Well said...thank you Seth.

I just got my H4N tonight. I must say that it is amazingly intuitive!

I plan on using it with my D90 for personal short films.

I'll give my 2 cents of a review after I play with it for a while

~Jay

Seth,

Where did you buy it and how much did you pay for it?

Thanks,

Ty Ford

Jay, I think that the H4n will be a nice compliment to your D90.
On a side note, how do you like working with the D90?
Any desire to move to the Canon 5D, over the D90, or is the D90 working nice for you?

I picked one up from fullcompass.com for $349. First use was as second system sound with two AT4073a's to cover a small venue stage play. Most impressed.

There is an incredible desire to move over to the 5D, but this is just a hobby for me, not my job. The D90 offers something that high end consumer HD cameras do not-- a film look.

The D90 like most DSLRs are terrible video cameras, they just happen to make beautiful videos in the right situations. I bought the D90 as a still camera first. For me the purpose of a camera is primarily to capture memories, not create art. Sometimes video is better at capturing memories than a still photo, but I didn't want to carry two cameras. I grew accustomed to the convenience of a point and shoot digital camera that has good still and poor, but better than nothing video.

The D90 is an outstanding still camera - almost professional. In the right situation it can also make outstanding film-like video!

The reason I bought the H4N was because my wife and I, for fun, not revenue, want to do a web based travel show. My real job is an audio engineer and I dabble in television a little.
Therefore I have high standards for audio, even for my hobby. The audio in the D90 is sub-standard.

I think Canon and Nikon were caught off guard with a huge success of their HD DSLRs. Next year I expect to see news of proper video camera that uses DSLR lenses and a large CMOS. Something like the RED scarlet, but cheaper.

FYI, I got the H4N from a company I have never heard of- UniqueSquared, I found them on ebay. I don't know if we are allowed to talk about prices here, but their service and price were both outstanding.

~Jay

Everything I've seen says the street price on H4n is $350, which is what I paid through an online music supply retailer. If everyone is selling for the same price... buy from a trusted source locally, or, at least, if online, try to reduce/eliminate shipping costs. I guess I'm cheap, cheap, cheap!

Audio Sync with H4N
 

I had an opportunity to use my H4N to record the audio during the taping of a high school show. I was using my Sony VX2000 recording the video/audio and the H4N with a couple of AKG mics.

The entire show was 1 hour and 53 minutes, so I used used two DV tapes. The first act was one long (1 hour) take. Bringing in the camera video/audio on the timeline and the audio for H4N I was pleasantly surprised that the H4N audio track was out of sync by only about 2 frames from the camera audio by the end of the hour.

Big improvement over the H4.

RE: Audio Sync with H4N
 

Peter that's great to hear.
One of the major objections to the Zoom recorders by users is that it doesn't hold sync well over medium to long periods of video. Personally I don't edit using 1-2 hours straight of the same video and audio so it hasn't been a huge issue for me.

But I can see it being a problem for long recording needs like recital and stage work.
In the past I have used my Edirol R44 for stage productions and it has worked great. I recently picked up the H4n and am anxious to give it a try for stage productions as well. So this is good news.

H4N Sync
 

Michael:

I was very pleased after the sync issues I had with my old H4. I was also impressed with the sound quality using the xlr mic inputs. To my ear, there is a large difference from the H4. All in all the H4N has been pleasantly surprising experience as I wasn't expecting that big a change, except for the user interface which drove me crazy on the H4 (especially since I'm doing video and audio recording solo).

Peter

How many milli-amps of phantom power does the H4n provide? I've searched for a while with no results. I learned today that some mics may require more power than some phantom power units provide.

The H4n can provide up to 48v of phantom power.

Right, 48 volts, but how much current at that voltage? I had assumed all 48 V phantom power units were created equal, but they are not. If the H4n provides 2 mA current and a mic requires 3 mA then the mic is not going to work well.

Does the H4N have any audio wandering? I use an iriver now and it has a small amount of wandering in FCP. I'd be more than willing to drop the extra cash for an H4N if I can just drop it in no problem. It'd be used for audio backup and capturing 5d wireless audio.

Can my Giant Squid lav mic work as an external mic for this thing as well?

Much thanks

Yes, I've tested this with voice.

Due to the physical arrangments, the right-angle 3.5mm option from GS is more convenient than the standard 3.5mm plug, but, the standard works fine - just a little awkward.

There is a menu setting to turn on micpower / plugin power to the 3.5mm input.