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I have a film project later in the year that will require ambience recording in Samoa in high humidity - I'd appreciate any advice of potential issues from any similar experiences?

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2 Answers

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I live in Florida, so I'm close to an expert on this...

I know that Schoeps stuff doesn't like humidity. Starts making this high pitch "whining" noise that won't stop till you blow dry them off.

MKH416s, 816s, 800s are all great in humidity. Ric Viers has a video where he literally has water condensing on a Rode NTG3 and it still worked great (NTG3 sounds a lot like a 416).

The biggest thing you want to do is let your mics warm up (like you would a camera or your eye glasses). If you go from cold AC to hot and humid, you'll get condensation. Let the mics warm up for a while before you plug them in, or you might have some problems. Bring some towels with you to wipe down the outside of the mics in cases of extreme condensation.

In most cases, mics are fairly resilient to humidity (especially dynamics). What mics will you be using?

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my Sanken CSS5 and MKH70 - it will mostly be location based ambiences, as well as a lot of village recording – tim prebble Aug 27 2010 at 20:45
@tim - I use the CSS-5 outside all the time here and have never ever had a problem with it. I've not used the MKH70 outside (as I don't have a zeppelin for it), but I use the 50 and 60 outside all the time and never have trouble with them. – Colin Hart Aug 27 2010 at 22:23
excellent! thanks Colin, I appreciate it! I'd hate to get over there to discover my mics do not work well/at all! My 722 recorder should be fine, I've used it in damp conditions & successfully coped... – tim prebble Aug 27 2010 at 22:49
When recording swimming events we use to bring ambience mikes to the pool zone and let them warm up for about one hour before we use them. Video crew use to do the same with the cameras and video monitors. Anyway, MKH series work well in humidity, I´ve used 30, 40, 70, 406 and 416 and never had a problem with any of them. – inigo Sep 5 2010 at 22:12
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My MKH 418s works great under harsh humidity. Used it in South East Asia, South Africa, and it seemed to hold up beautifully.

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