Review: Zoom Q8n-4K

Creating slick looking and sounding video is astonishingly easy nowadays. That’s largely thanks to the deluge of products designed to meet the demands of today’s ‘content creation’ generation. In such products, versatility is king. The more functionality crammed into a device the better. 

My (all pleasant and positive) experiences with Zoom have been around the Japanese company’s audio products: handy recorders, field recorders, mics, mixers, podcasting devices, even multi-effects guitar products. Imagine my surprise, then, when I received the Zoom Q8n-4K and discovered the presence of a built-in camera – I responded much like if McDonalds served me a fried rice – “stick to what you know!”

As it turns out, Zoom has a whole ‘Q’ family of video-capable products, so my outburst only betrayed my ignorance. The Zoom Q8n-4K is one such all-in-one gadget that wears enough hats to make it a content creator’s dream. It can record 4K video, four channels of audio, including two XLR inputs, or act as a webcam or USB audio device. Zoom’s slogan – ‘We’re for creators’ – couldn’t be manifested more perfectly in a product. 

LOOK AROUND

The Q8n-4K is a tidy little device and feels compact in the hand. Initialising the camera for action requires first flipping the X/Y microphone up 90°, then flipping the screen out 90° to face you if you’re videoing yourself. Reverse the sequence to pack it down into a satisfyingly small footprint, a lot like those transforming robot toys you had as a kid. Note the screen can only swivel horizontally – no up/down rotation. On the back of the camera behind the screen is the Power button, microSD card slot, Pad and Phantom toggle switches for the XLR audio inputs, and three buttons to engage the Mic, Ch1 and Ch2 audio in recordings. 

The unit can run off the included BT-03b Li-ion battery or accept power through USB-C. The battery charges when plugged into a computer. Use the tripod thread underneath to sit the unit atop a full-size tripod or one of those googly-legged desktop tripods – it’s definitely light enough. 

Helping you navigate the Q8n-4K are 11 small rubber buttons surrounding the LCD screen. Most of these buttons toggle through a selection of options (e.g. Mode cycles through four video and/or audio recording options, Res cycles through 4K/1080p/720p, FOV steps through five angles from Wide to Telephoto) and this makes the unit instantly user friendly. Changing a setting is no more complicated than pressing the right button a couple of times until you’re on the setting you want. Of course, this also means if you want to change settings in a fine grain fashion, you can’t. For example, image exposure is set using the Scene and Bright buttons: the first offers five pre-programmed ‘looks’ (Auto, Indoor, Outdoor, Concert Light, Night) and the latter is the equivalent of exposure compensation on a camera (High, Normal, Low). No shutter speed, ISO or white balance settings in sight – which some will hate, and others will love.

SOUND ADVICE

Four discrete channels of audio in a camera is a luxury to people who, like me, usually shoot on cameras with only a single mini TRS input. When you combine that with Zoom’s modular options to switch up the built-in mic, plus the fact that a Q8n-4K can also act as a webcam or USB mic, there’s actually a lot of flexibility here. 

Let’s start with the built-in mic. Included with the Q8n-4K is the XYQ-8n Mic Capsule with two fixed opposing cardioid mics to deliver a wide and accurate stereo image in front of the camera. In use, the mics perform beautifully. They capture plenty of detail and extend surprisingly low in the frequency range. They may be a little light on mids to my ears but are flattering enough to produce a satisfactory sound on a few guitar and vocal recordings I made. The manual gain pot is something I appreciate too. 

But if X/Y isn’t your favourite stereo mic configuration, don’t worry. Zoom’s got your back with a range of interchangeable mic capsules which slot right onto the Q8n-4K. There’s the XAH-8 with two rotatable mics to go from X/Y to A/B, the VRH-8 Ambisonic capsule for 360° immersive audio, MSH-6 for mid-side stereo recording, SGH-6 shotgun mic for a tight frontal pickup, SSH-6 mid-side shotgun for mono-compatible stereo recordings, and the EXH-6 with two XLR inputs. 

But wait, there’s more. The Q8n-4K has internal DSP which can be applied to any of the four audio channels, including a high-pass filter up to 240Hz, compression, limiting, levelling, de-essing and gating. Unfortunately these processors can’t be manipulated, they can only be turned on and off. They all sound perfectly acceptable and work well as functional tools rather than creative ones. Gain settings will determine how hard these processors work. With tasteful settings, the compressor lent a nice radio-like punch on a vocal dynamic mic while the limiter does a good job reining in level spikes. The De-Esser is rather heavy-handed and skims off a lot of high end even when the source isn’t particularly sibilant. The leveller was perhaps my favourite of the lot in that it worked seamlessly and transparently to smooth out the dynamics on spoken word.