I am a continual learner and explorer. I love to try new things, challenge myself in new ways as well as continually try and up my game a bit.
I recently started taking videos as I’m out shooting landscape images. Partly to document where I go and the feeling of being there and partly as a way to explore a new medium that I don’t know much about. I feel comfortable in the technical side of still images; cameras, lenses and post processing workflow. With this comfort I’m diving in to video gear and processing and finding that I don’t know much and it’s a whole new learning curve. Fun fun!!!!
I want to shoot nature video and with that I will overlay a musical soundtrack. I’ve also been asked to do a couple of video interviews in which I’ll need good audio. I tested the internal mic in the X-T2 and found that it did record audio and would suffice, but the quality of sound is not there for my liking (I’m also an audiophile). So I started the search for an external mic to attach to my X-T2.
The choices quickly narrowed to the top two contenders, the Rode VideoMic Pro and the Shure VP83. Both had great reviews and both were in the same ballpark for price. I decided to go with the Shure for a couple of reasons……there were a couple of reviews about the Rode that didn’t sit well with me, the build quality of the Shure is better, and the Shure is a smidge cheaper. Plus it’s got better on/off-axis performance than the Rode.
The Shure has a metal body (the Rode is plastic) and it is a bit more compact than the Rode.
It’s not too overly large when mounted on the camera and the majority of the additional weight balances well with the rest of the camera. It fits nicely in to any hotshoe and comes with a high quality 3.5mm cord to plug in to the camera.
The mic itself sits suspended above the fixed hotshoe mount and is isolated from vibrations coming up through the camera in an attempt to reduce any distracting noises.
A simple gain switch and on/off low cut filter switch adorn the slim rear of the mic.
The mic runs on 1 AA batteru which will last for over 130 hours (they say). The Rode runs on a 9v batter and doesn’t last nearly as long. Not that I’m going to be doing huge videos recording dozens of hours, however, having a commonly available battery that lasts a long time takes some complication out of the system.
I’ll let ya know how this journey goes! After just a couple tests I can tell you I think this is a great purchase. Very happy with the build quality and the audio quality…and the huge improvement over using an internal mic!
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