Hi all,
I'm quite sure, that there are already some post somewhere in the archives with a similar question. But as being new to this forum I do in fact not have a clue what to search for. All of the keywords deliver tons of results. But no result was satisfying with respect to my particular configuration demands. So I beg for your mercy in that matter.
So I get to the point:
I have a Sony PCM-D100 for outdoor/field recording as a hobby. I had tried a Zoom H5 as well, which was tempting as it offers quite some features more than the Sony. However, I do in fact not really need 4 track recording. And besides this, the noise of the H5 was, at least compared to the PCM-D100, just not acceptable.
On the other hand the Sony doesn't have XLR inputs. But there is a 3.5mm line-in with plugin-power.
What I am now looking for is a shotgun microphone for this recoder. And as you can probably imagine, I absolutley do not want to shed the high-quality, low-noise capabilities of the Sony.
As being a hobbyist, I am a bit intimidated of the variety of all the microphones out there. So let me in short specify my priorities for a shotgun microphone, and what it is for:
What is it for and what is my background:
What I would like to have:
The budget question: I'd like to be off with not more than 500€ / $600. If there is no such solution, I'd bite the bullet and go up by, say, $300/250€.
To sum up:
- really low noise shotgun
- plugin-power (preferred) or battery,
- rugged build, all-metal preferred
- budget up to $600 (lower is nicer), up to $300 more if not otherwise feasable.
Any answer is appreciated.
Thank you for you attention!
PS: I am not a native english speaker.
I'm quite sure, that there are already some post somewhere in the archives with a similar question. But as being new to this forum I do in fact not have a clue what to search for. All of the keywords deliver tons of results. But no result was satisfying with respect to my particular configuration demands. So I beg for your mercy in that matter.
So I get to the point:
I have a Sony PCM-D100 for outdoor/field recording as a hobby. I had tried a Zoom H5 as well, which was tempting as it offers quite some features more than the Sony. However, I do in fact not really need 4 track recording. And besides this, the noise of the H5 was, at least compared to the PCM-D100, just not acceptable.
On the other hand the Sony doesn't have XLR inputs. But there is a 3.5mm line-in with plugin-power.
What I am now looking for is a shotgun microphone for this recoder. And as you can probably imagine, I absolutley do not want to shed the high-quality, low-noise capabilities of the Sony.
As being a hobbyist, I am a bit intimidated of the variety of all the microphones out there. So let me in short specify my priorities for a shotgun microphone, and what it is for:
What is it for and what is my background:
- I want to record ambient sounds, to get kind of an acoustic diary of my travels and axperiences. This works ok with the built-in microphones, but in some cases I'd like to do this more selectively: A bird singing on the tree, a motorbike driving along a road, a busker in the city and so on.
- occasionally, getting some recordings for videos-clips is another thing I'd like to be able to do. For this purpose, I favor to focus sound-recording on a narrow spot.
- I am not a studio/sound-guy, and I am not delighted of post-processing. I rare cases, if it is worth it, I can imagine to squeeze the recordings a bit. But just collecting them "as is" is my preferred intent.
What I would like to have:
- A really low noise shotgun microphone
- plugin-power only if possible
- In case that there is no goog solution with PiP, a battery-driven microphone would do as well. I do not want a bunch of cables and extra-phantom-power supplies hanging around.
- rugged build. An all-metal build is my preferred solution. For me, haptics is part of my experience, I just like things of good quality. Plastic might technically not be a showstopper, but I find a metal casing simply more appealing. This is not a no. one prioity, but "cheap plastic" toys are definitely a no go.
The budget question: I'd like to be off with not more than 500€ / $600. If there is no such solution, I'd bite the bullet and go up by, say, $300/250€.
To sum up:
- really low noise shotgun
- plugin-power (preferred) or battery,
- rugged build, all-metal preferred
- budget up to $600 (lower is nicer), up to $300 more if not otherwise feasable.
Any answer is appreciated.
Thank you for you attention!
PS: I am not a native english speaker.