Hello Kaye and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.
Audio language can sound pretty weird to the uninitiated. Let's start from the beginning.
All condenser mics have a diaphragm. It's what the sounds hits. The diaphragm moves and that motion is converted into electricity.
Shotgun mics, those long things with the slots in the tube, have their diaphragms at the bottom of the tube (except for the Sanken CS-3e). Shotgun mics are great in spaces where there isn't a lot of reflected sound. That's why the AD yells "Quiet On The Set!"
Outside shotgun mics work well, but in a big downtown city like NY, the street and building walls can be very reflective. Reflections are a problem because while the shotgun mic is very directional at high frequencies, it's not very directional at mid and low frequencies. So it picks up a lot of reflected and side sound; cars, trucks, people passing by, HVAC noise, lawn mowers, helicopters, etc.
Hypercardioid or supercardioid mics usually do better on the boom in normal indoor rooms and they can also be used outside, although they may not have the reach of a shotgun. If you're within a couple of feet with one of these, you should be just fine.
The Schoeps cmc641 and Sennheiser MKH 50 are examples of the better hyper/supercardioids.
They sound way better than most other mics of the same pattern and are industry standard.
This might help you wrap your head around mics:
http://idisk.mac.com/tyreeford-Public/Video/Ty%20Ford%20Mic%20Tutorial%20VI...
Regards,
Ty Ford
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Ty Ford's Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
