Posted by: "macmang4125"
>
> I am looking around for a reasonably priced shotgun mic and the Rode
> NTG1 seems on paper not to be too bad. Has anyone used this mic for
> recording? I am mainly interested in bird calls and thought this might
> be a reasonable option?
> I would partner it with a Sony NH900 and an Art II Phantom Power box.
The reviews I've seen compare it to the MKH-60 generally.
The MKH-60 has a self noise of 6dBA, the NTG1 is 18dBA. That would place
the NTG1 pretty noisy for nature recording. Ok if your sounds and
backgrounds are pretty noisy, not good at all if you are in quieter sites.
The MKH-60 has a sensitivity of 40mV/Pa vs the NTG1 of 15mV/Pa. This
will farther accentuate the effect of the self noise as more gain will
be needed with the NTG1.
If you are sure you can be close to the birds and are not too worried
about background noise it should work. Depends on the level of sound
quality you are after.
Shotguns in general are at a disadvantage at distant pickup compared to
a parabolic. A parabolic provides considerable noise free gain before
the mic while a shotgun depends only on it's own sensitivity and the
gain of the preamp. To work well at distant pickup a shotgun must have
very low self noise or the preamp gain will bring it out too much.
For focus on individual bird calls at a distance include parabolics in
your consideration. For shotguns of less cost than the MKH look at the
Sennheiser ME series.
Walt
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