Deity V-Mic D3 Super-Cardioid Directional Shotgun Microphone with Rycote Shockmount and PERGEAR Cloth for DSLRs, Camcorders, Smartphones, Tablets, Handy Recorders, Laptop and Bodypack Transmitters

This is a day-one first try review, I will update it after a little more use. To understand where I am coming from, I work as a professional, freelance sound mixer for TV/Film. I know my way around good microphones and good sound. Obviously, at this price point, I wasn't expecting SO much. I went with Deity because I wanted to give their products a shot after just breaking out into the mainstream, but I didn't want to spend too much, given my early reservations. I'm not a fan of Rode products in any way, shape or form, I am not interested in shoddy chinese products, and I did not want to invest $200 into the microphone I really wanted, the Sennheiser mke400.I am an amateur photographer, on the side, looking to get into some simple short documentary work (on my personal free time), and wanted a small, light camera microphone to throw onto my Canon Eos Rebel T3i to capture ambient sound embedded into the video file.Well, that's what this mic does.I tested this microphone indoors, with an air conditioner running, and the mic pointed at my mouth at around 1foot of distance, and did a control test with the onboard microphone.On a scale of 1-5, I would rank the Deity a 3, and the onboard microphone a 2. That's not much of a jump. The Deity provided slightly more presence, slightly more bass (low end), and slightly more directionality, but obviously that is because this is a supercardioid shotgun microphone, that is explicit in its design. Neither the Deity nor the onboard filtered out the air conditioning sound in any capacity that is audible.Nearly ANY microphone you slap on top of the camera will provide these results, or similar. I can only assume the microphone in the camera body is some kind of cardioid, but I have no way of knowing.The only thing I DO NOT like at all about this microphone is the on/off button. I do not like capacitive touch buttons, which this seems to be. I'll take a tried and true push button any day.Despite that, its good for my purposes. It is small, short, light, and slightly more directional than the onboard. I appreciate that the windscreen is specifically molded to the shock mount, I appreciate that it comes packaged with the shock mount, and they even provided a cleaning kit which is pleasant. This definitely would not be my choice for anything other than personal pet projects, not even if I went off the deep end and decided to try V-LOG'ing. It does not come anywhere near the bar.Still undecided when it comes to Deity products.

I got a powered mic for my Fuji XT4 because I thought having a louder signal would make it so I could turn the camera mic volume down to burry the noise floor on the noisy fuji preamps. This mic isn't really loud enough to do that in fact I think it's a little bit quieter than my non powered rode micro. I should have gotten the D3 Pro with the adjustable volume but I figured that the cheaper D3 would have a moderately loud volume so it would be okay but it's on the quiet side. Also this mic might not get you the results you are expecting if you are recording loud live shows. It apparently has some kind of input clipping point that can get overpowered by a loud input and cause horrible distortion. I very luckily had a backup recording with a Zoom device for my last live band after switching from the Rode micro. The rode doesn't have it's own input circuit so it doesn't get overpowered by the loud input at live shows. And lastly the included foamy thing does almost nothing in the wind. Again going back to the rode micro it includes a proper wind cover so it does much better. In a perfect situation this sounds better than the Rode micro but it's less universal and doesn't work well in some situations.

So i have this mic and the rode mic go, both great mics, i prefer this one though because it has way less base in the vocals, rodes base feels to much to me, some may love it but i dont, i already have a deep voice, though i did notice it pick up way more noise, which i guess is a good thing but not for vlogging around traffic, so i had to put my db on my gh5 down to -12db to have good levels... when i listen to my voice though on rode and this both sound equally good, its hard to tell which is which other than the slightly more base on rode, only thing i dont like is it needs a triple a battery, but the battery life is pretty long, like 51 hours, and i have a few rechargeable batteries as backups so it aint a big deal... but would still prefer no battery for the peace of mind... like the rode mic.

I'd originally purchased a Rode VideoMicro Mic. Wasn't happy with the sound. Lot of white noise and interference. Purchased a shielded cable and that helped some, but not much. Then I saw that you needed a transforming adapter (Rode VXLR Plus XLR to 3.5mm Female TRS Transforming Adapter) to make it work with phantom power from a mixing board. Got that. Still not great. Had to do too much processing and overdo the noise gate setting to get a good sound. I didn't like that.I gave up and got the Deity. Plugged it into the adapter using the shielded cable, and it sounds great. No white noise, hums, just the normal pickup you'd get from an open mic in an open, untreated room. But most importantly it works great as a boom mic for video conference calls.Couldn't be happier with it.

Update: (4.5 stars) The seller, Pergear, reached out to me to resolve the issue by asking me to upload video footage of the issue. I haven't been able to recreate my initial problem (a good thing) but I continue to worry about lost audio (a bad thing) so I just need to be cautious.At the end of the day, I think this is a great sounding mic that looks perfect on my camera. I use it with my Ronin-S gimbal and the sliding design of the mount helps a surprising amount when balancing. I would recommend this mic, and I'm considering purchasing the Pro version as well.----Initial Review: (2 Stars) I thought this mic had a chance at being a Rode killer, and I kind of still do. However, I find that this mic is constantly losing connection to my A7iii. I'll realize after several minutes that the mic has just randomly shut off. Maybe the auto-off feature is too aggressive? Maybe I have a faulty cable? Regardless, I'm sitting on a lot of ruined footage due to lost audio. Thanks, Deity.

Tested it vs. the built in microphone in my Sony A7 IV camera (a reasonably high-end camera). Quality was comparable. You get less sound coming in from the sides than from the inbuilt mike, as the Deity is a super-cardioid. I can't understand the other punitive reviews people are giving this. One star because it didn't come with a dead cat? (mine did, but it was like a bonus to get it) Not very fair. Someone else tested it from one foot away, and said it was only slightly better than their in-camera mike. No kidding - from one foot away, it will make very little difference. It's a shotgun mike. Try testing it with someone speaking 20 feet away, and see what difference the microphone makes in isolating the sound of a person speaking from the ambient background noise. It really works. For the price I am very pleased. If I have any issues I will update this review.

Makes a huge difference in sound on my Lumix G95 camera. Night and day really. Very happy with it so far and glad it came with the windsock. 4 stars out of the box. Will update in a few months of use as you never know what will happen in that time. Would recommend at this point though.

The sounds perfect!! The built quality is awesome!!With the On/Off aware system, battery life will last for weeks.... I have this mic since more than a month and I'm still running on the forst battery I poped in. But the thing is... I'M stressing out!!! I can't get any documentation on how this mic will warn me when the battery will die. There is a green led on the back of the mic but will it turn red? Will it flash? and if it does, how long do I still have? Can I finish my interview?Wind muff works ok but won't kill the wind. I'll DIY myself a deadcat with some synthetic fur to add more protection.Shockmount is great!! You can drag the mic more forward or backward on the hotshow. Very usefull!!In short, great mic.

For this price, I think this microphone is a good purchase. The microphone quality is definitely an improvement from the built-in microphone. It isn't the highest quality audio of course but for the purpose of making videos for friends and family, this microphone is certainly adequate.

I bought this as a cheaper alternative to RODE and its cheaper for a reason. The sound is great, but the build isn't. Returned immediately and bought the RODE Video Mic Pro. I also have the Deity D4 Duo which sounds amazing, bought one mic stopped working after a few months. If they can work on the build quality of these mics then they will completely crush their competition!