GEAR GROUP TEST
The Shure VP83F is unique in this line- up. It’s a short shotgun supercardioid – intended to mount to the hotshoe of a DSLR – that also records WAV files to MicroSDHC cards at 24-bit, 48kHz. Frequency response is quoted as 50Hz to 20kHz. The microphone itself is mounted in a Rycote-designed shock mount, which does a reasonable job of isolating camera handling noise, and it’s light but sturdily built. The double AA battery compartment door right at the front of the unit also hides the MicroSDHC card slot. At the back of the microphone there is a small panel with power and record buttons, and a joystick and tiny backlit LCD screen for the user interface. There are also 3.5mm jacks for headphones and a feed to the camera, so you can use audio matching to sync the sound up in post. The LCD shows the recorded track title and duration, recording time available on the SD card, gain, battery level and a simple audio meter. It also shows the state of the built-in low-cut filter. Pressing on the joystick activates the menus. Here you can format the memory card, set the mic gain from 0dB to +30dB and check for clipping. The low-cut filter rolls off below 170Hz, mostly for wind noise reduction. You can also select tracks for playback, delete tracks, set date and time and so on. In operation, the VP83F is very simple. Once everything is set up to your liking, you press the record button. There is no way to link the record function to the camera, so you’ll need to remember to roll both sound and picture at the start of a take. As you would expect from Shure, the microphone’s sound quality is good – there is some noise at higher gains, and this is a very short shotgun, which means that off-axis isolation is limited compared to mics with a longer interference tube. The advantage is that off-axis pickup sounds better. There is no external mic input, so the recorder can’t capture, for instance, a lavalier as well as the shotgun, and there are few productions for which a camera- mounted mic as the only audio source is acceptable. Nevertheless, if a good quality, on-camera microphone is what you need, with the added bonus of high-quality recording built in, the Shure VP83F is worth a look. SHURE VP83F £295 www.shure.co.uk
SPECIFICATIONS Built-inmicrophone: 1x supercardioid shotgun Inputs: None Number of record tracks: 1
Recordingmedium: MicroSDHC Maximumsample rate/word size: 48kHz/24-bit Power: 2x AA batteries
HOW IT RATES
Features: 4/10 Frustratingly, the lack of external input limits the unit’s use Performance: 9/10 The Shure VP83F offers good quality audio Handling: 8/10 The unit is nice and simple to use, with clear menus Value for money: 6/10 Limited use for the money – the features offered don’t add up to quite enough PROMOVIEMAKER RATING: 6/10 Pros: Good sound quality Cons: No extra mic/line input limits its usefulness
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PRO MOVIEMAKER SPRING 2018
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