Antarctic Recording with the Zoom H8.
I took a professional and minimalist recording set up, to the coldest continent on Earth.
It is very difficult to pick the correct gear for a trip, and the right gear defines the difference between failure and success. This expedition hit more extremes than anywhere I’ve traveled before:
Extreme Cold - temperatures well below freezing, winds above 100km/h, and occasional blizzards.
Extreme Voyaging - a total of 5 weeks on an Icebreaker ship as it made its way across the southern ocean.
Extremely Remote - 4838 kilometres to the closest audio store.. or any store. Half the world away!
Extreme length - No turning back until I returned to Hobart after five months of Antarctica.
During my search, I talked to Australian Zoom partners; Dynamic Music, and they assured me the H8 would meet my criteria and survive the expedition successfully. So they loaned me an H8 handy recorder.
How did it go?
Moisture:
My journey to Antarctica began with a 20-day sea voyage; this is where my first concern arose: How will it handle salty sea moisture and snowfall while underway?
I recorded with two DPA4006s on the bow of the Icebreaker AIVIQ. I did not use a chunky case with my setup, sometimes leaving the H8 with minimal weather protection as it snowed. If the H8 couldn’t handle it, I had a sneaky Zoom H5 packed away in case of complete failure.
Because of the H8’s sturdiness and durability - I never had to use my backup recorder.
The H8 got mildly wet several times on the voyage, each time due to snowfall landing on the case. The temperatures were not yet cold enough to keep the snow frozen. This proved to be no problem, even across the five Antarctic months and the following few months. There have been no signs of water damage.
Freezing Temperatures
The frozen continent feels exactly as it sounds. And when the winds hit, if you don’t have excellent insulation and protection.. well, you’ll be in trouble quickly. When I headed out on my recording field expeditions, I usually wore four layers and carried my survival bag in case the weather turned for the worse.
Several times I set my gear up to record overnight or for an extended 4 to 8 hour session to capture the stunning Antarctic ambiance. Initially, I was concerned with how the cold will affect my gear. I staggered my outside recordings from 1 hour to 2, to 3 and 4… Eventually saying ‘to heck with it’ and leaving it all out overnight. When I awoke, I popped my four layers on quickly and hopped out to my recording location. There the H8 was, recording away without a glitch and very cold to the touch, but hey, it didn’t seem to mind one bit. It was through these extended recordings that I managed to capture some of my favourite ambiances in Antarctica: brilliant strong gusts across the hills, Ice creaking and cracking as it melted on the shoreline, and much more.
Touch Screen Usability
Here I was both happy and disappointed. I quite like the LCD touchscreen of the H8, It’s colourful and will work even with a slightly wet surface. That was important to me as my gloves were often a little damp from the snow. What’s more, is that as long as I stripped back to my thin gloves, the screen would respond immediately and I could pop my chunky ones back on if necessary. The screen has a great level of sensitivity.
Where I was let down was the screen visibility, I constantly had to adjust my position and shadow it with a hand whenever I needed to view the screen outside. The H8 does have an LCD brightness adjustment, but even with it at 100, I still struggled with an unobstructed sun (which was most of the time).
During the Antarctic summer, the sun is always visible and bright. This was the season that I spent there, and I do think this problem would be less of a hassle almost anywhere else. Indoors was no worries at all.
The Trade-off:
The XY capsule that comes with the unit proved to me to be invaluable. This is what defines a handy recorder, and in places where you have magnificent creatures that may show up around any corner, your set-up time is critical. The brief power on time of the H8, paired with the XY capsule mics, allowed me to capture Adélie penguins making curious sounds, showing up from unpredictable locations. I captured Skua wings beating above my head and baby Storm Petrels calling out for food only because of the nature of this unit as a handy recorder. This unit is in Zooms’ H series for this reason, its ability to capture sounds at a moment’s notice without set-up time.
The handiness of the capsule mics that the H8 can house also allowed me to record a last-minute notice tour of the engine rooms in the Icebreaker AIVIQ. I simply wouldn’t have been able to get together my mic set up in time otherwise. The trade-off for this ease is, put very simply: Zooms’ F series. This series may not have the capsule mics that make the handy series so quick and easy, but it has 32-bit recording and pre-amps that are a step up. These benefits that come with the F series are not afforded to the H series. However, I owe many beautiful recordings to the Handy series after this trip and am very happy because of this.
Final Thoughts
The H8 handled the extreme cold without flinching, showed no signs of wear from moisture, and continued operating for the entire 5-month journey, recording whatever I requested of it without a single glitch (except when I forgot to bring the SD card on a field trip once).
The screen brightness was an issue I had to work with, and I expect most field recorders out there with screens would exhibit similar issues with such prolonged extreme brightness.
It’s hard for me to expect much more from an audio recorder in such harsh conditions. It exceeded my expectations, and I will happily continue to use the H8 with confidence.
Well done Zoom: You’ve made a truly sturdy and durable professional recorder for beginners or professionals looking to capture quick and elusive sounds that other recorders simply aren’t quick enough for, and is of a high enough quality to be of everyday use for field recorders, podcasters, and music performers everywhere.
