Today, I am testing out and directly comparing three directional microphones for film and video production. These are shotgun-type mics. The most expensive model is from Sennheiser; next – at half the price – is the Rode NTG4+ mic (reviewed in my previous post). Finally, we will take a look at VidPro XM55, the cheapest shotgun mic I could find. This way, we’ll see whether spending much more money gives a significant improvement in audio quality.

Here is my video review

I’ve made available for you audio samples from these microphones. You can download them here.

You can buy the microphones here

Sennheiser MKH-416 shotgun mic on and

Rode NTG 4+ microphone on and

VidPro XM55 shotgun mic on and

I connect my shotgun microphones to the Zoom H5N portable audio recorder. You can get this great recorder here