Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I produce Interview style videos for a living. I use a Professional field recorder with matched stereo microphones for my primary audio track. Recently I decided to add a "camera mount" shotgun microphone as a safety, aka a scratch track. The "on camera" microphone was useless, so why not? There is nothing more frustrating than shooting a set, then finding out your memory card or drive failed and you have no audio. So, I tried 1/2 a dozen different microphones ranging from a $30 "cheapie" all the way up to the $230+ Rode Pro. So, the final decision was between the Rode Pro, and an inexpensive TAKSTAR (A brand I'd never heard of before). Evidently, the people behind TAKSTAR manufacture 99% of the shotgun camera microphones "for" brand name manufacturers like Opteka, Azden, AT and (you guessed it) Rode. To my complete surprise, the TAKSTAR SGC-598 performed 99% as well as the Rode Pro, both indoors and outdoors. In fact, when editing audio in Post the TAKSTAR track was easier to work, with since it had a more neutral range. The Rode has a very heavy mid-range push (their "trademark" sound) which is fine for family videos or making your voice sound better on amateur documentaries, but very annoying to work with in a professional audio editor. It was so inexpensive I picked up a second one as a spare (just in case) and plan to use them on all future shoots. The audio ended up being so good, I found I can easily use it as primary audio if my main system fails someday. Sure it will take a few hours to tweak/EQ, but it's a viable backup track, for practically free. My verdict, if you want an inexpensive, great sounding shotgun, this is the way to go. It's easy to use, has great sound, decent line level, and it's well built. It also uses AA batteries.