I just purchased an AT 897 at work. It is an excellent mic (short shotgun) for indoor work. I have used it for only three tapings so far , but the results are great.

thanks spot - i was looking forward to your reply, although I thought you had mentioned previously that you dislike shotguns for any interiors. Or is a short shotgun acceptable? Also, I will need a shock mount if I do (albeit rarely) want to put it right on camera?

For voice over work, it doesn't get much better than the Sure SM7 Series microphones....probably wouldn't work too well as a boom though.

Why are shotgun mics inappropriate for interiors? I often use a Senn ME66 for indoor shoots. Now I'm wondering if that was a bad choice.

Sounds that hit shotguns off-axis (not from the front) get a lot of coloration or extremely uneven frequency response. In interior situations, echoes will hit the mic off-axis and voices will just sound weird.
If you can get the mic close, this may not be that big of a deal because the signal noise will overpower the echo noise.

High end shotguns (i.e. sennheiser 416) fare a lot better than low-end shotguns. They have less off-axis coloration and I believe they might have a little more rejection, which reduces that effect a lot. At 2 feet with a 416 your dialogue will sound pretty good. If on a tight budget, the Audio Technica 4073a is pretty comparable for a mic that's about a thousand dollars cheaper. There's clips comparing the two at dvfreelancer.com

Mics like the ME66, AT835b (old model short shotgun?), and anything Azden or Apex are outclassed by the 4073a to my ears. I don't know about the AT 897 because I've never heard it.

2- Another option for interior situations is to use a hypercardioid microphone. They don't have the extremely un-even off-axis response that shotguns do, and not as much rejection/reach.

There are some really good hypercardioids available for only a few hundred dollars. Oktava MC-012 from soundroom.com (about $200 with hypercardioid cap; needs phantom, no battery, picks up a fair amount of handling noise), the Oktava MK-012 from elsewhere (soundroom cherry picks the best ones and mark them as MC012, which is why they're more expensive), and Rode NT3 (accepts battery power) are some of the more popular recommendations.
Audio Technica also makes the 4075a hypercardioid mic, which may be excellent value like other AT products. I wouldn't know how that mic compares to others though.

Some microphone samples:
If you poke around dvfreelancer.com, there are lots of great mic samples there.

http://www.dvfreelancer.com/media/beaser/ME66Left_OktavaRight.MPG
Comparison of ME66 (short shotgun) versus Oktava MK012 (hypercardioid; from AVR communications in Canada).
http://www.dvfreelancer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16
Forum thread.

There's also a comparison of the ME66 to AT4073a, which is a good one because you'll probably want to get the AT4073a. I would try to setup a BLIND listening test, because what you read will affect your impression of the mics. Get a friend to split and rename the files for you.

Wow, thanks glennchan. This is a great rollup on the subject. You've given me lots to think about (and a few things to buy potentially).

Spot or glennchan: Is it your recommendation that a good DV kit would consist of two microphones? One for outdoor work, another for indoors?

Assuming the ME66 I already own is more geared for outdoors work, what would you recommend for interior shoots?

My mic case carries a lot more than two, but my main 3 mics are:
1. AT 899 lav (small as a countryman B3, and sounds much better)
2. AT 897 Great shotgun for close V/O and for some interior work.
3. AT 4053 hypercardiod. Great for interiors, good for most exteriors, has 3 capsules available.

slacy,
A mic for exteriors and a mic for interiors is definitely a good combination. In your case, I might look at picking up an Oktava (needs phantom), AT4053a, or the Rode. For your needs, the improvement may be small (the clip I linked to is pretty illustrative of the difference though). Guitar Center used to have a sale for the Oktava for $50 (with cardioid cap; hyper cap is $60 from sound-rooms.com) which would've been a good choice, especially if you could compare among a few Oktavas and get the best one.
I haven't hear comparisons between any of those mics so it's hard to say which one to go with. However, they are all probably good quality and very comparable to one another (based on what other people say).

For narrative, a hypercardioid has some extra advantages like:
A- It picks up ambience and some foley/SFX fine. Ambiences may sound a little weird through a shotgun, and it may also pick up some foley/SFX at a low volume. You may want to get a little bit of ambience and foley/SFX to save time in post.
B- If there is overlapping dialogue, a shotgun can't capture both talent on-axis. I would point the mic between them in that case, but if they are too far apart then both will sound off-axis (which you can't fix in post). With a hypercardioid, you lose just a little of the higher frequencies (EQ can compensate for this) and they drop in volume (which can also be compensated for).

There are also other ways to make your audio better:
A- Get the microphone closer. This makes a huge, huge difference.
If you do run and gun work where you must put the mic on camera, you could get a wide angle adapter so you can get closer.
Get a boom if you don't have one already. Or if you do lots of interviews or weddings, a wireless/wired lav could would be the way to go.
B- Outdoors: Get a windscreen. Wind noise may be a lot more objectionable than the difference between the ME66 and a Oktava indoors.
Foam ones don't work that well.

Im kind of in the same boat, looking for a mike that is relativly cheap and can be used for interviews, mostly i need to be able to just walk up to people and interview them without a lot of set up and fuss, so i want it camera mounted. The AT 897 seems promising, but after reading this thread i am a little worried that its sweet spot is to close to the mic to be able to stand a good distance back and still get good sound. ill keep looking.

I have a canon gl2, so i know there are several options for mounting/input. lots of people seem to recomend Beachtech XLR adapters. Is there a big advantage to a beachtech over canon's ma300 adapter?

thanks for helping me out

ben

neb,

The canon adapter only permits mic level input. The beachtek has built in pads to drop a line level input to mic level. It also has volume controls but those are redundant for the GL2. The AT 897 requires either battery or phantom power. Some of the beachtek units include phantom power, the MA300 does not.

Looking at the specs for the AT 897, I couldn't help but notice that there seems to be quite a performance difference (sensitivity, signal/noise ratio) depending on the type of power provided: When used with a battery instead of phantom power, the specs are worse (or maybe I misread this data somehow). Could anyone with hands-on experience with the AT 897 comment on this? Is the difference on paper only or it is really noticeable?

Catwell,

Thanks..that makes sense.

ben