It’s an easy mistake to make because of the shape. This is a RØDE VideoMic GO II which is designed to be used on or off-camera and when you remove the foam cover you can see it’s a short metal tube. It looks a lot like a RØDE shotgun mic like the NTG series, just a little shorter. But it’s not a shotgun mic.
So a big thanks to the folks at Bubblebee for setting me straight on that one, and for giving me the low-down on a whole bunch of other audio stuff at an open day at my local camera dealers Wex (that’s in the UK). Bubblebee makes a whole range of microphone wind-muffs, clips and invisible lav mic attachments which I’m going to check out, but they really know their audio and didn’t mind answering my questions.
So although the VideoMic GO II looks like a shotgun mic because of its shape, it’s a very different thing. Shotgun mics are designed with a very tight sound pickup pattern – they’re like the audio equivalent of a telephoto lens.
RØDE categorizes the VideoMic GO II, however, as an on-camera mic. Although it might look like a shotgun mic, it’s not. It’s more of a general purpose microphone that picks up sound mostly from the front but a little from the rear in a ‘supercardiod’ polar pattern. I’m just using the RØDE mic as an example – there are many other microphone makers.
The VideoMic GO II is much better than omnidirectional mics built into cameras and phones, even if you’re still mounting it on the camera, because the pickup is focused broadly on what’s in front of the camera and a just a little to the rear. So you should point the camera at what you’re filming but it will still pick up your voice if you speak.
The VideoMic GO II can also be used off-camera as a desktop mic or on a rig or boom – it’s pretty versatile. But if you want to target a particular person or a performer when you can’t attach a mic directly, you need a shotgun mic for that precise focus, maybe mounted on a boom and worked by a trained boom operator if you’re on a movie or TV production set, so that you can keep the mic and boom out of the shot (except on TV blooper shows).
What might confuse things, though, is that the RØDE VideoMic GO II and the NTG shotgun series both use a ‘supercardiod’ polar pattern with a roughly hemispherical pickup pattern. This is a very common polar pattern for microphones for all kinds of different purposes, but it doesn’t tell you about each mic’s specific directionality. The difference is that with a shotgun mic, the pickup is focused on a much narrower angle.
So don’t judge a microphone by its appearance. All-purpose on-camera mics can look like shotgun mics, but they’re not. You might know that already, but it’s a reminder to camera kit reviewers like me (especially me) that there is a difference.