Camera Boom Pole
What type of microphone should I get for my camcorder?
Hey guys. I have a Canon Vixia HG21 camcorder and I need a better microphone for my sketches, I am thinking about getting a shotgun mic to put on top, or use it on a boom pole as a boom mic.
I am currently looking at this microphone http://www.amazon.com/Rode-VideoMic-Directional-Condenser-Microphone/dp/B0007U9SOC, but I don’t know if it would work with my camera. I am assuming it would because some of the user-summited pictures on the site have Canon cameras with it, but they look a little funny.
So here is what I am wondering.
1. Would there be a better microphone than the one I picked out? Why?
2. Could I put it on my camera and use it as a boom mic? What other things do I need to buy to do so? (e.g.[Do I need to buy] a long cable so I can put it on the boom pole?)
Thank you for your help.
I just didn’t want to buy something and find out it wasn’t what I wanted.
The RODE video mic is a good one… some things you need to know:
1) It is designed to be camera mounted. That’s why the built-in cable is short. And, as such, the cable does not need to be shielded. If the boom-pole can be 8 feet or longer, and the camera can be somewhere else, then you will need at least a 15 foot cable extension. This is long enough where, if unshielded, the cable can act as an antenna and pick up spurious radio frequency and electromagnetic interference – and ruining the audio portion of the shot.
2) The camcorder has a “mini” hot shoe. If you mount the mic to the camcorder, you will need an adapter. Or you can use a camera bracket with a standard sized cold shoe. An angled bracket works if this is interesting to you… search for “video bracket” at amazon. Bower or Sima…
3) The RODE video mic is a mono mic. When you plug it into the camcorder only one side will record audio. This can be fixed when you edit. Since we don’t know what computer or video editor you are using, we don’ know if you will need an additional audio editor or if the video editor you are using does multiple audio tracks.
4) When you attach a mic to a boom pole, the person holding the pole can move, causing vibrations to be carried up the pole, picked up by the mic element and the audio is ruined. In addition to using some sort of pipe insulation on the boom-pole handle, lots of folks use a “shock mount”. The RODE video mic comes with one. Use it. The way the mic is mounted isolates the mice from hard-surface items and eliminates the potential for picking up vibration from stuff being touched. How are you planning to attach the mic or shock-mount to the boom pole? Duct tape works – but *that* looks a little funny…
5) I use a NRG Research SA-568 with a Sabra SSM-1 universal shockmount. The set up works well. I don’t care that it looks “a little funny” since the task is to get useful audio and video. One of the reasons I like the SA-568 is because it comes with a cable tail that can connect the mic’s XLR connection to a 1/8″ TRS jack on the camcorder. I can also put XLR mic extension cables *then* connect to the 1/8″ jack… Normally, I just use XLR cables to an XLR adapter (because of the mono/stereo switch on the XLR adapter), and do not use that cable tail…
The Frugal Filmmaker: DIY Boom Pole