sony A57, make sure you turn off the wind reduction mode. It will mess your audio up, and you're much better off with getting a deadkat to put on the mic. Personally, I use a Zoom H4N to record all my audio. It requires syncing but the auto is pants on head amazing. You could also go with a shotgun mic, but by running through the camera, your audio performance will be limited. Rhode shotgun mic is amazing, and I recommend it!
Rode Video Mic for recording direct into the camera. But I generally run a Zoom H1 mic as well to have an external copy to dub in if needed. Sometimes camera noises or other issues give fits and it is nice to have a second clear recording to use.
For those of you using the Rode mic's, Do you have any issue with hiss? Seems like most of the videos I have watched on youtube reviewing the Rode mic, there's been a lot of hiss. Especially the Rode VideoMic Go model.
I don't have any hiss in my mic. A lot of people are using the camera's features for processing audio, such as wind reduction mode and auto gain control. If you turn those off, the hiss should drop a lot.
Thanks for the info. I know I can shut off the wind reduction, but I'm not sure about the AGC on my A57.
I have never had "hiss" while using my 7D and a Rode mic. But any contact that you make with the camera will be heard. I was hunting with a friend who was using his 7D and a lens with IS and a Rode Mic. He had the IS turned "ON" and I told him to turn IS to "OFF" on the lens anytime that he is shooting video that he wants to use the audio. I did an edit on one of his videos and there is a horrible "hiss" kind of sound. I had to use Adobe Sound Booth to clean it up and you can still hear it to a degree. The sounds were from the lens IS motor. So what you could be referring to in the youtube videos is the lens IS motor drive being picked up by the mic. But the Rode mics themselves are pretty clean unless you just have some terrible electrical interference signal from an outside source effecting the input cable since it is not shielded like an XLR input cable would be. In a hunting situation, I cannot even imagine where you would get such an interference signal. So again, my bets are on the lens motor.
That's possible, but I wouldn't be surprised if the hiss is the AGC (auto gain control). I've never had a hiss with my IS on, on any of my lens or cameras (60D,7D and 5D). Also, if that is the case, the hiss should go away with the IS turned off. You should have him install Magic Lantern and then turn the AGC off, and see if the hiss stops. That stopped all hissing we were getting, both from the internal mic and from our external shotgun mics.
His hiss did go away when I showed him to turn the IS off. We recorded a bunch of footage and none of that footage had the hiss sound to it. I am a fan of ML, but on the 7D it has been one of the least stable platforms. So I have not installed ML on my 7D and I know that he has not either. I had ML on my old 50D though and loved it ... no audio input on that set up though.
What lens did he have so I can avoid it at all possible costs? Ha! I too love ML on my 5D's. It's made my whole life easier, and now with being able to shoot raw, life is good! Have you ever tried any of the cine style presets? Big fan of those!
I don't recall the lens, but any lens will make noise if the IS switch is flipped on. There is a motor in there that runs to help balance out the image from small movements. Anytime you are shooting video that you care about the audio being recorded you need to switch the IS off. Some lenses are worse than others, but they all make noise when the IS is running. It is really bad when you run the IS on a solid rest like a tri-pod. It drives the sensors in the lens that run the IS crazy and they continue to fight the motor all of the time. IS and tripods don't mix in both video and still photos. As to me and cine presets on the 7D, no. I manually adjust my camera to settings that I have found to work well. I create a very flat neutral image that allows me to bring colors back to life in post. De-sharpen the image and flatten it out. What this does is allows the details in the darker parts of the image to be brought out in post where they would normally be lost in a more vibrant set up.
We generally use IS if we're running a shoulder rig, never have had our mics pick up the sound. Maybe it's something with the 7D? I've never used our 7D with an IS lens, but the 5D's don't have any issues. That's basically what the cine presets do. We've been hoping between all of them. It just makes it a whole lot easier to throw the preset on 3 different camera's instead of trying to adjust them manual. I still prefer to use the H4N to grab sound, syncing can be a pain, but the audio is so good I feel like it's worth it.
Ideally I always prefer a separate audio source and sync in post with my onboard sound on my dslr. I had a zoom h4n and just upgraded to the zoom h6 last week and absolutely loving it. By using the zoom h4n and h6 you can connect a wireless mic, shotgun mics, lavs, and other mics through the inputs on the audio recorder (XLR on the h4n and h6) or you can simply use the stereo microphones that are on the recorder itself with amazing results. This is the best method I have found yet and have great results with it. Hope this helps. By the way I'm new to this forum and have been looking on it for a while now and finally made the choice to make an account so glad to finally make a post on here. Let me know if I can help you anymore.
