One enemy of good sound is wind. When it blows directly into your microphone, it causes the microphone to capture a rumbling. One way you can ameliorate audio recording in this type of noisy environment is by using wind protection.
For example, wind socks; they are just a sponge that goes over the microphone to stop the wind from getting directly into the capsule. However, these are not very good for very high gusts of wind. If the wind is woefully strong, you may want to use something a bit more robust; a rycote softie. It is a fur cover that goes over shotgun microphones. The way it works is by having the wind disperse among all the fibres as opposed to blowing directly into the microphone capsule. There are also small fur covers that can go over lavalier microphones. So bear these in mind because you may need to use wind protection when you’re using your microphones at your next shoot.
That’s it for our ProCourse on Microphones! We learnt what a microphone is, types of microphones, microphone form factors and wind protection. Now, you are a bit more informed about the decisions you can make about your choice of microphones for your next shoot.