Microphones for Video: A Buyer’s Guide

by Joe McCleskey
July 1999

Microphones are essential tools for anyone who wants to make quality video. In fact, for those who want to move up to a more professional level in their productions, a good microphone is almost as important as a good camcorder.

Shopping for a microphone is not always an easy task. One manufacturer may offer six or seven seemingly identical microphones at price points hundreds of dollars apart. Finding the right microphone depends largely on your needs. If you're planning on purchasing a microphone for your video productions, this buyer's guide will help point you in the right direction.

Microphone Types
Microphones come in many different shapes, sizes and styles. For videographers, the main types are handheld, shotgun, lavalier and PZM (pressure zone mike). Let's look at each one in detail.

Handheld microphones are just what their name implies: microphones you hold in your hand or mount on a stand. They're most commonly seen in musical performances, political rallies and on-the-spot television interviews. They are perhaps the best all-purpose mikes available.

Shotgun microphones are characterized by their directional pickup patterns, which tend to pick up audio in one direction and reject sounds coming from other sides. This makes them useful for camera-mount and boom-mount operations or any other situation where it's difficult to get close to the talent.

Lavalier microphones are the clip-on lapel mikes commonly used in studio interview situations. They're handy for any situation that requires good sound but inconspicuous mike placement on the talent.

The PZM is a special type of flat mike that ordinarily rests on a table or wall. They're useful for picking up a number of voices with a single microphone--a round-table discussion, for example. Think of them as the opposite of shotgun mikes; instead of picking up sounds from one direction, they're sensitive to sounds from all directions.

Pick This Up
In essence, a microphone is a transducer--a device that changes one form of energy to another. In a typical microphone, sound waves (kinetic energy) go in one end, and a signal (electromagnetic energy) comes out the cable on the other end. What makes this happen is the piece of hardware inside the mike, known as the pickup element. Most microphone pickup elements fall into two categories: dynamic or condenser. In general, condenser mikes are more sensitive, but require a battery or external power source for operation, whereas dynamic mikes are more rugged and require no battery.

A mike's frequency response refers to the range of audible soundwave frequencies it can "hear." Though frequency response does represent a good generic measure of a microphone's quality, it doesn't adequately describe all of the tonal characteristics of the mike in question. This is why it's best to try out a microphone before you buy it, rather than rely on its printed specifications.

The next time you're in the market for video accessories, consider purchasing a microphone. This simple purchase will allow you to move the mike off the camcorder and closer to the audio source, which will vastly improve the sound of your videos. And if your videos sound better, your audience might actually hear what you're trying to say.

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