As I've said on the blog before, when shooting video, audio is as important, if not more important than the visuals. While we're quite tolerant of slightly inferior visual quality, any glitches in audio really do jar with the senses.

With that in mind, finding a good recording solution for shooting video is an absolute must. 

Now, the first thing to say is there is no 'perfect' way of doing it. There are, as ever, many ways to skin a cat. Your solution will be down to budget and priorities, as well as how much hassle you're willing to put up with. 

My method of choice is a Zoom H4n audio recorder. This post is not the place to tell you how good I think this thing is for the money (that will come in a later missive) instead, here I want to show you an accessory I use with the Zoom to help combat wind-noise. 

It's called a redhead windscreen and is available from www.redheadwindscreens.com in Maui. Kalani, the guy that sells them, is a really sound guy (no pun intended!) and the product he sells is first rate. At US$34.95 with free worldwide shipping, it's a bit of a bargain too.

The real question is, how does it perform?  Well, I could go on about how it cuts wind out and improves sound recording outside, but the reality is the best way to show you is to give you a little video comparing the Zoom H4n without a windscreen, with the supplied windscreen and with the Redhead. These recordings were all done without the low cut filter enabled so you can see the genuine quality without processing. By default I'd use 80Hz as a low cut filter setting, but that's also for a future post! So, without further ado, here's the video:

The music is by Howard Eliott Payne and is called 'Dangling Threads'. It's currently at the top of my playlist! 

Zoom H4n windscreen tests from EOS Network on Vimeo.

Photography hey! It's not a cheap thing to get involved in. And now, the manufacturers are conspiring to get us to part with more of our hard earned cash.

The EOS 5D Mark II is an amazing product. The only thing that lets it down for filming is the audio capture. Sure it may be 44.1Khz, 16bit, and stereo when using an external microphone, but it still has auto gain control to even out the levels. I've written before about this and about why it's like that, as well as why I won't be expecting it to be changed anytime soon. So because of this, if you want to shoot video and get really high quality sound to match the performance of the visual side, you need to look at third party audio devices. 

For a while now, I've been using an Edirol R-09. It's a compact 24bit WAV/MP3 recorder. The sound quality is good and it takes up hardly any space in the bag. It also uses AA batteries and stores sound files to a memory card.  In short, it's a very good solution for capturing sound with your audio.

Recently though, I decided I wanted to get a bit more high-end. I'd like to be able to capture a 'fuller' soundstage with more tracks. So the other day I purchased a Zoom H4N. This thing is truly remarkable. While it is bigger than the Edirol, it packs in a very good stereo microphone, and the ability to do four track recording. If that wasn't enough, it can phantom power two XLR mics as well - yep there are two XLR mic inputs on the bottom of the unit. that's how you can get the 4channel recording - the internal stereo mic will do two channels and external mics plugged in can have two more. 

Like the Edirol, it too runs on AA batteries and stores audio clips to an SD card. The indlued foam windshield is OK, but I'm awaiting the delivery of a proper 'dead-cat' style wind beater from America. Once that's here, I'll get a little video up showing the Zoom with it's redhead so you can see it and hear how good it is. 

I've been testing it with a combination of  a cheap lavalier (tie-clip) mic and an XLR shotgun mic, and in both cases it works like a charm. 

I'll be doing more on this in the future, especially on a little trick I've developed to make syncing audio and video easier, but for now, if you're in the market for an audio recorder to make your movie clips sound much better, the Zoom H4N is highly recommended.