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.
Were out on the road today doing a test of the Kodak Zi8 Camera. At the moment I’ve got the onboard mic being used and as you can tell, its pretty loud, pretty noisy in the vehicle that I’m recording in. But were going to show you a microphone that you can use when you have to get out on the road to do your little “Run and Gun” shoots.
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Its called the Countryman Earset Microphone and weve found that when your out on the road in a very noisy envirenment, like for example at a sporting event, or in a vehicle doing a recording like I am today, its excellent for cutting out all the background noise that you wouldn’t ordinarilly want in your recording.
I’m just going to go around this roundabout, and once we do we’ll do the changeover to the Countryman Microphone and let you see the difference between using the onboard microphone that comes with the Kodak Zi8 and the audio you get if you use a professional earset microphone.
I’m just going to point to it now… Its this one that you see attatched to my ear. It’s not plugged in at the moment, but were going to do that for you right now, so you can see the difference between the onboard audio, and the audio you get from using the Countryman Earset Microphone. Were going to plug that in for you right now.
Ok… straight away you would have noticed a difference to the sound. It’s a lot quieter now, even thou the noise in the background hasn’t really changed. It’s still pretty noisy, except this microphone is very good at cancelling out background noise and just giving a sort of like priorty to the speakers voice. And thats why we like to use the Countryman Earset Microphone when were doing these “Run and Gun” shoots out on the road in the van.
Its also good for when your doing recordings at sporting events where you’ve got a lot of background noise, a lot of cheering, a lot of noise from the crowd. It has the ability to cut a lot of that background noise and give priorty to the speaker, which is why I like this microphone.
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.
