Rode Video Mic NTG. Review for Wildlife Filming

hi and welcome to my studio unfortunately it is miserable outside it's drizzling was raining earlier this morning

it's cold just horrible conditions it's been like that for the past few weeks and it's going to continue being like that for weeks to come now I'd much rather be doing this review

on the road midi video microphone out in the forest where I love to be out with nature but we just can't do that but I was lucky enough

last weekend you should be able to test this out reasonably enough to get a good understanding about how it's going to

work for me now I have bought this for the Canon r5c to be much more versatile I love to film photograph and study the

agile endocrinus and anti-kindness in general as well as birds and other native animals of Australia

so I needed a microphone go on top of the camera when I need it to to better pick up all these beautiful sounds of my subject

but also be able to take it off the camera and put it right up close so we get all those little intricate sounds as well now what I had been using in the past

and this is what it's replacing is the Sennheiser shotgun microphone so it's pretty damn big I couldn't have it on top of the camera too big too bulky too long if I'm using

wide angle lens you would see it in the scene with this microphone I've been using it on the tripod leg so that it's out of the way and I'd have to unplug it if I wanted to do that bit of photographing

of something behind me or filming of something behind me so it just wasn't versatile enough that's why I've gone for a much smaller

microphone it wasn't my first choice the ntg5 was my first choice because of

its condenser being able to work in environments that it might get moisture in there so that's hot steamy conditions

cold miserable maybe drizzling that I wouldn't have to worry about it too much and also that it has really good sound for filming wildlife

and where have I got that it's here somewhere there it is it's a bit small enough compact enough lightweight enough but unfortunately I stuffed up big time

with this now it's supposed to be out of work on all my cameras but for the Canon r5c it requires

that the microphone have its own power especially if it's going to draw a lot of power it just won't do it I thought this had batteries and it

doesn't so I stuffed up bigger there I can't use it on the Canon r5c what it does work on really well is my

XF 400 camcord so now it is now assigned to that and we're now using the video mic because it has its own power supply

what I was using before this microphone was one that I received free from Road

and that is the rode mini microphone it's been reasonably good on the Canon r5c but just not powerful enough I wanted something a bit more robust you

know much more powerful but it is lightweight and goes into the backpack really well so I haven't minded using it but we needed to upgrade get

better sound quality and all that sort of things and we'll be going into all that in a minute with the testing that I've done

also made a mistake I thought that the row the ntg5s dead cat that it came with

fit onto that as well but it doesn't it's much thinner than the Road video microphone so I'll

just bring it in so you can see it well you probably seen the shadow on the wall from the lights it just doesn't fit in there it's wider

so we missed out there and what I have done is I've used the dead cat off the Sennheiser shotgun microphone I have I

end up cutting it down it was a lot longer it's probably about 60 mil longer than what it is now but I've cut it down and re-glued its rubber backing on it

to get water out if it starts raining just still fits but it goes on to the video mic nicely and we'll be looking at how well that

has been working for me and the reason why I decided to cut this down and assign it to the video mic is that I know that it

does a good job in like winds and a little bit stronger winds uh when it was on the Sennheiser shotgun microphone what is it that I really

really need for the Canon r5c to be able to work well with the way that I film things so be able to pick the camera up when it's

on the tripod and move over to different areas what do I really need out of it so good sound has to have good sound has to be versatile and go on to all my

cameras which didn't work out really well with the osmo action camera I don't know why it's got its own power supply and that's

what this requires as well it doesn't work on there oh missing out with one camera it works on all the others but not with that don't know why

but that's just the way it is it also had to be small and lightweight because I want it to go into the

backpack work in with the way I have the backpack configured for my camera gear I wanted it to go straight in and not be bulky and

cause hassles with the way I have my backpack set up already so it's achieved that we have reasonable sound

we get that a fair bit of Versatility going on to majority of my cameras it is lightweight fits into the backpack nicely because

it's compact enough I think I've talked enough now let's head out into the forest and have a listen to what it sounds like with nature

[Music] [Music] foreign video mic seems to suffer from the same problem my Sennheiser shotgun microphone suffers

from and that is it's so powerful it goes beyond the subject and picks up things way way off in a distance so even turning the microphone down so you're

just picking up your subject nicely yeah it's still picking things up a long long way away in the background so traffic noise and things like that the Sennheiser shotgun microphone and this

one we have this Phantom wind noise so it just sounds like there's wind in the trees dead silent there is nothing it's particularly happy with it it's

something again I'm just gonna have to live with now the next subject is canceling out noise that's at the side and at the back

that's what shotgun microphones are supposed to be good at right so I've done some testing and here it is well it's time for a sound canceling test shotgun microphone supposed to be

focusing on the talent that's in front of the camera not what's behind it or beside it it should be canceling out a fair bit so

that the people that are listening to the talent that's in front of the camera aren't being distracted by other noises

so as long as it's at a reasonable sound coming in it's very low that's what we're hoping for I'm two meters away from the camera I'm

going to do the same distance at the side and at the back so let's do it well on approximately the same distance beside the camera how much of my voice

is this microphone picking up is it going to be annoying to the people listening to the talent we shall see on the same distance away from the at

the back of the camera is my voice very strong and being annoying to people listening to the talent that's telling them some big ass story

I don't know we shall see my opinion is that it's just going to be picking up unwanted sounds far too much from the sides so for Birds just here

I'm filming another bird and it's making a beautiful song this one's going to be interfering as well let's go and have a

listen to what the mics the video mics like with water because a lot of mics struggle with this one they sound tinny and you know just unnatural sounding but

let's have a listen anyway [Applause] this is where the rode video microphone

does really well very very close to what I'm hearing anyway so very good natural sounding water there

with the creek and with that drain so yeah happy with that let's move on to the next one and that is

dead cap how good is this one I already know about how good this is but uh let's head on out there and have a listen to it

well I've got a very strong wind blowing onto the microphone I'm using a dead cat this is what it's like winds coming straight onto it how's it working

I'll uh take that dead cat off now and you'll see the difference it's whirling wind now okay it should be I can see I can see it on

the mic on the camera and you won't hardly be hearing me over that wind but anyway there you go put the dead cap back on just see how that goes

it looks better on the cameras uh folding reading so we can trust it in reasonably strong wind not ferocious wind it's not going

to work very well at all with that I know from the Sennheiser shotgun microphone I've used a strong wind testing it out but in just reasonable

rain wind conditions we can trust it that it's not going to be annoying to people listening to the video I want to know whether my other

Road microphone put it up there where it's called how that compares with the uh video mic ntg

in sound quality so we'll change over now and we'll see if we can notice the difference so I swapped over so what's the sound

like is it better or the same or Worse hopefully it's better it's slightly warmer than that little

road Mini so it's a little bit more on the bassier side which I don't mind we've already been

hearing this Phantom wind noise with the video Road mic so it's preamp doesn't seem to be all that fantastic so I thought I'd head into my voice over

room put the camera and it in there and shut the door with me on the outside so we get no noises at all except for the camera

and the preamp of the microphone so testing it out thank you so very disappointing we have a bit of a

crappy preamp in this microphone keeping your volume down as low as possible to help out but yeah when you boost it in post you can hear it quite loudly that's why

we're getting that Phantom wind noise out in the field the I have done the same test on this years ago and the Sennheiser shotgun microphone and yet

it's preamps not all that good now with using shotgun microphones the way we really should be using it so we're not getting traffic noise

influencing you know being picked up from miles away in the background is to have the shotgun microphone on an angle just like I've got now pointing more

towards the ground but just enough that it's almost directly at the subject that way we can cancel out a lot more of that sand in the background it'll be a lot

quieter but with filming Wildlife we don't have these sort of advantages of being able to set up and get ourselves ready

because Wildlife doesn't work for you it's there for a couple of seconds and then it's gone so having it on top of the camera is the way it has to be or

when I can do those sort of things that's it what I do I'm sitting studying the agile anticonus up close I can have the microphone up close and I

can point it towards the ground so that is the perfect way to do it it just helps out with cutting out surrounding noises that's for sure keeping them down

a lot better than having it pointing directly at the subject and then continuing to pick up all the other sounds that are miles behind it

that's in a perfect world we can do that but normally you know wandering around the place with the camera on the tripod we don't have that luxury

we've heard the negatives about this microphone especially with that preamp it's not all that good but what are the positive things what

are the things I really like about this microphone well there's a few that come to mind one of them being that it's lightweight it's small packs in my

backpack really well doesn't interfere with the way I have it set up with everything else in there but the biggie is that when I have it plugged into the

camera and I turn the camera on that it turns itself on and when I turn the camera off it turns itself off that is a luxury that is just fantastic

because I forget about things like that a lot so not having that as a worry

just yeah I'm not flattening batteries unnecessarily flattening batteries my Sennheiser lavalier kit does the same thing

that's the receiver on the camera but not the unit that's on me I tend to forget about it a lot so it might be half an hour an hour and

I'll suddenly realize oh I didn't turn it off but it does have a charge of up to 12 hours so I can be reasonably

comfortable that even though I've had it on for a fair while that it's still going to serve me well well that's all I've got for you for today I hope you enjoyed this video got something out of

it and if you'd like to subscribe to my channel and get more of this amazing stuff click on my pretty little face just down there in the bottom right hand corner of the screen hit the little bell you'll get notification whenever I do anything else and you want to go and

have a look at all the other mad and crazy things I've been doing in the past click on my icon right here at the end of this video take you to my channel I talk about photographing and filming

wildlife in the forest and open Forest environments talk about birds in flight and all things to do with photographing wildlife and whenever I go on adventures I always

take you with me when I buy cameras and camera equipment I do reviews on them and give you my honest opinion you can have a browse to be something here of interest to you I am sure and just

remember if you don't do you don't get so get out there and start photographing and filming wildlife and I'll catch you on the next one bye foreign