I got exactly the opposite feedback on the Zoom from the guy we were going to be buying an audio booth from. The internal mics are more than acceptable for "prosumer" use and the front / rear surround works really nicely. Yes, it does record each set of mics as a pair of stereo tracks.
The other point is it's a small, portable setup at a €150 price point which you can also use as a decent Skype mic (scaring people as it's stereo!) and as a standalone audacity mic if that floats your boat. It's cheap, cheerful and excellent value. The K6 / M66 combo *starts* at double the price if I read right.

Noise Removal in Audacity is a world of pain. You need a clean section of background noise and even then, if you increase it too much, you end up chopping the end off of the spoken word. Mic it properly and life will be much easier....remember, you'll also want to compress (try the additional "compress dynamics" plugin for audacity) to reduce the difference between loud and quiet passages and this is also a black art. I've also taken to reducing my audio output significantly for FCP as it seems to want -6dB as a "max", rather than 0. Which is weird but I can live with.

Bret

it's "lapse", please

I haven't really used PK tether in anger, I can check maybe later one of the bodies under win7. Is it running as Admin? Did you change the save location? How fast is the disk it's saving to?

Bret

slate - the clapboard at the start and end of the shot
FCP - FinalCutPro

Zoom H2, that's the baby. Works really nicely for me. I have a superclamp and lite-tite to fix it to my tripod whenever I want - and I keep the audio on the camera so I can sync manually if necessary. I have a Rode deadkitten for wind use and it works very nicely. The H2 is very, very clean when recording and I used it the other morning over an expensive, large mic as it was quicker and just as good quality, especially when it's a three-minute video narration.

Bret

shockmount unless you're always going to use the cam tripod or rig-mounted.

Personally, I have a H2 and it kicks some very serious ass when dealing with recordings - and combined with some simple, cheap audio technica lavs and boundary mics, I can get pretty much anything I need / want. We hit a problem with the H2 being out of sync with the 7D - but then, that's why you have a slate - so there's an audio and visual cue for the beginning and end of shot. FCP can mess things around, though...

Bret

After doing some video with tungsten lights - man, they're hot. We were using 3 x 800W in a small flat and ended up with f4. And 35C. We overheated the 7D.

Bottom line? There is such a thing as too much power, but as soon as you increase the size of the object (for example to a car), then I see the real use case for 1000Ws and more.

Bret

yep, really really.

Having said that, it was after the second 4-hour sleep night in a row (damned friends...) and I was tired, meaning that it looked a *lot* heavier than it was.

I think I'm going to try and find a Lowepro passport sling to dump the camera gear in.

Bret

... I had my bag weighed at Frankfurt last week.... first time ever. Nearly got into trouble, but was saved by "oh, take the laptop out then". I think I'm going to look into something where I can stick the camera stuff in an insured, padded bag in the hold.

Bret

y'know - it's cos the wallabies escaped from their treadmill

Niiice set, really like the grey card contrast and "dual cone".

Bret

A couple of shots from today. I was properly tortured by the damned mosquitos when doing these, but I really like the final feel. Your thoughts appreciated.

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- Bret

I see no piccies..

Bret