Oh totally, Liam. Even just the camera there is distracting and can take away the naturalness of those candid interviews. Forget a mic on a boom pole! ;) That in itself causes a lot of anxiety if people just see some dude walking around with a mic on a pole. I have found out that the best way to catch those interviews is what you have already planned to do: have a friend interacting with the interviewee while you (as unobtrusively as possible) catch it with your camera. Just remember to choose your backgrounds wisely, so that you don't get a lot of contamination from sounds behind your subject. Good luck!
I can tell you from personal experience that a shotgun mic mounted on top of your camera provides excellent results for your on-the-fly interviews if you 1) use a wide angle lens (about 35mm), and 2) do not have any loud noises going on behind the person you are interviewing. What does the lens have to do with anything, you ask? Well, if you are doing a head and shoulders framing of the subject (with a little off-centeredness, of course, for compositional effect) then you will find that framing of that sort will bring you within a perfect distance to pick up the high-quality sound from your interviewee. In my experience, the results are as good as booming the mic from above.
I am a run-n-gunner, so I try to use the smallest equipment I can with the easiest techniques for capturing high-quality audio. Booming from above is usually out of the question for my purposes.
One more thing, just in case you want to know: I use a Rode NTG-2, powered by a Juiced Link pre-amp. Dang is that combo excellent!
Anyway, hope this helps. Try it, and you won't be disappointed! Have fun!
P.S. Let me know if you want to see an example of the results of this technique. I'll send you a link to a vimeo I did, which in itself is pretty boring sh_t if you are not a laboratory professional, but it shows how I utilized the on-camera mic for great results.
A great movie to watch for the visuals and audience involvement by that wide angle, close-up filming! But, to be a bit of a party pooper, I think it was a little far-fetched in realistically portraying what a person can survive. Forget the hypothermia, Glass would have been dead halfway through that magnificent bear-mauling scene (a scene that is a reason in itself to see the movie!). They must not have showed the parts where he gets transfused a few liters of blood and saline afterwards so that he can have the strength to crawl out of the hole :)
Hi Guy,
Thanks for all your good advice.
I have both the Sanken COS11-D and the Oscar Sound Tech 802 lav. What I find is that the OST gives less than half the signal of the Sanken. For instance, if the Sanken is reaching around 12 dB, the OST with the same settings will be reaching below 6 dB on average.
Do you also find this to be true? Does it bother you?
By the way, I'm using both lavs directly into my Sony PCM-M10. I do have the Sennheiser system, but found the separate audio recorder set-up is way more convenient. The Sanken COS-11D works very well in this arrangement.
Thanks Guy!
I've thought long and hard about the same question you ask. I decided in the end I would buy glass specifically for the BMPCC. Trying to get lenses that would go well with both the BMPCC and your Canon camera is, in my opinion, making too much of a compromise one way or the other. The speedbooster is almost the price of a lens, first of all. Second, any time you use the speedbooster, it's going to suck the battery life out of the BMPCC even more than the already atrociously short battery life. Finally, if you want a normal to wide angle look on your BMPCC, it will most likely leave you with a very wide angle look on your Canon (something you might not use a heck of a whole lot in your video productions).
Now, if you don't care about battery life because you have an external power source, then my points about the speedbooster are moot. In that case, you're not like me in that you don't mind increasing the small form factor of the BMPCC.
If you don't mind shooting VERY wide on your Canon so that you can have a normal to wide on your BMPCC, or if you don't mind not being able to shoot wide on your BMPCC so that you can use your Canon at less wide to normal angles, then my points about compromising one or the other are also moot. I guess in this case it would depend on what camera you want to shoot with more.
Since I prefer shooting with my BMPCC, then I favor buying very wide micro four thirds lenses for it. If I preferred to shoot with my Canon (5DMIII), then I would get a speedbooster and buy lenses primarily for the Canon and use the speedbooster to allow me to use them with the BMPCC.
In the end, it's up to you and how you do most of your shooting. But for me, since I love my BMPCC, I'll buy lenses specifically for it (wide micro four thirds glass) so that I can keep the form factor small (no large lenses and not so much need for external battery supply) and have wide angles of view.
Remember, the crop factor (!) is 2.88 from full frame to BMPCC. A 15 mm lens on the Canon will give you an equivalent field of view of 43 mm on the BMPCC (without a speedbooster). Using a 15mm on your Canon may be a little too wide for most purposes if you're filming with it.
Anyway, my opinions aside, happy shooting!
Hi Timothy,
I can highly recommend the 12 mm Kowa lens. I have a BMPCC too, and this lens never leaves my camera. It is a fast lens (1.9 t) and has a manual aperture and manual focus--what, in my opinion, all good lenses for filming should have. Also, you can use it with the 2.88 crop factor on the BMPCC without an adapter. For me, at least, it is the perfect focal length for nearly everything I do. Simple and no need for lens changing and/or zooming. Pretty neat, huh?
Hope this helps!