Rode VideoMic Directional Video Condenser Microphone w/Mount - Camcorder Review

By 

Dvestore “Guy Cochran” (Seattle, WA) –

  

Customer Video Review Length:: 2:49 Mins

Here we test the RODE Videomic against the traditional “expensive” solution. A BeachTek XLR adapter with a Sennheiser XLR based shotgun mic. Learn more about achieving high quality sound from Guy Cochran at DVcreators.net.

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By 

R. Pena “Photo Dude” (Southern California) –

  

After spending many days combing the internet and reading review after review I decided to give the RODE VideoMic Directional Camcorder Microphone a try. I wanted something that was good, light, somewhat short and inexpensive. I have a small mini dv camcorder that is only about 5 inches long and didn’t want a mic that would get in my viewfinder’s shots. The mic sticks out about 5 inches in front of my lens, but manages to stay out of my shots.

First let me comment on the sound. This little bugger picks up sounds very well. In a quiet room I can be 40 yards away and still pick up the conversation. The quality is outstanding. The audio compared to the built-in mic in my camcorder is night and day. The Rode is so clear. The price is great. I’m guessing the quality would compare to other mics in the $300 range.

My Rode came with a Dead Cat wind screen which resembles a cat’s tail. It really saved me some money! At first I didn’t use the Dead Cat, but then I ran into a little wind which interfered with gathering good audio. After using the Dead Cat, I always keep the wind screen on the mic. It does not interfere with the clarity of the audio and works incredibly well in breezy conditions. I will mention that I had to trim the hair on my wind screen because I could see the hair in my videos. After trimming the hair a bit, the wind screen is still effective and no more hair dangling in the top of my video screen.

The shock vibration design is cool and they even gave me extra rubber band thingies. This mic sits high off the camera and stays out of my shots. Since the mic is somewhat far away from the camcorder, I don’t pick up any camera humming noise that can happen with other mics that are too close to the camera. Even on my hotshoe, I don’t get any humming.

I wish I could say that I have used $300 mics and above, but I haven’t. I will say that you won’t be disappointed with this microphone. I’m a photojournalist by trade and I have begun to shoot video for our newspaper’s web publication. This mic is perfect for my needs.

If you buy it, don’t forget to turn off the mic. I accidently left mine on. There is no auto shutoff.

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 Comments (9)

The introduction in the owner’s manual states it perfectly. Rode said that when looking for a good camcorder microphone, they were either horrible pieces of junk or super expensive professional models and so they decided to design a mic for this purpose. This model strikes a perfect balance. The quality of this mic is excellent. It is very sensitive and has good directional properties so it rejects noise to the side quite well. Although not meant for picking up sound from long distances it can do quite well from 20 feet away and maybe more.

The mount is attached to the mic so this is the only way you can use it and it is made to mount to the standard “shoe” that is on nearly all camcorders. It is a mono microphone but it has a stereo miniphone jack that plugs in the camcorder mic jack and feeds the audio into both channels. After trying several inferior microphones I was delighted to stumble upon this mic. It is a good value and an excellent microphone for camcorders.

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