Shot

5/30/2025: I'm working on too many things at once

Hours: While I was working on Micro, I realized that I could also create an on-camera shotgun mic for my Fuji X-M5. This is continuing my goal from Glow of creating a camera rig and using it to film at Undercity. Much of the development is parallel to Micro, with the base amplifier and signal circuitry being common between the two. This morning, I chose a microphone capsule to use for this and designed the schematic for the preamp. I was debating whether to use an onboard battery for this, or to power the preamp from an external power source. I chose to use external power, as VidGrip will be able to provide power both to the camera and microphone.

Bit of a change of plans, I'm going to do a stereo microphone because why not. The more I look into this, the more I realize that a lot of what I've been doing is unnecessary, as the camera has its own built-in preamp, and has bias power on the microphone connections, so I can power everything on-camera rather than externally. I have learned that the complexity of this project is less in the direct circuit, and more in the wave paths and the isolated mounting of the entire system. To get an idea of what I'm aiming for, I designed the 3d printed carrier, shock mount, and microphone mounts/directional waveguides in Onshape. I have the two capsules opposing each other at a 90 degree angle, keeping a tight sound stage while still providing stereo audio. For the shock mount, I am designing an outer frame around the microphone mount, using hair ties as elastic cord to suspend the microphone mount. This will help reduce noise from the movement of the camera itself. Each microphone mount has slots, causing off-axis sound waves to cancel themselves out, creating a directional pickup pattern for the microphone capsule. A low-density open-cell foam cylinder is inserted in each mount to protect from wind noise.