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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

I am looking for a shotgun mic any recommendations (1 Viewer)

joe101

Well-known member
I am new to nature recording. I am using a tascam DR-100mkiii which I use for music and video. I am probably going to mainly record in tropical rainforest. Any recommendations ?
 
It seems that the popular ones that birders use is the Sennheiser mke 600 and the mk66/k7 which comes with their own power which is not necessary for me right ? As my recorder has its own phantom power. And having such is more costly right ?
 
The MKE 600 works on an internal battery or external phantom power. The K6 powering module comes in two types, the K6-P that relies on phantom power or the K6 that can supply its own if needed.

There is a saving between the K6-P and the K6, however there has been a mismatch in phantom power requirements in the past between some microphones and some recorders, resulting in spurious noise on the resulting recording. I would be surprised that the current Mk III Tascam has this problem though the original DR 100 apparently inserted some hiss at high gain when delivering its own phantom power.

If you start looking into other forums (not birdwatching) the ME 66 is sometimes regarded as the budget option and people are urged to spend more, however as one of the threads that Binoseeker urged you to read, it does have excellent sensitivity compared to some other options.

Unfortunately sound recording is not like Lego, the mere fact that two items will connect to each other doesn't always mean that they work perfectly together which is why many folks stick to what is known to work.

Cheap cabling is often a source of extraneous noise as well, but a decent XLR to XLR cable should beat many terminating in a 3.5 mm jack.

So yes you are probably right that you can save about £40 by going for the less expensive K6 variant, and you should end up with some excellent recording kit, but I for one have not tried your combination of kit to verify it.
 
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