The Cheap$$ Adaptable Microphone: The Panasonic EM-2800A Shotgun/Boom

Content creation is the soul of the Hive community and quality content production and sharing goes a long way in giving you a professional touch that might just make all the difference between your content and just any other content.

When it comes to videography, audio is a very important part of making videos.
No matter how well you make a video that involves audio content, if you are not audible, the video is as good as almost useless.

I work a lot with sound, especially as a musician and sound engineer and I've found out that when it comes to making audio, especially for social media consumption, all you need is the right environment that works with whatever audio device you have.

So if you record audio with your smartphone, you need to find a way to make sure it can give you the desired result.
I personally have made a lot of videos with the audios straight from my smartphone. And that's definitely what the majority do.
But a clean professional audio is always pleasant to the ears. And if your content is already great, having some pristine sound would just be perfect!

In this video, I reviewed a Panasonic shotgun/boom microphone that I bought for less than $15 (at the time), that would comfortably work for most of your media needs.

It's a condenser microphone, but was designed as a shotgun microphone, that can be coupled with your smartphone or camera as the case may be.

A shotgun microphone is basically a highly directional microphone.
It can pick up sounds in one direction better than most other regular mics.

In this review, I explored the applications of this microphone both in indoor and outdoor settings.

Outdoor testing

I found out that with very little to no editing, this microphone gives very quality sound. In fact, in my opinion it's sound production is almost studio standard.

Whether you post videos online, do professional interviews, or Podcasts, this microphone can give you pleasant audio with minimal editing.

This was just the perfect microphone for me especially if I had to do videography work involving more than one person.

It removes the hassles of carrying clip mics around and setting them up. I just place it on my camera or attach it to boom, plug it staright to my camera, and voila I'm good to go!

Coupled with a Lumix GH4 camera

It's not perfect, but it does the job, especially when you're on a tight budget and can't afford the Rodes and Senheissers yet. It gives good results while you keep building until you can afford something more professional.

But I think I'm gonna keep this mic for a while! It performs satisfactorily for me!

What do you think about it?

Camera: Panasonic Lumix GH4
Microphone: Panasonic EM-2800A
Video Editing: PowerDirector
Studio: Daytad Studios