<<Sorry, I don't buy into the design being for close distance. Maybe
just your schooling and perspective.>>
The shotgun microphone was designed & exists primarily to fit the
needs of cinema & television dialog recording. By relatively close I
mean just out of the camera shot, thus, generally 2 to 6 feet away
from the actors, under ideal conditions. I guess this IS my schooling
& perspective, but when a shot calls for dialog in a long shot, say
50 feet away, you use body mics, not a shotgun. I'm not saying a
shotgun won't work for picking up birds at 50 feet, but that since
shotguns are inherently designed for maximum vocal clarity at much
closer distance, any shotgun being considered for purchase for nature
recording should be auditioned in that application. Maximum vocal
clarity results from shaping the spectrum & discriminating against
off axis sound & every manufacture has a different approach to
optimizing this. That's why I suggested to the original poster that
he listen to the choices, and not just rely on the self noise figure,
because they will all sound different.
<<All directional mics suffer on off axis.>>
And shotguns especially so, particularly if the directionality is
obtained with interference tubes.
<< And with this logic M/S don't work.>>
What? Now that's a rhetorical leap I don't follow at all.
Scott Fraser
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