Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Jun 21, 2022 by John Aldred Leave a Comment
Sony has announced its newest compact digital shotgun microphone. It’s the Sony ECM-B10 and unlike most on-camera microphones, it offers three different pickup patterns. And also unlike most other on-camera microphones, this one communicates directly with your Sony camera through the multi-interface shoe on top of the camera without any wires. It’s even able to provide it with power.
The ECM-B10 contains four microphone capsules that use “beamforming” technology to offer omnidirectional, cardioid and hypercardioid pickup patterns in a single microphone. It also features a 0/10/20dB attenuator switch, a noise cut/low cut filter switch, an audio level dial and a digital/analogue switch.
It’s aimed squarely at social media content creators and vloggers and presents a lower-cost alternative to the Sony ECM-B1M on-camera microphone. Quite significantly cheaper, in fact, at $249 for the ECM-B10 vs $349 for the ECM-B1M. But despite the price difference, it seems like a pretty versatile microphone – as you can see by the examples in Sony’s demo video above.
The hypercardioid – or “superdirectional” – mode, Sony says, is ideal for selfies or interviews with sound collected from a focused area directly in front of the microphone while attempting to block out noise off to the side and behind the camera. The regular cardioid – “Unidirectional” – mode works similarly to the above but has a slightly wider pattern, allowing your subject to move around a little or to capture multiple people talking side-by-side in front of the camera. The Omnidirectional setting picks up sound in 360° around the camera.
The Sony ECM-B10 features a built-in “shock and vibration suppressing design” to minimise low-frequency rumble and handling noise. That design is also dust and moisture-resistant, allowing you to use it outdoors in a range of conditions. It comes with a supplied windshield to help further reduce any noise you might encounter due to wind.
It requires no cables and no batteries, taking power through the camera’s multi-interface shoe and sending the audio data back down through the same interface. And it features a digital/analogue switch, allowing it to be compatible with a wide range of Sony cameras and all of the switches and knobs are easily accessible on the back of the unit – even when you’ve got the windshield on.
The Sony ECM-B10 is available to pre-order now for $249 and is expected to start shipping in July.
Filed Under: Gear Tagged With: Gear Announcement, On-camera Microphone, sony, Sony ECM-B10, Sony microphone
John Aldred is based in Scotland and photographs people in the wild and animals in the studio. You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.
John Aldred is based in Scotland and photographs people in the wild and animals in the studio. You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.
Dunja Djudjic is a writer and photographer from Novi Sad, Serbia. You can see her work on Flickr, Behance and her Facebook page.
Alex is a commercial photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She mostly shoots people and loves anything to do with the outdoors. You can see her work on her website and follow her Spanish landscape adventures on instagram.
Adam Frimer is a Guinness World Record holder, producer, and DOP based in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Adam owns a production company that specializes in corporate marketing and brand strategy. His videos have collectively hit over a quarter billion views
Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2022 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy