Wireless vs. Boom

In the past I used to capture audio from interviews and statements wirelessly with a Sennheiser G2 bodypack microphone with the receiver attached to the XLR input on my XDCAM HD. The flexibility of wireless audio was great – audio interference was annoying sometimes but occured so rare that I had lived with it. Recent shootings required to change the wireless mic from actor to actor quite often so I was thinking about the advantages of boom swinging.

Since shooting with the Canon 7D and because of the lack of audio-controls on the 7D I was forced to find a solution for external audio recording. I ended up buying the Zoom H4n recording device. Now that I have an external audio recorder which doesn’t attach quite well to my 7D or to my XDCAM HD, for me it was clear that I have to delegate someone in my team to operate the Zoom H4n during shooting.

Since operating the H4n during a shoot drills down to just pushing the record and stop button from time to time, the newly designated sound-engineer was capable of doing more. So I decided to give the boom a go. I bought a boompole from Røde and the Røde NTG-3 shotgun mic, which I was told is the best mic for boom swinging.

The first shooting with the new equipment was done with my old setup (Sennheiser G2 attached to my XDCAM) supported by the stand alone setup NTG-3 on a boompole attached to the Zoom H4n.

Here is a side by side comparison of the soundquality. Please note that the audio was not processed in any way.

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