External Mic for 7D?

Trigger76

Hi All,

I have a small project coming up that I think could benefit from better audio provided by an external mic.

I was wondering if anyone here has first hand experience and could recommend one?

Thanks
Trev

Borderfox

Animalrights has one for the 5dmk2, he should be able to advise

AnimalRights

Good ones are not cheap, what type of sound were you going for or filming?
I could loan you one but may expect some Bulmers in return.

Trigger76

Cheers AnimalRights(Janer?), Im just doing a brief 20 minute recording in work on Monday, its a sit at a desk interview type thing, I would gladly regale you with my tales of photgraphic woes and ply you with Bulmers in return

line6

this is a great yoke - i've used it myself and seen it used for radio broadcast
http://www.micro-phone-reviews.com/product-reviews/camcorder-microphones/sony-ecmms907.htm

daycent

The Rode videomic would be the most popular. But you would be better off using a separate external recorder if you're looking for high quality audio, like the Zoom H4N.

line6

you will need a cable like this if it doesn't already come with one
http://www.thomann.de/ie/pro_snake_20036_kamerakabel.htm

Trigger76

Yeah appreciate what your saying,

Im kinda shooting for "reasonable" I have a sound card etc but Im not committed to recording seperately and adding the audio and the hassle of editing vid then the audio and aligning if ya get me .

Its for a webcast , the standard built in mic is a bit thin so just something to sound reasonably good will do. Its one of those things where before I knew it I had volunteered hahaha D'oh !

line6

the sony is more than good enough for an iterview

daycent

Trigger76 wrote: »

Yeah appreciate what your saying,

Im kinda shooting for "reasonable" I have a sound card etc but Im not committed to recording seperately and adding the audio and the hassle of editing vid then the audio and aligning if ya get me .

Its for a webcast , the standard built in mic is a bit thin so just something to sound reasonably good will do. Its one of those things where before I knew it I had volunteered hahaha D'oh !

I know the feeling! Any external mic should be a big step up from the built in mic. The Rode is pretty expensive so the Sony might be an option.

Trigger76

Cheers Line6, getting set up monday morning...but will definitely order that , would be handy to have for next time

I have a toneport so I could go in with a standard studio mic and xlr and out with 1/8" audio cable, if needs be... but again probably more hassle than the thing warrants. If Janer obliges;) happy days, if not I might take a trip into town and see if there's something reasonably priced around

Paulw

I used one of these - http://www.thomann.de/ie/sennheiser_mke_400.htm

Found the quality very good, but wasn't doing an interview. Not sure how it would be for that.

Trigger76

Ended up buying a Rode Directional Video Mic 149 quid in Birminghams. Gunns dont do mics just as an aside....very very pleased with the results I obtained, made a huge difference in the end and has proved to be a factor in me getting some more vid projects so result !

Markham

You should really be using an external recorder and syncing in post-production, IMHO. Makes a huge difference.

line6

Markham wrote: »

You should really be using an external recorder and syncing in post-production, IMHO. Makes a huge difference.

good point markham - in that case a zoom might be the best compromise being easy to use and of reasonable quality

Zillah

Markham wrote: »

You should really be using an external recorder and syncing in post-production, IMHO. Makes a huge difference.

What sort of difference? The 7D records 44.1kHz audio, with a decent mic setup I see no reason as to why a separate recorder would be any better.

EDIT: Apparently the levels are always auto managed and you have no option to alter it. lol

Ricky91t

Zillah wrote: »

What sort of difference? The 7D records 44.1kHz audio, with a decent mic setup I see no reason as to why a separate recorder would be any better.

EDIT: Apparently the levels are always auto managed and you have no option to alter it. lol

As far as I know this should be sorted in a future FW update. The 60D has manual levels and it seems silly to have a better camera ( the 7D ) with less functionality.

Kbeg3

I've had a loan of a 7D for the weekend and am impressed with the video capability on it. I prefer my D300 for stills though. Hoping Nikon come out with some new bodies soon!

Trigger76

Just to share my personal experience here....

The Rode directional videomic mounted on the hot shoe will give you a far better quality audio signal than just the regular on board mic in my experience.

I considered breaking out a sound card and using a studio condenser etc but way ott unless the audio performance was critical...for my task here it wasnt. The onboard processing capability of the cam hardware is limited enough, its not like your recording into a nice Avalon / SSL set up here or something ... so there's an element of diminishing return in my opinion when you get into what you use as a source into the camera. I think some of the criticism online is a bit blown out of proportion around this issue.... it will become a major issue in areas where there is a huge difference between recording floor and ceiling (say an interview in the middle of a gig or a very windy day outside as a couple of examples) that in itself can be challenging anyway and ya could discuss it for ages.

Anyway I used the Rode for an interview piece in an office, minimal ambient noise to contend with and was about 8 feet away from my subject, the audio was near perfect with small amount of noise. I cleaned what minimal noise there was out in sound track pro once I had made all the edits.

I think there is good value in the mic and avoiding having to record audio seperately. My resultant vid will be used commercially and for what it is the 150 quid was a great investment.

If I was in a noisey confernece hall, or other such environment Id certainly consider recording seperately and then doing the time consuming chore of editing vid then the audio to match but all in all I think yep 150 quid well spent.

Its worth noting that there are work arounds in relation to the issue with the auto gain control on the 7D in advance of a firmware patch, i.e spliting signal in, inputting a constant freq in one channel to floor the gain then record your subject in the other, then remove the constant freq channel and mirror the other one to provide a psuedo stereo L/R cleaner signal but as I said a bit mehhhh:o unless absolutely critical ...and if you find you need to actually go to all that bother ya gotta ask yourself , do I need another camera/audio set up? Answer is probably yes if your doing it on a frequent basis.

The notion of recording everytime seperately for the sake of it.... nah... I think go with whats practical.

daycent

There is a plugin called Pluraleyes for syncing audio to video in post. It's very popular and takes the hard work out of syncing apparently. I think it's only for Mac though.

Trigger76

nice one , great tip:)