- Hey, my name is Matt
Johnson with whoismatt.com, and this is the Sony ECM-B1M Shotgun Microphone. And in this video, I'm gonna
be telling you three reasons why I think that if you
film with a Sony camera, this microphone is one of the best on-camera microphones that you can buy for wedding filmmaking. So yes, this will be a positive
review of this microphone, but to be clear, I'm not
being paid or sponsored by Sony to make this video. I rented this mic with my own money using my Sony PRO Support membership, because I've heard good things about it and I wanted to try it out at a wedding and see how it performed. Getting right into it, the first reason that I love this microphone also happens to be
probably the first thing that you will notice about it, and that is, this thing is tiny, and you can't tell from the video, but it's also very lightweight. When I first took it out of its case, I was a bit taken aback
by how small it was, because I typically use
a RODE VideoMic Pro+, which is one of the larger on-camera shotgun mics you can buy. My first thought was, this is it? Is this tiny little thing
really going to compete with the larger RODE mic? If I had to compare the
size of this microphone, it looks a little bigger
than RODE's VideoMicro, or Deity Mic's new D4 Mini shotgun mic. Unfortunately, I don't have either those to put up next to this, but just know that as
far as dimensions go, this Sony mic is 3.9 inches long, while the RODE VideoMicro and
D4 Mini are 3.1 inches long. Now, the reason those RODE
and Deity mics are so small is because they're low-powered microphones that just sip at the little power the 3.5 millimeter mic jack
on your camera can give them. Don't get me wrong, the
audio they will record is definitely an upgrade
over the built-in mic in your camera, but not necessarily a huge upgrade overall. Up until recently, this
meant that if you really wanted to significantly
upgrade your camera and audio, you needed to invest
in a powered microphone like the RODE VideoMic Pro+, or this Shure on-camera mic, or this Deity V-Mic D3 Pro, all of which are battery-powered. They're gonna give you
much better sounding audio with the major con being
that this is one more battery for you to remember to keep charged. And while the battery life
is significantly longer with all these mics than
even the longest wedding day, it can still be a pain if
you forget to charge them, or you don't have fresh batteries to put in them when they die. And when those batteries
die, you're in trouble, because if you're not actively checking your audio levels often
and your battery dies, suddenly you aren't
recording any on-camera audio until you notice and recharge
or replace the battery, which sucks and has
happened to me a few times. So let's bring it back
to the Sony ECM-B1M now and back to what I love
about this microphone, because it does not have
any internal battery, and it is instead powered directly by the camera's hot shoe. Yes, your Sony camera has a tiny set of electrical contacts in the hot shoe that interface with
these electrical contacts in the microphone to power it. And if you have a newer Sony camera, like the a7S III, a1, a7R IV, et cetera, I will link to a full list down below, these newer Sony cameras can use a digital audio interface, which basically means that the audio passing through the camera's hot shoe is cleaner with less noise
than audio that has to pass through a 3.5 millimeter audio cable. If you have a newer Sony camera, you can set this switch
on the back to digital for the digital audio interface, or if you have an older camera, set the switch to analog. So, I think this is pretty magical because Sony is essentially giving you the best of both worlds
with a shotgun microphone that is incredibly small and lightweight, like the RODE VideoMicro and Deity D4, but this mic still gives
you all of the power and performance of a much larger battery-powered microphone, like the RODE VideoMic Pro+, except you don't need a battery anymore. It's great. I love it. Now, all this ties into the second reason that I love this Sony shotgun microphone, and that has to do with the
3.5 millimeter audio jack, or lack thereof. Look at anyone who has used an on-camera microphone for a while. In this case, we're gonna
go away from weddings and we'll look at a vlogger, for example, like Casey Neistat. And one of his biggest
complaints that he had whenever it comes to an
on-camera shotgun mic, is how fragile the 3.5 millimeter mic jack is on most cameras. I remember watching Casey's vlogs where he's broken multiple mic jacks on his cameras over the years. I've always tried to be
very mindful and careful whenever I'm using an
on-camera microphone, but I've still bumped
this jack a few times and terrified myself that
my camera could be broken. It's to the point that if I
ever have to lay my camera down, say if it's on a monopod and I wanna leave the monopod down with
the camera still on it, I always lay the camera
down on the opposite side from the mic jack to make sure there isn't any pressure on it if I'm
using an on-camera mic. Thankfully with this Sony mic, there is no cord or mic jack, so I'm not worried about breaking it. The only connection this
microphone has to your camera is with the robust hot shoe, which if you break that, dang, your camera probably
has other problems. Moving on. The last thing that I love about this microphone is the controls. See, because this
microphone is made by Sony and interfaces directly
with the Sony camera, it can do some really cool things that other microphones can't. We already talked about
the digital audio interface you get with Sony's newer cameras, but there's more cool stuff. Namely, as soon as you
slide this microphone into the camera's hot shoe, it immediately turns
on and starts working. Anytime you turn the camera
off and turn it back on, this mic is immediately powered
and replaces your camera's internal microphone as
the main audio source. Now there are other microphones that will turn off and on whenever you use them, namely the RODE VideoMic
Pro+ has this feature, which is one of the main
reasons that I purchased it. But if you don't have
this specific microphone and you're not used to this feature, it's really nice to have
and will definitely save you if you're someone that forgets
to turn on their microphone, like I've done in the past. Now let's talk more about
these controls on the back. And one of the first that I
want to draw your attention to is that this microphone
has an auto level setting. If you're filming in an environment where you know that the audio levels will be changing from quiet or loud often, and you're too busy to
constantly monitor your audio and make sure it's at the correct level, just flip this switch from
manual to auto and press record. No need to worry about
your audio levels anymore. The microphone will handle all that and make sure that they don't peak. Here's an example now if you want to hear how auto leveled audio
sounds with the Sony mic. And outside now, doing a
little outdoor testing, little walking testing here. Just set up for the reception. Things are looking good. I was really impressed
by this audio quality, but here's another example
with the microphone set to a manual audio level. On the back of the mic, there's
a dial that you can rotate to adjust the gain
level of the microphone, and in this case, this
dial was set to level four. Alrighty, now the audio
levels are off auto, set to manual at about
level four, I'd say. I think this sounds great, too. And what's really cool
is that when you have this switch set to manual, your audio gain is now completely controlled by this dial on the back of the mic. You don't have to dive
into your camera's menu to adjust your gain anymore. It's all on the dial. I love the simplicity of it. Lastly, you have other controls back here. You have something called ATT, which I believe stands for attenuate, and this switch will
help reduce the volume of the audio you are recording. If your audio is too loud, you can lower the audio
levels being recorded by 10 or 20 decibels. In my experience, I never
needed to turn this on, but it's really nice to have. Next, you have a switch called Filter, which has two settings, LC and NC. LC stands for low cut filter, and NC stands for noise cut filter. Typically a low cut filter will remove the lower rumble sounds that
you may record with your audio. Think if there's an
air conditioner blowing or it's a particularly windy day, the low cut filter will
help remove some of that (imitates rumbling) rumble. Above that, you will have
the noise cut filter, which will help remove the audio levels that are higher pitched and enhance the frequencies of the human voice. So if you're recording in a
particularly loud location, switching on the noise cut filter can help your voice cut through
all of that external noise. Next, you have an analog
and a digital switch, which we already covered. When in doubt, set this to digital. But if you notice the mic
isn't working with your camera, switch it to analog. And lastly, we have one
of my favorite switches in the top right, which has a circle, an oval that kind of looks
like a butt, and a mushroom. And this is not a Super Mario setting. This is one of the
coolest setting switches on this microphone, because with it, you can select how
directional you want the audio from the microphone to be recording. And when I tested it, I
was incredibly impressed. First, here's the microphone at its most directional level with the
switch set to the mushroom. With this setting, the
microphone's only going to pick up audio directly in front
of it and ignore audio that is off to the sides. Here's an example. I've just switched it to
a very directional mode, so now I'm straight on at the mic talking, and we'll see it picks it up. And then if I move the
mic slight to the side, here's about a 45-degree
angle of me still talking. Now I'm talking to the mic
from the side about 45 degrees. And now I have the mic
completely facing away, and I'm interest to see how
the audio is picked up now. As you can hear, that is super direct, and this is the setting
that I would choose if I was recording someone speaking directly in front of the microphone, like a bride or groom telling a story directly to the camera on a wedding day. Next let's go to the butt setting now, which is a setting that's gonna give you a wider range of audio. With this setting, the
microphone's going to record everything in a 180-degree area in front of the microphone. Here's another example. Now we're at the middle
setting where the mic is supposedly picking up everything at a 180-degree angle. And then here's me
slightly off center here, talking again, check, check check. Here's me completely off to
the side at a 90-degree angle. Test, test, test, one, two,
three, one, two, three. And here's me from behind the microphone, completely in the back, testing, testing, one, two, three. Do you hear how much wider that is? This is great if you're recording audio of a group of people, and this setting is the one that I found myself most commonly using with this microphone. Lastly, you have the circle setting, and this is really unique
because it essentially turns this microphone
from a shotgun microphone into an omnidirectional microphone. Check out how this sounds. Lastly, we have the fully
surround sound mode. In this case there's some
music playing over here. You may be able to pick
that up, we'll see. I'm gonna go slightly off center here and we'll see how this sounds, check, check, check,
testing, one, two, three. Finally, 90 degrees off center, test, test, test, one, two, three. Lastly, here's me completely facing away, test, test, test, one, two, three, check, check, one, two, three. See? You get full 360-degree audio recording. And this is great if you're, say, recording an interview with someone and you want to make
sure that you can pick up your audio of yourself
asking the questions to them as they respond. The only con of this is, of course, the microphone may also pick
up more ambient audio as well, so I would use this setting sparingly. So as you can see here, this microphone is really great, and the small and lightweight size, freedom from using a headphone jack, and powerful controls are three reasons that I really do love it. But that said, there are
two cons for this microphone that I want you to be aware of before you put your hard-earned beard coin down on it. And the first con is
something that I've seen from other reviews for this microphone, so I wanted to address it here as well. Notice how the RODE VideoMic Pro+ here has a very large and well-built
microphone stabilizer. This stabilizer helps
isolate the microphone from movement and will help prevent it from picking up any sounds
from your camera body whenever you're filming
while moving the camera. Now look at the Sony
ECM-B1M on the other hand. As you can see, there's no
visible external stabilization, but if you look down
here near the hot shoe, you'll see that this is actually
a free floating microphone that still has some
stabilization on the main shaft. The con of this microphone that I've seen other reviewers mention
is that there's a chance that this microphone could pick up audio from the mic bumping into
the support shaft here, and I was able to confirm this as well. But I was only able to confirm
this in certain scenarios. So if you're using this microphone on your camera handheld, for example, and you're doing smaller,
more controlled movements, I'm confident that you
will never experience any audio being picked up
by the microphone moving. And in addition, if you're wanting to vlog with this microphone
and are walking around at a slower, more controlled pace, you should be fine as well. Here's an example of me
walking at a reasonable pace while my camera and microphone
were on a SwitchPod. Got the audio plugged into the soundboard, got my lights set up, feeling really, really good about this
wedding reception here. Chill, relaxed wedding
reception, nothing crazy. See, no audio issues. But here's me walking again at a much higher rate of speed. I would consider this power
walking, almost running, which is something that I
never really do while vlogging, but I just want you to be aware of it. (audio humming)
(footsteps thudding softly) Hear that bassy, bumping
noise in the audio? There's the issue. So, I want you to be aware
that if you typically film very fast-paced videos where
you're jogging or running or doing anything else that may be shaking the camera violently, in that case, I cannot
recommend this microphone. But if you're like me
and many of your shots are far more controlled and smooth, then I have zero qualms
recommending this microphone to you. This brings us to the final
con for this microphone and that is the price. At a cost of $348 at the
time of making this video, this is significantly more expensive than the Deity V-Mic D3 at $200, and $50 more than the RODE VideoMic Pro+. But I would consider then that the Sony does come with a dead cat microphone cover while the RODE VideoMic Pro+ does not. If you do not see yourself using some of the unique features of this microphone, and if you aren't
annoyed by having a cable running around to your mic jack like I am, or if you use multiple camera brands and some of them are not
compatible with this microphone, in that case, I wouldn't recommend it, and I would go with one of
the mics from RODE or Deity. But, and this leads us to
the conclusion of this video, if you want a compact powered microphone that integrates seamlessly
with your new Sony camera and gives you a ton of features
and great audio quality, I think that the ECM-B1M
is a fantastic choice. With that, thank you so much for watching. I will link to this Sony microphone, as well as all of the other
microphones that I mentioned down in the video
description of this video. And in addition, it would
be a huge help to me if you would consider liking
this video and subscribing if you wanna see more videos
like it in the future. Also, if you happen to
be a wedding filmmaker, which you probably are, I'm reviewing this microphone from the perspective
of a wedding filmmaker, you probably want to book more couples and film more weddings, and I would love to help you out with that. I've created a free guide that's gonna walk you through some practical steps that
you can take right now in your business to book more couples and film more weddings. It's a completely free gift to you. You can download it at the link down in the video description. Thanks so much for watching
and have a great day. (upbeat inspirational music)
