Wildlife sound capture help? Microphone recommendations?

[Dave Stiles]

Greetings all,

 

I'm new to the forum here. I'm currently studying videography in college (MediaWorks at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA), with a tendancy towards wildlife work. My year-long chosen project will be on the wildlife of Yellowstone and its surrounding ecosystem.

 

I am somewhat comfortable on the video end of things, but brand new to the audio end. For recording I will be using a Marantz PMD671 and, after returning from the field, attempting to sync the audio to the video, using Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro on one of my Mac G4 computers.

 

For now I have settled on an AT835b for an entry level shotgun microphone, but don't have the slightest idea what to purchase in order to do the commentary "voiceover" once the video and field audio have been finished.

 

Any recommendations for a decent "voiceover" microphone? My budget allows for up to $300, unless I take longer to acquire equipment ... if possible I would also like to use the same microphone for capturing ambient sound in the field.

 

And even better would be if the microphones could also be used on my Canon XL2 camcorder, as both it and the Marantz PMD671 both have and use XLR mounts. Both can provide 48v phantom power.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Dave Stiles

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Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,

but by the moments that take our breath away.

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Dave's Wildlife Photography Website

http://academic.evergreen.edu/s/stidav22/

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[James Steven Beverly]

You may want to try also posting this question at www.recording.org/forum-8.html in thier recording for film and television section. I've gotten some good advice on that site and sound is ALL those guys over there do, so it might be worth trying in addition to posting here. B)

[Bernhard Zitz]

For voice-over in studio a decent large diaphragm condenser mic will do the job best, usually with cardiod pattern. If you you don't have the change for a large diaphragm mic a small diaphragm will be ok as well...

 

Good Brands with nice price/value are AKG or Rode, nearly every other brand has a budget solution...

 

SE Electronics seems nice too, although I never tried them...

 

For large diaphragm the AKG C2000 B is around 200$, or the very nice (yet excellent) AKG C3000 B is around 300$ maybe a little overkill for your job.

 

If you get a small diaphragm you could use it for fieldrecording as well, or even two for stereo ambient sound, maybe this is the way to go. I have some oktavas, they sound nice but are very sensible to wind and handling noise,

Edited October 13, 2006 by Bernhard Zitz