5d III compact on camera audio

[beauchampy]

Anyone have any suggestions for a compact on-camera microphone setup?

Currently I use a Rode NTG-2, Sound Devices Mix Pre-D, but all this is a bit much for a handheld setup.

Any really good compact shotgun style mics that play well with the (mediocre) preamp in the 5d3?

[noipego]

when i wanna keep a low profile i use the tascam tm-2x...not a shotgun but really compact

[butch]

I carry the 5d iii and a Sennheiser MKE 440 most everywhere I go. It's a great little mic. Bought it for $100 off a few months ago.

[beauchampy]

I carry the 5d iii and a Sennheiser MKE 440 most everywhere I go. It's a great little mic. Bought it for $100 off a few months ago.

Just listened to some samples.. That thing is amazing! It's a perfect stereo / shotgun hybrid. Anything online you've used it for?

[butch]

Just listened to some samples.. That thing is amazing! It's a perfect stereo / shotgun hybrid. Anything online you've used it for?

I really dig it. Very good design. Mic is shock-mounted internally. I've mostly use it for personal stuff that doesn't tend to get posted publicly, but I can record/edit a quick reel over the next few days and link.

[DeafEyeJedi]

I have used MKE 400 in the past and have gotten away with decent audio whenever I needed to be as discreet as possible.

Perhaps it's time to upgrade to the 440 which seems like a nice jump although I notice the battery life in the 440 is about 100 hours (w 2 AAA batteries) when the 400 gives about 300 hours (w 1 AAA battery) give or take.

[butch]

I have used MKE 400 in the past and have gotten away with decent audio whenever I needed to be as discreet as possible.

Perhaps it's time to upgrade to the 440 which seems like a nice jump although I notice the battery life in the 440 is about 100 hours (w 2 AAA batteries) when the 400 gives about 300 hours (w 1 AAA battery) give or take.

Thank you for the information about the battery life. Really good to know. I'm not familiar with the MKE 400, but it looks like a pretty solid mic as well.

Just listened to some samples.. That thing is amazing! It's a perfect stereo / shotgun hybrid. Anything online you've used it for?

Here's a link to a very rough video I made yesterday to learn more about sound quality and just for fun.

password: eamon

A filmmaker buddy of mine is building miniature sets for his currently in-progress movie. I asked him about his process and just messed around a little bit. I left the sound exactly as recorded and very rough to give a sense of the mic, what it does directionally, what it sounds like off-axis. Levels generally peaked around -12db, though there were a few spikes. You can hear the image stabilization from the Canon 100mm Macro in the first shot, before I switched it off. There's short stretch where it picked up a flock of geese flying by outside, which I thought was kind of cool.

Workflow was MLV -> Resolve -> Cinelog-C -> Premiere -> FilmConvert

Anyway, hope that it proves to be useful information in your search.

[beauchampy]

Hey butch, thanks so much for taking the time to process and upload that video. It's so useful to hear in a real world test on the same camera.

It sounds fantastic, however there does seem to be a lot of that 5D preamp noise in there. What was the gain set to in the canon menu, and did you have the gain boost switch activated on the MKE 440?

It's almost there. I'm wondering if an in-line preamp could help somewhat.

[butch]

Hey butch, thanks so much for taking the time to process and upload that video. It's so useful to hear in a real world test on the same camera.

It sounds fantastic, however there does seem to be a lot of that 5D preamp noise in there. What was the gain set to in the canon menu, and did you have the gain boost switch activated on the MKE 440?

It's almost there. I'm wondering if an in-line preamp could help somewhat.

Glad it was useful. It was a super fun exercise.

Regarding gain noise, you're totally right. Great ear.

I carried low quality earbuds and didn't hear it until I got home. I thought it better to leave it in the video rather than clean it up.

Anyway, the Canon audio menu was set to '4'  - way too high. I actually didn't double check the Canon audio menu and forgot that I'd cranked it up not too long ago. Clearly I'm not a professional sound person. The MKE 440 sensitivity was at 0db.

All that said, I'm sure an in-line preamp would produce an improved signal-to-noise ratio.