SGH-6 Shotgun

A “shotgun” is a long, cylindrical microphone which excels at picking up sounds in front of it while rejecting sounds to the sides and rear. Shotgun microphones are often used when you cannot position a microphone directly in front of a sound source. For example, if someone is speaking in front of a video camera and you don’t want them to hold an interview microphone up to their mouth, the solution is to use an off-screen shotgun mic.

Shotgun mics have a narrower focus (sometimes referred to as more "reach") than an average microphone. However, shotgun mics are not the audio equivalent of a photographic telephoto lens. Even though they do an above-average job of picking up sounds that originate from a short distance away, they always sound better when they’re physically close to the sound source. That’s why whenever you use the SGH-6 shotgun capsule, you should always strive to get as close as possible to the sound source, which often means hovering right at the edge of the frame of a shot.