Normally when I have to create a video clip that requires chroma keying I’d use my Canon XH A1. Today I felt like having a go at using the Kodak Zi8 pocket video camera that I’ve been testing for audio quality.
The results I got were pretty good considering the cost of this little camera. The video sample clip is only very short, but it does give you a chance to see just how good this little video camera performs.
Video transcript :
Welcome to Pro Blog Tips video tutorials. In this edition were going to do some Chroma Keying of a video clip we recorded using a Kodak Zi8 camera. Its a little HD video camera that you can pick-up on the market these days for around 270 dollars.
An excellent camera for doing little “run and gun” video shoots. And.. one of the things I would like to test was to see how it chroma keys, so were going to be doing that this afternoon, in this video clip.
Welcome to Pro Blog Tips video tutorials. In this episode were going to be reviewing the audio that you get with the Kodak Zi8 camera, and in particular, were going to be trying out the Sennheiser ME 67 shotgun microphone, which were going to be plugging into the side of the camera using the external input. One of the biggest advantages of this camera is the fact that you can use an external microphone.
Most of the cameras that are on the market, in fact all of the cameras on the market today except for the Kodak Zi8 have no external microphone input. I’m talking now about the little pocket style flip cameras that have been cropping up all over the place… this one, plus you’ve got the Flip HD camera, you’ve also got the Sony Bloggie.
So theres a number of cameras around at the moment that have this same style of format, but the only one that has the external microphone input is the Kodak Zi8. And as you can tell right now, the onboard microphone doesn’t do a bad job.
I’m about three to four feet away from the camera and the audio’s a little bit echoee, a little bit boomy. I found that when your more than an arms length from the camera, it does start to get a little bit echoee. What were going to do right now is were going to plug in the ME 67 shotgun microphone by Sennheiser and let you compare the difference. Were going to do that right now…
Ok… I’ve plugged in the Sennheiser ME67 shotgun microphone and already you would have noticed a difference in the audio. This particular microphone is sitting about two and a half to three feet away from me, and its just directly overhead. And this microphone when you use it, is a very good microphone. It gives excellent results. Right now I’m recording in my office, and I know that my wife is in the room next door to me watching TV, and this microphone probably is even picking up a little bit of the audio thats coming thru the walls from the TV in the next room. But as you can already tell, the camera has the ability to give you very good audio simply because you can plug in a separate microphone source.
Thats the end of todays test… Thankyou for watching Pro Blog Tips video tutorials, my name is Jaron… Speak to you again soon.
One of the features that attracted me to the Kodak Zi8 in the first place was the external microphone input, that allows you to plug in a separate mic… in the test today I used a cheap stereo lavalier mic.
Video Transcript :
I’ve just come downstairs into the garage so I can do a test of the microphone that comes with the Kodak Zi8 camera. The onboard microphone I’ve found in quiet circumstances is a good microphone. If your downstairs in a garage like this, or in a room thats pretty quiet, then using the onboard microphone is a good choice because it gives a good sound.
Now if your in an area where there’s a bit of noise though, then you need to go up from there and maybe use a lavalier microphone. And a good lavalier microphone will help cancel out some of the background noise and will also give you a better overall sound.
What I’m going to do right now is, I’ve got a little stereo lavalier microphone and I’ve got that attatched to my shirt collar and I’m just going to plug that into this little camera, just to let you see (hear) the difference. I’ll jusy do that right now…
Ok, weve plugged in the lavalier microphone and you would have noticed a little bit of a difference to the audio. The advantage of using a separate microphone is that you have the oportunity to improve the quality of the sound. The lavalier microphone I’ve just plugged in does still pick up a lot of background noise but it also gives more importance to the audio from the speaker which is me.
The onboard microphone I found generally tends to blur all the audio that it records, so if there is any outside sounds, apart from the speaker, then it tends to blend them all together and gives you one great big shamozle of sound. And the speaker generally tends to get blurred into the background. With the lavalier microphone that doesn’t happen. It takes the speakers voice, in this case mine, and gives it a highlight, making it louder than the background noise, and thats what oyu want.
Anyway, thats the end of todays test. Thankyou for watching Pro Blog Tips video tutorials, and we’ll speak to you again soon.
