Help with good boom pole
 

I'm looking to get a boom pole to house a sennheiser me66. I'm on bhphotovideo and i've stumbled upon these K-Tek units. Are they any good or do they suck? Any help would be appreciated.

K-Tek is good stuff.

Think about working distances and get the right length for your style of shooting, I think most people find a 10-12' pole a good length for scenes with 1-3 people. News people use shorter. Some engineers either use a longer pole or have a second pole that is longer.

Yes, the K-Tek poles are very good.

The graphite fiber poles are very light.

I have the K-202CCR, a 16' pole.

The K-Tek boom poles are great, those are the ones I specified when we made our original purchases at the school where I used to teach, and it's what I usually rent when I need one, thus I second that K-Tek suggestion, and if budget allows, go for the carbon-fibre poles, they are very light and a joy to use. Two other thing to consider along with your boom purchase: (1) do you want to get a model with the cable built-in or not? and (2) what other kinds of microphone support might you need?

(1) The cable built-on to the inside of the pole is very convenient, however, it does not take well to rough handling and you have to be careful that if you shake the pole, you'll hear the cable on the inside, so handling is a little more tricky. If you don't get a model with the cable inside, those cute hair ties with the round plastic balls at the end make perfect cable holders along the pole.

(2) sometimes something different from a boom called for, for example, when the mic needs to be in the same place for a long time, for example, formal, sit-down interviews, in these situations, I prefer to use a microphone stand with a boom arm (the kind used in music studios and on stage) and position the mic just above the subject, proper placement, just out of the top-of-frame, for all but the widest shots these work really well, and frees up the sound person to listen and watch the levels more closely.

Unless...
 

Unless you can afford the Van De Bergh boompoles or maybe a Fischer dolly-mount unit... go with K-Tek. I've used K-Tek day in, day out. Submurged over fire... etc etc. They hold up but arent as nice as the vDB.

In addition to a boom pole, a very good studio microphone stand, such as the Atlas SB36WE is very handy when the subject will not be moving much and you do not have to move from one subject to another while shooting.

This mic stand has wheels.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ughType=search

This is a direct link to the SB36WE Studio Boom on the Atlas Sound website:

http://www.atlassound.com/products/p....cfm?pn=SB36WE

thanks to everyone that responded
 

i appreciate the help

How are the Van De Bergh poles better than K-Tek?

Its a close call.
 

The cableing on my vdB poles held up a little longer than the K-Tek (although I think it was a lower-end K-tek). A large amount of my work is run and gun, and many times the boom pole must be twist collapse and go. I got caught up with the cable getting stuck in-between sections more than I liked it to. I've had my vdB forever, and the ends of the innersection are smoothed down, as opposed to the K-Tek. Such a simple idea saves the cable.

Also, the K-Tek, came with cabling. Typically I request my boompoles without cabling, I prefer to add a right-angle female on the end and use non-copper based cable (Slinkylinks). For the vdB poles, I had enough room to run three cables for a Schoeps surround setup (or two without soldering, connectors ...connected). I cant run 3 XLRs in a K-tek.

I'm not bashing K-tek, for what I paid for, I like it. It held up in ENG (except for cable) and did nicely. But I still prefer vdB for flexibility, and most of the guys I work with, carry spare vdB parts, but I still havent needed any yet.

Although a Fischer is still my first pick. (ha ha)

a dvinfo sponsor is offering a special deal on this boom pole:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=63877

i just bought one. i haven't used it yet (it arrived yesterday), but it seems quite nice. great price, too.