Focus on Imaging- Show report by Drew Gardner

Like any other stills guys going into moving images I'm sure many of you, as I have, been stopped in their tracks by the big monster we all fear and don't know enough about.

Sound.

To be honest you really are best off working with an experienced sound recorder if you want to get the very best quality on a commercial paying job.

Remember, if the sound is screwed, the whole project can be too.

But what about the rest of the time when you are dealing with it by yourself, for solo or low budget jobs? Well it is quite a learning curve, I have all sorts of Gizmos like booms, Rode NTG-3 shotgun mic, Sennheiser radio mics and the obligatory Zoom H4N audio recorder, for when I need separate audio. If you are anything like me you will find yourself struggling to handle stuff mid shoot. Where to put the Zoom H4N while I'm shooting?

Well when I'm working on a tripod I use the brilliant little magic arm made by Manfrotto, the Mini Hydrostat arm 814 which I attach to the head of my Manfrotto 504HD head and I can monitor sound. This hydrostatic arm has a ton of uses, like attaching a monitor, but also for more general applications, which I will be blogging about at a later date.

But what about working on the fly, you can mount the Zoom on the hot shoe, but that does leave you open to the inevitable 'handling' noise. I bumped into the irrepressible Tim Constable from Rycote, who are renowned the world over for their sound recording solutions, such as wind jammers and mic suspension systems.

The portable recorder Audio kit, and their mic works on a patented 'lyre' which really does the job. Rycote has now made a variant of this system to enable the mounting of the zoom to the hotshoe or via a handle which minimizes handling noise.

Tim bought an early version of it to focus and gave me a quick demo. I shot and edited a short video on my iPhone. There is a higher res version on Vimeo video

Rycote Portable recorder kit from drew gardner on Vimeo.

I have not yet used it in action, but feel it is very worthwhile of investigation. If it is something which can make a difference to improve audio quality when you are up against it, I m keen to give it a go.

Read the original article on Drew Gardner's blog at: http://photography-thedarkart.blogspot.com/2011/03/focus-on-imaging-show-report-2.html