Peter OCS

It's absolutely an improvement! I don't think that's being disputed, it's more that using the audio fed to the DSLR instead of the tracks recorded directly on your F8n means choosing to add noise (and potentially some coloration of the sound) due to the DSLR pre-amps. While the audio from the F8n fed to the DSLR will still be a vast improvement from a Video Mic, it's in the nature of sound folks to want to recommend the workflow that will result in the absolutely best, crispiest sound you can get. 😄 I'd also add that, if you're interested in the entire process of filmmaking and audio through to post-production, editing footage without syncing the ISO tracks from your mixer before you start cutting can have a cascade of sometimes unfortunate effects on the post audio process. For your post sound editor and mixer, having more flexibility in how they build the audio world of a film means you get better results. Sometimes a mix track sent to a camera is perfect and able to be used in the final mix. Other times, and especially in narrative, the sound folks need to get in and edit or remove things in the individual isolated tracks (boom, lav, plant mics, etc) to build a quality mix. It may be that you're doing it all yourself right now, but planning for the future and building good workflows that will scale up to when you are able to bring in more people to work on your films is never a bad thing. Dual system (camera and audio recorded separate) is pretty common, so learning those workflows now will only make things easier for you as your work and films grow.

Reviving this thread to see if anyone has had a similar issue to one that happened to me this weekend. I just purchased a used F8n (not from an authorized retailer, which I am already regretting) and took it out for a shoot this weekend. I had done a test shoot the day prior to make sure TC workflow was good and had no issues using a Tentacle Sync unit to send TC to the Zoom. On the shoot day, I go to send TC to the Zoom and can't get it to recognized the external TC from the Tentacle. I was going to just unplug and replug in the Tentacle to BNC cable and see if that fixed it and realized that the BNC connector was quite stuck. I ended up having to use a wrench to depress the connector enough to get it loose. I was able to successfully connect with the TC output connector on the Zoom with the same cable, and successfully remove the cable from that port as well, so I was able to have TC for the day, but it would be great to not have a less than functional unit. My best assumption, given that the same cable worked on the output port, is that it's an issue with the BNC input on the Zoom itself. I talked to Zoom and they said they had never heard of this issue before, so I was curious if anyone else has encountered this problem or something similar? It's possible there was a bit of stress on the cable from resting on the bottom of the bag I was using, but I tried to make sure the unit was supported so that there was no pressure on the cable, and Zoom didn't feel that this kind of usage would be likely to cause this issue anyway.