Zoom Mic Shotgun

Riding shotgun.

The SGH-6 Shotgun capsule adds a professional-quality hyperdirectional (that is, highly directional) microphone turning your H6 or H5 into the perfect audio recorder for anyone working in film, video or live theater, or for ENG (electronic news gathering) applications.

A “shotgun” is a long, cylindrical microphone which excels at picking up sounds in front of it while rejecting sounds to the sides and rear. Shotgun microphones are often used when you cannot position a microphone directly in front of a sound source. For example, if someone is speaking in front of a video camera and you don’t want them to hold an interview microphone up to their mouth, the solution is to use an off-screen shotgun mic.

Shotgun mics have a narrower focus (sometimes referred to as more "reach") than an average microphone. However, shotgun mics are not the audio equivalent of a photographic telephoto lens. Even though they do an above-average job of picking up sounds that originate from a short distance away, they always sound better when they’re physically close to the sound source. That’s why whenever you use the SGH-6 shotgun capsule, you should always strive to get as close as possible to the sound source, which often means hovering right at the edge of the frame of a shot.