Nikon D7000 manual Tips for Better Audio

Chapter 6 ■ Live View and D-Movies 177

Tips for Better Audio

Since recording high-quality audio is such a challenge, it’s a good idea to do everything possible to maximize recording quality. Here are some ideas for improving the quality of the audio your camera records:

■Get the camera and its microphone close to the speaker. The farther the micro- phone is from the audio source, the less effective it will be in picking up that sound. While having to position the camera and microphone closer to the subject affects your lens choices and lens perspective options, it will make the most of your audio source. Of course, if you’re using a very wide-angle lens, getting too close to your subject can have unflattering results, so don’t take this advice too far.

■Use an external microphone. Plug a stereo or monaural mic into the jack on the side of the D7000, and you’ll immediately enjoy better sound, because you won’t be recording noises including autofocus motors or your own breathing. If you plan to do a lot of movie shooting, you might want to invest in the new Nikon ME-1 stereo microphone, introduced in early 2011 at the same time as the Nikon D5100 Although not inexpensive at $179.95, the ME-1 slips on the D7000’s hot shoe and is powered through the camera. It’s engineered to reduce or eliminate noise from unintentional contact, has a wind screen, and dampens sound pickup from the cam- era’s autofocus operation. It includes a cable stop to keep the connecting cable out of the way during use.

■Turn off any sound makers you can. Little things like fans and air handling units aren’t obvious to the human ear, but will be picked up by the microphone. Turn off any machinery or devices that you can plus make sure cell phones are set to silent mode. Also, do what you can to minimize sounds such as wind, radio, television, or people talking in the background.

■Make sure to record some “natural” sound. If you’re shooting video at an event of some kind, make sure you get some background sound that you can add to your audio as desired in postproduction.

■Consider recording audio separately. Lip-syncing is probably beyond most of the people you’re going to be shooting, but there’s nothing that says you can’t record narration separately and add it later. It’s relatively easy if you learn how to use sim- ple software video-editing programs like iMovie (for the Macintosh) or Windows Movie Maker (for Windows PCs). Any time the speaker is off-camera, you can work with separately recorded narration rather than recording the speaker on-camera. This can produce much cleaner sound.