which dslr mic for my application

I will be doing an interview for a website.
We will be shooting in a room (high ceiling, carpeted floors)
I will be using my 7D.
There will be 2 people... the interviewer and the interviewee...
Interviewer will have her back facing the camera with the interviewee facing the camera.

What dslr mic should I use so it will pick up both voices without problems?
most practical and easiest audio setup?

thanks in advance

None.

Get a sound guy for the day =)

I'm sure Chas or Chippy will chime in with far more valuable information then I can offer. But you want to get your mic as close as possible to your source. Probably would run 2 lav mics, or one boomed shotgun (or cardoid?) as close as possible to them. But I know the 7D has issues with AGC and what not so you'd want to run the mics into something like an H4N and sync in post or run it through a pre-amp like a juicedlink before running it into your camera.

Sound is a complex and horrible beast =)

You could always use something like the rode videomic pro on the top of your camera, but the results will most likely be less than satisfactory and I can guarantee you won't get good audio off both subjects.

Phil,

I use an H4n and just let the onboard mics record audio so I can sync them later in post. Ive also been doing a bunch of quick interview vids for a website lately with hairstylists in the vegas area. With the interviewer being behind the camera you will be better off with using lavalier's or atleast wired mics with the zoom h4n recording in 2ch mode. If they were both in front of the zoom with in good range the on board Zoom mics do just fine.

Audio is highly dependant on your budget as well. Since Im still collecting video gear Ive just been using my Zoom h4n with my filters set to minimize ambient noice pick up. Im personally not happy yet with my audio, but my clients are and there is a drastic difference in quality between the onboard mics of my 5dmk2, 7d and 60d. My next purchase is the sennheiser wireless lav setup.

Another option would be 2 zoom h1's with lavaliers hooked up to them on each person.

Whats your budget?

SuicidnS13 wrote in post #13827932
Another option would be 2 zoom h1's with lavaliers hooked up to them on each person.

I like this idea...now.... which lav mic is good and decent?

ben_r_ wrote in post #13827994
Whats your budget?

under $200

Thanks Michael, I'll try and help out here.

As Michael said, your best bet is to pay a sound guy/gal to help you out, but a budget of $200 (or less) is way slim for someone like me. I wouldn't do it and I'm sure any other real, professional sound mixer would either for that little bit of money.

But even if you went with 2, H1s with lav mics you are still going to spend more than $200. At $99 each for the H1's that leaves you $2 for a pair of lav mics and SD cards. Ain't going to happen. See where I'm going with this? Sound is everything, especially in an interview. In this case the voice is more important than the image. If your voice can not be hear properly why would anyone watch your bobbin' head? Ain't going to happen. So maybe you'll want to open your wallet a bit wider.

Phil I know you are a talented photographer so think of audio like this, do you think you could get the shots you need by spending only $200 for a lenses? Probably not. I can't do my job by buying crap audio gear. For what you want to do, $200 isn't going to cut it. Your 7D has, unfortunately, Auto Gain Control (AGC) that can not be defeated. So recording the audio to the camera isn't something you'll want to do. You are going to need a separate recorder, but do leave the on board mic running to help with syncing the two different audio recordings latter. Do a hand clap before the actual interview.

So if you really only have $200 to spend on audio I would say get the best recorder you can afford (Zoom H4n will cost you about $285 for a new one or about $175 for a used H4 or like I said earlier $99 for a H1)And then set it between you and the interviewer. You'll have to sit fairly closer to each other so that the recorder can hear both the questions and the answer equally. The best solution would be to have the recorder suspended above and in the middle of both of you. I would use a carbon fiber boom pole, but that'll cost you more than 5x your budget. Do you have a boom that you use for your strobes to hang a back light? Rig your recorder to the end of the boom and then hang it above your frame line and in between the two people. Basically have the mic heads aiming at both people's mounths. It should work pretty good. Not the best of solutions, but I bet it actually works better than some cheap pair of crappy eBay mics wired to two H1's and it'll keep you in your budget or just over.

Just make sure there isn't a lot of ambient noise while you do your interview. Also, roll sound first and then the camera, but make sure you do both.

Someone mentioned a Rode on camera mic, don't bother if both people need to be heard equally. Mics like that aren't the right tool for this job. the person it would be aimed at might be heard OK, but the person who is facing away from the camera isn't going to be heard very well at all.

not to hijack but i was also planning on interviewing someone with my 7d and was just going to open a thread just like this...

so what you guys are pretty much saying is- the 7D audio isn't that great? is it so bad that i shouldn't even consider doing the interview?

Pretty much yea... LOL

You want to shoot video prepare to invest more than you invest into still photography.

Lighting equals more dollars
Audio equals more doallars
Lenses are also $$$$$
Stabalizers (not just a tripod), but sliders, gliders, video heads
Follow Focus systems
External Monitors
Audio Monitors

But sure you can do the interview with the on board mic. Will the audio sound like poop, yup Only you can decide whether you want to be responsible for an interview with out the proper tools.

I'm loving Chas' idea of suspending a recorder. I'm going to give that a go.

One of the advantages of using a recorder is you can listen to the output with headphones or earphones. You can't with the camera on its own. The other is, as with any recording, you can get the mic closer to the subject.

This weekend I recorded a number of pieces to camera for a Making Of video. I used a Tascam DR 05 (The Tascam version of the Zoom H1) mounted on the camera. In the relative quiet of the woods we were filming it worked really well - although occasional distant traffic and aircraft noises ( and the guys larking around) were occasionally evident. One of these clips is in the Screen Grabs From This Weekend thread.

The Tascam was used as a mic not a recorder with the stereo line out split into two stereo sockets. One socket is for headphones, the other is reduced by simple resistors and fed directly to the camera where it is recorded in sync with the video.

Reading Chas post above note that the H1 and dr05 mic inputs are stereo. Potentially you could use a stereo to twin mono splitter cable and plug in two lavs to one recorder.

All of these suggestions are " bodge it on a budget" but you don't have thousands to play with.

If you have some music in the background of your video which you drop back but continue during the interview this might also help.

orena wrote in post #13853106
not to hijack but i was also planning on interviewing someone with my 7d and was just going to open a thread just like this...

so what you guys are pretty much saying is- the 7D audio isn't that great? is it so bad that i shouldn't even consider doing the interview?

It isn't that the 7D's audio is that bad, it's that there is no way to kill the Auto Gain Control (AGC) in the camera like the 5D2, 60D and T3i can with Magic Lantern software upgrade. ML isn't available for the 7D.

SuicidnS13's post is somewhat accurate, but not as bad as he makes it seem.

To shoot video with a 7D (or any Canon DSLR with that ability) involves more equipment than just taking stills with it. You will need a decent tripod, but that doesn't mean you need to spend $1000 to get one, even though you could. It also doesn't mean that you have to go out and buy all the super expensive lighting gear. Some lighting gear would be nice to have, but if you understand light and what it does in certain situations, then you can get away with not having to spend huge amounts of money. You can build some lights yourself as well as building shiny boards to reflect sun light back into a scene. Of course you won't be able to do everything that professionals can do with a great lighting package, but if you're handy with tools, then you can get by.

Audio will be your biggest out lay of cash. There is just no real cheap way to fake it. You're going to have to spend some money there. But here's how a lot of people see it (or better yet, hear it): It's all a matter of how close to broadcast quality you want or need to get. For me as a pro sound mixer, I have to have gear that is of a certain quality level. I can not have gear that will fail me in critical situations. My reputation and income is dependent on my gear and my ability to manipulate that gear. So I spend thousands of dollars on sound gear and other bits that I need. But does than mean you need to do the same? No.
I say, buy the best you can afford the first time around. You'll be much happier with the out come and the gear will last. It's a lot like buying a L series lens, you know it's going to be good and you'll be happy that you own it, even though you had to save up for it and miss a few lunches with the boys or girls. In the end, it always works out better.

John Sims wrote in post #13854065
Reading Chas post above note that the H1 and dr05 mic inputs are stereo. Potentially you could use a stereo to twin mono splitter cable and plug in two lavs to one recorder.

All of these suggestions are " bodge it on a budget" but you don't have thousands to play with.

If you have some music in the background of your video which you drop back but continue during the interview this might also help.

Excellent point John. I hadn't thought of that before, but yes, I guess you could use a Y splitter ending in whatever connector your choosen mics have and then connected to any of these stereo hand held recorders. As long as you have cables that are long enough and individual control over left and right channels, this should work. Good idea man!

I've been working on getting the audio better for my videos and I ended up getting a Tascam DR-07MKII. It cost $99.00 on Amazon and it is some great quality sound! Much better than the onboard audio. I wanted to take it one step further so I bought a ATR-3350 Lav mic to plug into the DR-07MKII. I just got the lav yesterday and it cost about $22.00 on Amazon.com. While they advertise that it is a mono lav. The version I have must be an newer version because it has a stereo plug that records the left and right channels! I just played around and did some test clips and the sound quality combined with the DR-07MKII is amazing. So for about $125.00 you can have a very nice setup that runs circles around the onboard audio.

Agreed. I have a couple of cheap lavs and, while they wouldn't meet Chas' exacting standards they get in good and close to the desired sound source so, that sound will be the loudest.

The DR 07 uses the same mics as the DR 05. They are great mics but have a very broad pick up pattern and, as a result record absolutely every cough, squeek and computer fan in the general area. The mics are certainly transparent and accurate enough but, unless you are in a sound booth, they are almost useless for voice overs.

I assume, when listening to things in the flesh, our brains reduce the sound reverberation to a great degree, perhaps the sound pressure acts to cancel it out? However, the Tascam mics seem to grab great armfuls of reflected sound in addition to the source. This can sound pretty poor.

Lav mics are very localised in their pic up and aren't plagued with this reflected sound or any other ambient sounds to such a degree.