Re: Audio for nature videos
 

@Allan, nice setup!

Now you guys have me thinking about the crickets chirping from my childhood around the Aegean/Mediterranean region

For those who saw my previous post I touched on some of my health difficulties so now we're working hard to be able to get me back to being able to do stuff again and hopefully back home - which I haven't been to for 20+ years and hopefully have a rest and a reset and actually start filming wildlife and being able to do my photography too

What excites me there is the amount of animals like Lynx, Caraculs, Anatolian Leapord, Wild Boar, Badgers, Deer and so many others as well as even under water wildlife like the Mediterranean LoggerHead Turtle etc...

@Doug hello again :-)

I think audio adds to the ambiance but in real life probably no one will know the difference or care.... so you have a point.

I'm just thinking back to the black and white days when a few pioneers set off into places far from where the rest of the world were familiar with... (mainly Attenborough) and the type of run-and-gun video shot there.

Ok it was a different time with no internet and techniques hadn't been developed yet but there was a lot of explanation and exploration. This is kind of what my idea is... to have fun mainly and not worry too much about a massively polished look.

Don't get me wrong - I saw your videos on Youtube and think they're amazing and I'm definitely going to be paying attention to your course, as I mentioned previously

This is quite an involved subject that you can go bananas on from all angles but for me I think I'd love to get great captures in both video and audio - even if the audio is just a bit of natural ambiance but to me at least it's a lot of fun :-)

Re: Audio for nature videos
 

Actually this is a really good example of what is inspiring me. It is in the Turkish language....
- it might have English auto generated AI subtitles?

Some background on this.... there is an organization to do with wildlife in Turkey - I am not sure if it's more study based or conservation based but there are many academics involved with title Prof or Dr.

This particular guy on Youtube normally records stuff using trail cams and compiles video that way


My personal idea would be of course to combine things and actually turn it into a little documentary with narration and story telling.

Camera technique is also important to me as well as grading etc... but I don't need to rival the National Geographic or BBC etc....

Like mentioned previously, I just wana have fun and do something I enjoy and let it build through time and experience:

Re: Audio for nature videos
 

If you are having fun recording audio, then that is what counts the most. Go for it.

Re: Audio for nature videos
 

I can see it now.

"Hi, I'm Doug Jensen, and I thought I'd take a couple of minutes to film my comprehensive video on recording wildlife audio when out in the field."

Andrew

Re: Audio for nature videos
 

H,ha. And here is the entire script . . . .

"Mount a good shotgun mic on the front of the camera, set the levels for automatic, and hope for the best. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Happy shooting."

But I'll still need a prompter, because that is too long for me to memorize.

Re: Audio for nature videos
 

Do it. Seriously.

Record it like your other videos in the series and release it on YouTube. It will one of the best industry gags ever!

Andrew

Re: Audio for nature videos
 

Guys, you're all scaring me....

Next thing you are gona start saying is that people don't film wildlife, they just stand in front of a blue or green screen then AI everything else in :-(

Even the shown cameras are all fake AI renditions.....


hahahaha


Welp, I've got a plan and if I am able to do anything it will be places like these:

https://nationalparksassociation.org...national-park/

https://nationalparksassociation.org...national-park/

https://nationalparksassociation.org...national-park/


...I did white water rafting at the last location as a 15 year old. It was amazing!

Re: Audio for nature videos
 

It is tempting. Very tempting.

Re: Audio for nature videos
 

Recording sound of wildlife in the field is... difficult. It's a full time job. If you're trying to both film video and record sound (regardless of on a movie set or in the outback capturing wildlife footage), you're likely to fail at one or the other. It's just difficult to split your attention like that requires. This is why audio professionals exist. It's either a two person job, or two separate one person jobs that don't happen at the same time.

The first thing is that the optimum placement for microphones is hardly ever the same as the optimum placement for video cameras. That's just the laws of physics talking to ya. So forget about putting mics on cameras. You'll never use that audio for anything more than the scratch track, to sync with the "real" audio you or someone else will record (almost always) separately at some other time.

The second thing is, if you're intent on recording sound in the wild, most people who do this seem to rely on Rycote blimps (or equivalent), and record stereo in M/S (that's mid-side for those reading this who aren't doing this all the time). A large percentage of these pros also use Sennheiser mics (typically an MKH-8030 [figure-8] with an MKH-8040 [cardioid]) simply because they perform so well in both high and low humidity (getting wet on one side and dusty on the other). There are Rycote blimps specifically designed for Sennheiser M/S pairs:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...2855/KBID/3801

which ought to tell you how popular this is. It's not cheap, but it does work. And people buy them because outside the wind seldom dies down to nothing for more than a few seconds.

If you want to do surround sound, Rycote also supports Ambisonics mics (TetraMic):

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...2855/KBID/3801

If you're going the M/S route, it's typically best to find a recorder that can specifically record that format. Sound Devices stuff does, or used to. I would imagine others do too, but it's something to check for.

The third thing is, while cameras have zoom lenses, microphones do not. The best microphone design can do for you is suppress sound coming in from the sides and back, which is not at all the same as a zoom lens. With microphones, the name of the game is signal to noise ratio. If you want to hear something better, you have to get the mic physically closer to it. This is why boom poles were invented.

What you're trying to do is difficult, but doable. And a good sound capture in the wild is quite rewarding. Good luck with it.

Re: Audio for nature videos
 

Thanks so much!

I was gona go for a Neuman Stereo pair - the KM 184's.

They're like $1500

I know for studio recording Neuman is one of the top brands and have been around them before during my audio days.

If you're suggesting Sennheiser due to environmental robustness then I will start looking at that!!

Yeah audio is another world!

EQ, compressors, ducker, noise-gates, dynamic compression based on frequency etc.... it's a world of fun!


Still I think learning and playing with both video and audio is good as what's most important is enjoying yourself and not kind of limiting yourself to one thing or another.
Sure, one could argue that to excel in something you need to focus 100% on it....

For my current trip idea (my health willing) I have so many different things lined up that I want to experiment with and compile something together with.

Somehow I want to combine Overlanding vlog documentaries and wildlife wilderness documentaries with photography and drone usage and probably many other things.

I see people doing similar things minus the Overlanding part like some of the videos I linked in, so it's doable. The Overland guys usually just focus on travel and offroad stuff and not so much nature.

I guess you could say the difference between wide angle landscape photography and super tele based wildlife stuff in a different context.

Well we'll see.....


Yeah the SoundDevices MixPre6 looks awsome and I think I found a solution for myself running one of those in pretty much many different situations.

Re: Audio for nature videos
 

Actually here Morten attached a Rhode mic to a tree hahaha


But you can hear quite clearly that there is quite amazing natural sound ambiance as well as his movements.

Sure he might have just layered that in post later but still....