Zoom SGH-6 Hypercardioid Shotgun Microphone Capsule for Select Zoom Recorders

Zoom's SGH-6 is an optional shotgun capsule designed to work with the Zoom H5 and H6 portable recorders, as well as the Q8 HD Video/4-Track Audio Recorder. It adds a professional-quality hyperdirectional microphone, making these units into handy audio recorders for anyone working in film, video or live theater, or for ENG (electronic news gathering) applications.

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 microphone.

Shotgun mics have a narrower focus (sometimes referred to as more "reach") than an average microphone. However, shotgun microphones 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. So whenever you use a 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.