Spot,
Have you tested the $99 Apex shotgun?
I've shyed away from it because of its low price, but a dealer with a good rep swears by it. Anyone else had experience with the Apex?

I rented Apex shotguns a few times.

They sound nasty indoors.
One of them broke when I was checking to see if there was a battery inside. It may have been partially my fault, but the mic doesnt seem that durable.
Self-noise may be a little on the high side, but I am working off memory here.

Other than that I suppose it's a shotgun microphone. Never tried it outdoors, but it would likely sound fine with a windscreen (which may cost just as much as the mic if you want anything decent).


If you need the shockmount, hotshoe mount, mini-plug connection and windscreen the Rode Videomic looks like the way to go.
The AT897 if you have more money and can afford XLR adapter, shockmount, and windscreen.

That Rode thing sure as hell looks the part, big enough to loose a camera underneatht. Joking aside though Rode make good gear, nice to to an Aussie company doing it big on the world stage. None of their stuff is cheap, it might be inexpensive but never cheap.

Like Spot says, Audio Technica 897 is best bang for buck.
So versitile you can even do an acceptable VO with it.
Most over-rated mic Sennheiser 416,---stay very far away from that one.

Dave,

G&G Video has the AT 897 for $245. I have ordered from them before without any problems.

John

s/h sennheiser me66 or 80. i use the 80 and am very happy with it.

leslie

I use a Sennheiser ME66 as a boom mic with a PD-100 hotshoe audio adapter and a Sony VX-2000 camera. The ME66 has a hotter output than the Audio Technica 897. This is useful with the VX-2000 as its mic pream is quite noisy and the hotter output mic minimizes the level of this noise.

Most over-rated mic Sennheiser 416,---stay very far away from that one.

I'm baffled why you think it is over-rated. Sennheiser tried to replace it with a more modern design, but sound engineers across the globe preferred the MKH-416.

It doesn't have the utmost fidelity or clarity, but it just sounds really nice for dialog. It has its own sound, and you have heard it on many many feature films.
Sound is often subjective, sometimes people prefer a certain coloration.

The Sanken CS-3e is my favorite and it is a better shotgun in every way, but I quite liked the sound of the 416. Still, the CS-3e lets me get better sound with less skill (because its frequency response doesn't vary much over a 45+ deg. pickup angle), and it can be used in environments where you would simply have to cancel with a 416.

I also agree with everybody on the AT897, it is an incredible value, and its big brother, the 4073 is hard to beat under $1000 (and it costs about half of that).