Sony FX3 / FX30 Rig with 32 Bit Float Audio?? [Zoom F3]

this is the Sony fx3 a little Powerhouse of a cinema camera depending on which package you buy the Sony fx3 or fx30 comes with this little XLR top handle for audio but it leaves a lot to be desired so much so that most fx3 users probably have it sitting unused in a drawer collecting dust now this well this is the zoom F3 a tiny Beast of an audio recorder with 32-bit float so what if we could take the two of these little powerhouses and combine them together into one superpowered rig well let's find out a couple of weeks ago I uploaded a video of my latest Sony fx3 Cinema rig using the cine back as a foundational core of the rig and don't worry I'll link to that video in the description so you can watch it after you finish this one in last week's video I mentioned that one of the shortcomings of that rig was the audio and that I was hoping for a solution that would allow me to connect the XLR handle to be added to the cine back rig in the comments of that video Someone said that I'd rather find a way to mount the zoom F3 and run a shotgun rather than using the flimsy plastic XLR handle that comes with the fx3 and that got me thinking because David's right the XLR handle is overrated for a multitude of reasons it drastically limits your ability to rig the fx3 or fx30 because it takes up that top NATO rail spot it's also incredibly difficult to mount an external monitor to it if you've ever owned one you also know that it's nearly impossible to figure out how to efficiently pack it into a bag and if you're an fx30 owner or otherwise or just buying it separate it's actually pretty expensive at $600 okay so given we don't want to use the XLR top handle why the zoom F3 I won't go into an in-depth review of the F3 since there are plenty of those videos out there but a key thing that we like about it is it's small it's rugged it's about half the price of the XLR handle and most importantly it has 32 2 bit float recording so what is 32-bit float recording well it's basically the equivalent of shooting raw for photos but for audio and you don't have to set the levels because it gives you enough latitude to adjust those levels afterwards in post so having this rigged to the fx3 means that you've basically got a sound engineer with you at all times so the issue with the zoom F3 is that there's only one quarter2 mounting point and it's rendered pretty useless by these two crossbars so here's what we're going to do instead if you take a very small screwdriver set you can actually peel back these little rubber covers and then remove the screws that are keeping those two bars in place and remove those two bars completely maybe like keep them in a safe place if you ever desire that you need them later once we have those removed I want to give you two mounting options to mount the zoom F3 to the fx3 the first of which will be my cine back rig that I did the video on two weeks ago but I also realized that many of you don't have a c back so I'll also give you a second option as well I'll also go over some of the drawbacks to this setup and how you maybe can address them for the first option I'm going to use a dual 15 mm Rod clamp and attach this to the top back of the stiny backs top cheese plate we're going to attach it slightly offset to the left using a42 to 38 in adapter we're then going to take a second dual 15 mm Rod clamp and attach that to the newly exposed backside of the zoom F3 that kind of sounded weird at any rate I'm attaching that Rod clamp using the right side mounting point and you'll see why in just a second then I'm going to take two 4 in 15 mm rods and align them with the rod clamp on the body and match the two clamps together this configuration allows the F3 to be locked firmly in place with two points of contact but it can still be quickly removed without the use of any tools so we can still access that battery port the position of the recorder is now such that the left XLR input is slightly offset from the middle of the rig this allows you to run an XLR cable into the input without getting in the way of our top handle now to attach the microphone I'm going to use a small rig mic clamp to cold shoe admittedly I don't really like cold shoe mounts that much since they do tend to come loose but I appreciate that this one has slots to add some little extra tightening tension this also won't work super well for longer shotgun mics since it can get a little bit wobbly but maybe youall have a different better solution out there and can let me know in the comments and while you're down there check to make sure that you're already subscribed so I'm using the D SM mic 2s as my microphone because it's pretty high quality and it's really small you can then Mount the mic mount in one of three places the small rig cage the side handle or my personal choice a cold shoe Mount that I have rigged on the front left of the cine back any of those locations gets your shotgun mic well placed but rigging it to the cine back means it's really super Compact and out of the way once we have the mic mounted we can connect it to the recorder with a short XL LR cable and we're good to go plus if you want to add a second audio Source like a wireless lab you could easily run that into the secondary XLR input as well now let's say you don't have a cine back there still is a solution for you albeit a little bit less elegant you can instead take your favorite 15 mm Rod base plate and make sure you have enough clearance on the back end of your vmount battery then you take that Zoom F3 and Rod clamp combo that we created already and slide that onto the back of your rods we'll need to mount the with the XLR inputs facing backwards towards you so you'll likely need some pretty long rods and probably a much longer XLR cable to make it work but it definitely would do the trick regardless of which option you go with with this setup you can record directly into the zoom F3 and then sync the audio in post but I've opted to run a cable from the line out on the recorder to the mic Jack on the camera itself not only does this give us really high quality backup audio but it also means we're less likely to forget to hit record since line out will pass through the audio even when not recording on the zoom F3 but there is a potential problem with this so let's get to the drawbacks of this audio rig there's one glaring issue which is battery life the zoom F3 runs on two ablea batteries and while it's rated for up to 8 hours of audio recording the actual performance is much lower especially when you're running phantom power which is what you're going to need to power a shotgun microphone I tested this with some Amazon rechargeable batteries and I got about 2 and 1/2 hours which is roughly in line with what most folks report on forums and Reddit so the good news is we have our trusty cine back to run power to the zoom F3 kind of the zoom F3 does allow for USBC power delivery so we can take this DTaP to USBC cable from Condor blue and then route it from the cback DAP splitter over to our audio recorder this gives you effective ly Limitless battery but for some reason routing power through the cine back causes massive interference through the line out you can still record directly onto the zoom with no issues but for whatever reason any combination of anything you do including the cine back will cause the feedback issue this problem actually persists regardless of how you connect to the vmount like you could connect this DTaP to USBC directly to the vmount itself or you could just go USB to USBC but as long as you're connected to the cine back in any way there will still be feedback but if you try any of those connections directly to a vmount that's not connected to a cine back there's no issues so maybe this issue wouldn't bother you if perhaps you're not using a cine back or you don't really care about that line out connection to the camera but it is worth noting and I'm curious if any of you can think of a solution like maybe it's just that all DTaP Splitters cause this feedback issue I don't have another dap splitter lying around so maybe you can test your ideas and let me know down in the comments All In All I am pretty stoked about this audio setup and I'm glad that David gave me the idea so if you have any other ridiculous ideas that you'd like me to try I'm all yours and until then I'll see you in the next one peace

Channel: Kyle Meshna

Views: 21,738

Keywords: Kyle Meshna, Meshna, sony fx3 rig, Sony fx3 rig, caleb pike, cineback, cinema camera, fx3, fx3 cinema rig, fx3 rig, fx30, fx30 cinema rig, fx30 cinematic rig, fx30 rig build, fx30 rig setup, kondor blue, kondor blue fx3, smallrig, sony, sony fx3, sony fx3 documentary rig, sony fx3 handheld rig, sony fx3 rig build, sony fx30, sony fx30 cinematic rig, sony fx30 handheld rig, sony fx30 rig, sony fx30 rig build, sony fx30 rig setup, zoom f3, zoomf3, 32 bit float

Id: UmmUid2SY6Y

Length: 8min 18sec (498 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 22 2024