hyalinejim

I bought the Tascam today as a local shop had it in stock. 

This is now my family/holiday setup. You'll have to imagine my belly there, hanging over the belt of my trousers.

I was tempted by alternatives. To go all out on quality with the Sennheiser - too much money! To stay minimal with the internal mic and a little windjammer - the mics on this cam are at the back: too much me! To buy nothing and stick with the stereo Rode - too top heavy!

I found that the foam from my Rode fits snugly on the Tascam and this coupled with an old Rode windjammer does a much better job than the included windscreen.

33 minutes ago, mercer said:

it may be a harder sell to clients?

I'll just tell them the light is coming from the "business side" 😃

On 4/22/2023 at 6:27 PM, PPNS said:

 i think they would look even better if you had the darker side of the face towards the camera. You’re looking for natural contrast in light

Yes, I see what you mean. That way the light is coming from the direction of the negative space, where the subject is looking to. I like that idea and hadn't really considered it before. I'm going to try to add that into the recipe. This particular day was a bit of a scramble with a bunch of interview subjects lining up for the their five minute piece to camera. Then I'm trying to quickly make decisions on how to vary the background, while keeping the lighting nice and alternating between left and right placement. But I should totally be able, as you suggest, to add this consideration into the mix - that light is coming from the side they're looking towards.

On 4/22/2023 at 6:27 PM, PPNS said:

if you just put her in the right side of the frame, and rotate her 180 degrees

LOL! Did you mean 90 degrees? I could ask her to do a 360 and walk away 😂

2 hours ago, kye said:

if you could get the fidgeters to stand right next to a desk

Well, I often joke that photography/videography is 90% moving furniture!

2 hours ago, Kisaha said:

micro-windjammers

These look great! But the mics on the S5II are in an awkward spot, number 3 in this diagram:

It's a rectangular, rather than circular area and anything pasted there would block access to the hotshoe. There's a film maker in the UK who sells the MicroMuff Skinny on eBay and it's almost a perfect fit (would need a bit of trimming).But according to a Techradar review the velcro loses connectivity over time.

I tried sticking a lav windjammer over it just now, secured with a hair tie looped around the viewfinder and it works a treat. I was blowing right into it a point blank range and it sounds good. The lav windjammer (my one is from Rycote) is a big mass of material so probably offers better wind protection than the little stickies.

12 hours ago, ac6000cw said:

I use an old Rycote fur 'windjammer' (which I owned before I bought the TM-2x) over a foam windshield.

And does this do the trick? I have an old dead cat from my Zoom H4n (5D Mark II days!) that worked well on that recorder and I can also squeeze it over the Rode VideoMic and it works fine.

Another idea that occurs to me is to use two lav dead cats as above - one on each capsule and then another big dead cat if necessary.

Just now, ac6000cw said:

a PM with a link to a video file

Thanks! I've downloaded it and had a look. It sounds good, but I gave it a big lift in the lower frequencies:

How do you find the wind noise with the included dead cat? From a few YT videos it seems to do an OK-but-not-great job. I'm wondering if there are other solutions that cut more wind.

9 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

Posts like this are why I love this forum.

Yes, it's incredibly helpful. Thank you @ac6000cw

Thanks! At the moment I'm ripping the soundtracks from YT comparison vids featuring the Tm-2X versus higher end mics and field recorders and seeing if I can EQ it a bit. It looks like it needs quite a big boost in the lower frequencies. I read a random comment that although it uses the same capsules as a Tascam field recorder, you're not necessarily getting the same sound as you would on that model because the TM-2X isn't backed up by the battery power and circuitry of the recorder.

25 minutes ago, ac6000cw said:

Rode Stereo Video Mic Pro (which I think is what is pictured in your first post?) as I've never owned one (it's too large for me

Yes, it's bulky! It just sits too goddamn high! But the sound is great.

12 minutes ago, ac6000cw said:

height comparison

Thanks for this! The Tascam looks to be no higher than the Boya omni capsule. Do you have any comments on the sound quality of the Tascam?

56 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

makes it awkward to mount

Absolutely.

Also, it has a 10 second power on time, so I'd have to leave it on all day probably.

Perhaps, but there are also hardware limitations: I don't think my internal stereo mic is ever going to sound generally like a good external stereo mic, no matter how much I EQ it or how good those plugins are. 

OK, so I think I've decided that I'm going to stick with my Rode stereo omni mic as I really like the sound from that. I just ordered myself a nice vintage camera bag that the whole setup can go in and out of nice and easily.

So I didn't have to spend €300 in the end and I can still get sound that I like.

Today has been an education for me. Many hours spent on YouTube with my headphones on. The best test video I watched was this one. Ignore the thumbnail, it's a slow paced, contemplative, walking video (is that a genre now?) with lots of nice ambient sound.

55 minutes ago, markr041 said:

Another vote for internal mics

Sounds great!

Thanks, I've seen some of those. If I sort by new on YT I get a bunch of people in Japan filming trains and comparing mics which is slightly helpful, I think.

I saw a Sennheiser promo vid where the presenter claimed that the MKE440 gives a flat response. But it sounds an awful lot fuller than the Tascam, or indeed the AT ones (the 45 is probably better than the 46 - you can't really get them outside of Asia anyway, it seems).

So like, maybe I could EQ the Tascam a bit, but I'm not entirely sure that I'm on board with the idea that I could EQ one mic to sound like another. If the MKE440 is a flat response, then perhaps the Tascam is just missing that info and it can't be recovered. But that's basically €100 versus €300. Like, those videos from the Z6 guy sound awfully thin.

17 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

I've found it's pretty decent personally!

Oh nice! You've got it! Have you any videos online that feature it?

I also am now researching AT9945CM and AT9946CM

4 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

Add a bracket to move the hotshoe towards the side maybe?

It still makes it harder to fit in a bag as it would be sticking out over the back by a few centimeters. I Theoretically if I could move it forward then it would work better.

I'm leaning towards shelling out for the Sennheiser as it only adds extra height to the camera - the rear is flush with the viewfinder. And the sound seems really nice as well.

1 hour ago, hyalinejim said:

Or if I could find something like this (a Zoom mic for a phone) that would sit on a hot shoe

I found the Tascam TM-2X which is but from YT reviews it sounds not great at all 😞

9 minutes ago, ntblowz said:

Canon DM-E1

Well, that certainly is interesting but it seems to be getting trashed in reviews. I found a vid by forum member @markr041 , maybe he can chime in with his experiences.

Or if I could find something like this (a Zoom mic for a phone) that would sit on a hot shoe somehow and get power somehow that would be a lovely compact solution.

9 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

for cheap!

Well, it's certainly a lot cheaper than the MKE440! And practical too, like I could use it for other things.

BUT! I've suddenly realised that because the tripod socket is in the middle, it will protrude probably around 4cm behind the viewfinder of the S5II. And I do sometimes like to shoot video through the viewfinder. It also makes it more awkward to get in and out of a camera bag.

If I could get it to sit forward a bit that would help.

36 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

Zoom H1

Now we're getting somewhere! It's only 32mm high, which is great! If I could find a low profile hot shoe mount for it I'd probably be in a very good position with this.

19 minutes ago, kye said:

when you put some music over the top

I'm not going to use any music for this. Music is all well and good for the corporate vids I do day in and day out but for my family vids I wanna be a bit more Dogme 95!

21 minutes ago, kye said:

The other option is to remove the mic from the hot-shoe when you put it into your bag, which will add a little to the time of taking it out and hitting record

It's a nuisance having to do that each time - sliding in the mic, tightening the dial, inserting the jack. I'd really like to be able to just draw it in and out of my bag when needed, turn it on and shoot. When it's hanging around my neck it's not even so much of a problem with the Rode.

It's also possible that it'll fit vertically into a holster bag with the Rode on.

Whenever I'm doing interviews I check to see what direction the light is going in and therefor what directions the camera might point. Then I find a background I like and frame that up with the camera at the height of the interviewee's head and at around 70-135mm full frame equivalent. Then I place the person within the frame, moving them forward or back, left and right until I get the composition I want. If it's an off-centre framing then I'll get them to angle their hips and shoulders towards the other side of the frame slightly.

And I always try to shoot people standing as I think it looks better - they're less likely to slump or slouch than when sitting. This works well until I get someone who hops and jumps about and gradually crawls closer to the camera.

One thing I've learned is that there's no perfect interview location. But good enough is good enough!

Available light, S5II, EF 70-200 f4.

13 minutes ago, kye said:

if you don't mind the size and price

Ha ha! Yeah, those are the two sticking points as far as I'm concerned. I definitely think it'll be easier to get into a camera  bag than the Rode Videomic as it's about half the height. But not as easy as no mic! The price is another question. The Rode is free because I already own it. Do I want to spend a few hundred just to have nice sound on my family videos? I'm not sure yet.

It looks like the Sennheiser MKE440 will give me the stereo sound I'm looking for. Before I pull the trigger on it, any advice for a smaller/cheaper stereo mic?

I had a go at EQ-ing the internal mic based on recording the same thing internally and with the Rode stereo mic. It's just not possible. The internal mic will always sound a bit crap even without wind noise. There are phasing issues that I can hear even before EQ-ing it.

Thanks everybody for the helpful and informative replies!

One thing I've noticed over the last few years is that the best camera is the one you have with you. When I went through a phase of shooting film I loved hunting down and testing small cameras with good image quality (for compacts I used an Olympus XA for semi-auto, a Pentax Espio 80 for full auto and even an APS Canon IXUS 90 for ultra-tiny. For better image quality I used the hulking compact Canon Zoom XL and the beautiful SLR Minolta DYNAX 5 with 35-70 lens.

But for video, I've just been using my phone when out and about. It's fine, but I really just take little snippets. Whereas if I have a digital camera I will make a little movie that I can share with family, and the kids like to watch it on the TV.

My S5II with Sigma 18-50 lens in crop mode is a beautifully small setup: 150mm long by 150mm wide. I'd love to try to keep things compact while maximising sound quality.

I had shot one family video using the internal mic. Aside from the awful wind noise, I noticed that whenever I spoke from behind the camera, the levels were insanely high versus people talking at shooting distance. That's one point. So the next video I made I put my Rode omni on it and the sound was just lovely, to the extent that people who don't normally notice such things pointed it out. It had a much better balance between me and others in the world out there, (I wasn't using any limiters for this or for the video with the internal mic). And aside from that, the overall tone was lovely and it was stereo. That's another point.

However, it's a bitch to get it in and out of a camera bag! The most convenient solution in that regard would be to work on getting the internal mic audio up to scratch.

19 hours ago, Michael S said:

I actually just use the built in microphone of my S5 with a self-made mini wind-muff stuck on it using double-sided tape. For capturing ambient sound it is good enough and not much worse than an external omnidirectional microphone

Could you post a pic? And would anyone else have some good ideas of how to DIY a wind-muff for the internal mic? Like, maybe buy some foam or dead cat material and cut it up?

4 hours ago, kye said:

• You should test the internal mics as they're often higher quality than you think
• People seem to think that the EQ of a microphone is what defines its quality - just listen to how people talk when comparing mics, but it's one of the easiest things to change in post so don't fall for that

I'll have to do some side by side testing in a non-windy environment of the internal mic versus external to get a feel for how I might EQ the internal to sound better. I imagine it would be something like bringing up the low frequencies and then cutting the high. Any tips here would be appreciated!

The other option is to look at smaller external mics.

18 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

Rode Micro

8 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Deity V Mic D4

I'm sure these give very good sound quality, but I'm not sure how I feel about a directional, mono mic. I think I prefer stereo for these travel/family occasions as the ambient soundscape is as interesting to me as the people/landscape. I think it gives you a better sense of being there.