fbpx

DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Search

Submit A Story

TV & movie boom operator explains why you’re probably using your shotgun microphone wrong

by Leave a Comment

I’ve been following Mike Delgaudio, otherwise known as Booth Junkie, for quite a while now. Mike’s a professional voiceover artist and so he makes a lot of videos about how you can record voiceovers, typically on a low budget, at home. He’s usually using large-diaphragm cardioid condensers and shotguns but rarely ventures from the comfort of his booth to record audio out in the real world. You know, the way filmmakers do.

It occurred to Mike that he had a lot of different microphones with the same pickup pattern that all seemed to do the same job and… well, in the voiceover booth they probably do. But he wanted to find out more about the real-world differences between them. So, he had a 25-minute chat with movie & TV boom operator Allen Williams, who goes by Sound Speeds on YouTube to talk about where and how you’d use these types of microphones out on the set of a movie or TV show.

[Read More…]

The best microphones for vloggers to buy in 2022

If, like me, you use your cameras for video as well as photography, then at some point (probably sooner rather than later) you’re going to need to think about sound. While audio setups can get extremely elaborate, especially once you start doing more serious video, you’ll want to at least get some kind of microphone that you can plug right into your camera, regardless of whether you’re vlogging or trying to sync up separately recorded audio in post.

Here, we’re going to look at some of the best microphones you can get for vlogging that plug directly into your camera in 2022 and go through some of the advantages of each and where it might be worth spending a little extra money. We’ve split this up into two categories. First, there are the on-camera mics which as the name suggests, sit on top of your camera. The other are the wireless microphones which allow a little more freedom of movement in front of the camera.

[Read More…]

Joby just dropped a whole bunch of new microphones for content creators

by 4 Comments

Joby, the company famous for its GorillaPod line of bendy tripods, has always had a pretty strong focus on vloggers, social media shooters and self-contained content creators. They’ve also released a microphone or two in the past, but now they’re planning to take that sector of the creator market head-on with a new range of Wavo microphones. But have they released just one new microphone? Oh no. There are five of them!

Joby is owned by Vitec now, so you know they’re going to go big or go home. And go big they have, announcing five new microphones all at the same time to launch their newest range of “Wavo” microphones. Well, I say they’ve gone big, they’re all fairly small, with a dual wireless microphone kit, a lavalier mic, a couple of on-camera mics and a large-diaphragm condenser for sitting on your desk.

[Read More…]

Comica’s BoomX-D Pro wireless mics feature internal recording and digital USB Audio connectivity

Comica has announced its new Comica BoomX-D Pro wireless microphone system. There are two packages available including one receiver and either one or two transmitters that have a built-in microphone as well as the ability to plug in an external lav – one of which is included in the kit for each of your transmitters.

The BoomX-D Pro microphone system includes a couple of features that so far have only been found in the Rode Wireless GO II. The transmitters have internal storage recording so you don’t need to mess around with easily lost microSD cards and the receiver also has USB connectivity so you can plug it into your computer or smartphone as a digital audio device.

[Read More…]

Rode’s new AI-Micro turns almost any microphone into a digital USB audio device

One of the big benefits of both the Rode VideoMic NTG and the Rode Wireless GO II is that you can use them as digital audio devices, plugged straight into a USB port on your computer or the Type-C or Lightning sockets on your smartphones. And this isn’t just the standard analogue pin reassignment like the headphone adapter that comes with your iPhone. It’s true digital audio.

Well, Rode has now put this tech into a new little box called the Rode AI-Micro. Essentially a scaled-down Rode AI-1, it features two auto-sensing inputs, allowing you to plug in up to two TRS or TRRS microphones and then converts it into a digital signal you can send straight into your computer or smartphone to pretty much eliminate preamp hiss.

[Read More…]

10 tips and tricks to get the most out of your Rode Wireless GO microphones

by 2 Comments

When Rode released the Wireless GO microphones, they probably didn’t anticipate just how quickly it would grow in popularity or the number of ways in which they may be used. We’re big fans of them here at DIYP and Caleb Pike also seems to like his very much. He’s put together a video showing ten tips and hacks that can help you get the most out of them.

[Read More…]

Spotted at CES: Godox is expanding into audio with new microphone range

by 1 Comment

Up until now, Godox has primarily been known for its rather popular range of flashes and continuous LED lights. Now it seems that they’re expanding out to cover other aspects of the creative arena, as they’re showing off a range of Godox branded microphones right now at CES 2020 in Las Vegas.

They were spotted on the counter at the Godox stand by Anthony Schaller and posted into the Godox User Group on Facebook. There have been no official product announcements yet, nor pricing, and we’re told there won’t be for a while, but it looks like a decent variety to kick things off.

[Read More…]

Sound 101 – How to read and understand microphone specs

by 3 Comments

Microphones come with a whole lot of technical and confusing sounding specifications. Ultimately, what matters to people most is how they sound. But not all sounds are created equally, nor are all microphones. Different types of microphones and different specs of the same type of microphone handle certain sounds better than others, and some are just better built.

Understanding those specs can give you some idea of microphone suitability for your video and audio projects before you’ve even heard them, but what do they all mean? In this video, Andrew from Deity talks us through the five most common microphone specs and what they mean.

[Read More…]

How to choose your first microphone for filmmaking

There is such a vast array of microphones on the market these days of many different types. It can be difficult to know where to begin when beginning our journey with audio. It’s usually the last thing on a filmmaker’s mind, but it’s one of the most important aspects of video. We stopped by the Rode stand at PhotoPlus 2019 to find out why sound is so important and how different microphones work better for different situations.

[Read More…]

Ten creative ways to hide a lav mic and how to attach them to stuff

by Leave a Comment

Lav mics are one of the most commonly used and versatile microphones out there. But when you don’t want them seen in the final film, you can often be facing a pretty tough challenge to hide them, especially when you don’t want the microphone placement to negatively affect the quality of the audio.

In this video, Darious Britt of D4Darious shows us ten ways to hide a lav mic while keeping your audio clean, along with a bunch of tips for attaching them.

[Read More…]

Recent Posts