Zoom F3: The BEST In-Camera Audio For Filmmakers!

my check one two one two three one two F three today we're talking audio recording [Music] welcome back to the channel I'll be talking about Photo Video in the gear you need to create it this week we're talking about this thing the F3 field recorder from Zoom now I'm no audio expert so this is not going to be an in-depth review but I can talk about what I like about the F3 and how I'm using it in my workflow since the beginning of this channel I've been struggling with audio I've gone from using things like an on-camera shotgun mic this is the rode video micro two I've used Wireless lapel mics like the rode Wireless go but both of these feed directly into the camera which limits how good the audio can actually get and my goal is to make things sound better for you and be easier for me in post-production so I did what we all do jumped into YouTube did my research and that's what led me to the zoom F3 field recorder so on its most basic the zoom F3 is a recorder you can plug XLR mics into and get that audio onto a Micro SD card plug in those XLR mics in is something you can't do with a mirrorless camera like my Canon R5 or any of the Sony's you don't get this sort of capability unless you move out to a cinema camera most recorders can take an XLR input that's kind of what they do but what sets the zoom F3 apart is the fact it records in something called 32-bit float that's just a fancy way of saying this records so much information that you can adjust the gain after recording nothing's ever too loud or too quiet it's basically magic it's kind of like shooting a photograph in raw you get more dynamic range you get more information in the highlights and the Shadows that's what 32-bit float does and then some not having to test and set your game before you start recording and not have to worry about it at all is amazing if you're a solo Creator it means you can just set and forget your recorder and go off and do those other 50 things you need to be doing okay so let's have a look at the recorder itself so on the front you've got a pretty basic monochrome screen it's not high resolution it's not a touch screen it's not flashy colors but it works well and on that screen you've got two waveforms one for each of the two channels this can record there's a couple of buttons here if they let you zoom in and out on the waveform zooming in tonight does change the recording volume but it's kind of like having white balance on a raw photo it's in there you see it as soon as you load the image but you can change it after the fact you still have all the information recorded it also affects the line out volume but I'll talk more about that later on the top here you've got two locking XLR inputs they're not the Dual personality ones which you can plug a jack into as well I don't think there's physically room inside this tiny box and if you need phantom power for your microphone both of these channels can provide it and over the left side you've got a USBC input now I'm using it to power it but you can also connect it up to your PC to make it act as an audio interface which makes it an easy way to plug two XLR microphones into your computer and there's even a loopback so any signs your computer make get recorded onto the onboard SD card as well as the two microphones over on the right hand side you've got the on off button and you've also got a sliding switch for record and hold I've slipped it down into hold now because I'm moving this thing around I don't want to accidentally press the stop button there's also a slot over here for the zoom Bluetooth adapter but I think it's a bit overpriced and this thing's always within Arm's Reach I don't really need it and then finally underneath here on the bottom Edge you've got a headphone jack with buttons to adjust the volume and there's also a line out plug now this is what allows me to use this to streamline my workflow so let's talk about how I've integrated this with my workflow to make things easier I've got my rode shotgun mic up here just out of shop it's feeding into the XLR okay and then from the line out Port I have a cable just a 3.5 millimeter Jack one going into my camera's mic input of course I'm recording onto an SD card as well just in case I've got anything wrong I've still got this so if the cable falls out if I got my gains wrong on the camera I've still got a good quality recording that I can use now I go into the camera config and I look for sound recording now on my calendar and it's on page one other cameras it'll be somewhere else but you're looking for the recording level now cameras have notoriously bad preamp so you want this doing as little as possible so I've moved the level all the way to zero and then ticked it back at one so it's doing as little work as possible now you want the audio levels on your camera on screen when you do this now you can do that in the menu or you can be on a recording screen you just need to see those bars going up and down now you want those to be peaking just above -12 DB and now this is where I use the plus and minus buttons on the front of the F3 just to magnify that waveform because I also adjusts the volume on the line out so I'll keep checking that up whilst talking into microphone until I see my audio levels where I need them to be so I know I've got a guaranteed good recording on here even if I stuff things up at the camera end but if I get it right the audio is linked in with the video in the camera so I only have one file to edit in post I don't need to worry about syncing separate audio with the camera audio and that's how I use the F3 to get good audio on these videos minimal first good sound quality what's not to love if you've got any questions about the F3 or how I'm using it drop them down in the comments below if you found this video useful if you could drop a like down below that would be great and if you want to see more content like this there's a subscribe button down there too thank you very much I'll see you next time bye thank you

Channel: Simon Pow

Views: 20,349

Keywords: audio, audio recorder, best audio recorder, filmmaker gear, filmmaking audio, filmmaking tips, microphone, sound to camera, zoom f3, zoom f3 review, zoom m3 mic track

Id: SmKgHQjAe5c

Length: 4min 42sec (282 seconds)

Published: Fri May 05 2023