Thread: What Mic for my boat advice pls..

Hi Guys, grt forum I am learning loads!!!
I have a canon xm2 which I bought to make some promotional vdeos for my business which is a sea fishing charter boat. It is important to me to try to portray to the viewer the atmosphere onboard when a big fish is being caught.

The camera will be mounted on a tripod by the wheelhouse door, looking back over the fishermen, the furthest will be about 12ft away.
I am after a microphone that will pick up clearly most of the conversation and excitement, also the sound of the sea but NOT the wind.

The film will be added to my website and Youtube.
Also does anyone have links of comparissons between different types of mikes?


I expect to be told that you get what you pay for, I understand that, I am looking £100-£150 maybe something used?
Thanks

You'll need a shotgun so sound can be focussed and a large fluffy windjammer to cut the wind noise down. A cheap n cheerful, but pretty good one is the sennheiserMKE300D. Here used mke 300 mic

If I were to do it.

Hire both a shotgun mic with a windshield - also a little sennheierser radio system to send the audio from the mic back to the camera. Then you could place the mic where you need no matter where the camera is.

Closer the mic is to source, the better it will be for you

If you go for a shot gun mic I can recommend a Sennheiser ME66 K6 Series. You should be able to get a used one off Ebay in your price range. I use one and like the results I get. You need to make sure you don't let your gear get wet and as Zero says get some sort of wind jammer for it.

All together new it would be around THIS PRICE. If you can make a decision within 16 hours you might like to bid for THIS but don't go over your budget there will be others.

Originally Posted by Zero

You'll need a shotgun so sound can be focussed and a large fluffy windjammer to cut the wind noise down. A cheap n cheerful, but pretty good one is the sennheiserMKE300D. Here used mke 300 mic

THANK YOU guys for the help, I went and bought the 300 mic as above. I guess then it would be possible to mount the mic on a small tripod and then hardwire it back to the camera? Also any siggestions on a fluffy/ dead kitten for wind block?

Ok to tripod mount/gaffer tape anywhere, but test your mic for transmision noise if it's not the MKE300D - If you hear any and you just have the MKE300, a mod is available from Sennheiser. Ebay has an ok seller for the dead cats

LATE P.S. Try facing the mic with its rear to the wind. it'll reduce wind a little more.

shotgun mics need careful aiming - and a human is best. A tripod is a pretty rigid suspension too, and could transmit mechanical vibrations to the mic, which would be heard. If you want good sound, mics need to be close and pointing at the sound sources.

Shotgun mics are the most direction mic there is (excluding parablic mic setups) and if you don't have them pointed pretty much straight at the source the sound won't be good. If you cannot have someone manually booming the mic for the shots, then I would suggest you also try to get hold of a cardioid or hypercardioid mic too, and have that positioned as a back up mic and recorded to a separate channel, so that if you find that some sounds get off axis from the shotgun mic then you will have backup audio to draw on that will cover a wider field. However, better still would be to have a boom operator aiming the shotgun mic where needed.

I'm with rocksure on this one. Especially because the people fishing will have there backs to the shotgun mic and people dont all fish standing in the same spot.
They way that I would handle it, would be to put lapel mics on a few people.

Since you have the mic already. Instead of having a tripod open disturbing the way, you can use suction cups to mount it on a window or wall. What you'd be looking for (on ebay) is camera car mount.