Best microphone accessory for sony camcorders?

Question

im looking for one that blocks out all sound except for the one's im pointing the microphone at. something like a directional microphone. something that doesn't distort sound and only focuses on the sound that it's pointing to. also, it has to fit sony

Answer 1

If your Sony camcorder has a 1/8" (3.5mm) mic-in jack, then your best bet is to get a wireless mic that lets you place the mic closer to the audio source. Audio Technica makes an affordable lavaliere that uses a 1/8" jack to connect the base station to the camcorder's mic jack. If you use a good shotgun mic, they will typically use an XLR connector so you will need an XLR adapter like those from BeachTek or juicedLink. Sennheiser makes awesome shotgun mics that are extremely directional (they have mic elements that pick up the audio coming from the side of the mic and reject that audio signal sent to the camcorder - but they are REALLY expensive).

If your Sony Camcorder has only the Sony proprietary "Advanced Interface Shoe", then the ONLY mics you can use with that are Sony-proprietary mics that are compatible with that AIS. Since the Sony AIS "shotgun mic" needs to be attached to the camcorder, it will pick up all the audio between the mic and the audio source. It has no way to know to pick up the audio you are pointing at because of the way sound travels.

There used to be an adapter that Sony made for the German market (I think it was the VKC100) that allowed you to connect and 1/8" mic connection through the AIS, but they discontinued that a LONG time ago and finding them in the US (bhphotovideo.com was the ONLY place that had them) is impossible...

Sound "distortion" happens when the audio is too loud for the camcorder's auto mic gain to handle. Some Sony camcorders have a mic ref level menu option - "Low" for recording LOUD environments. Some of the higher-end Sony camcorders have full manual audio control so you can bypass the auto-mic gain circuit. MOST of the consumer-grade camcorders from Sony, Panasonic, Canon, JVC and others have no way to control the audio so loud audio will be over-saturated and sound really muddy. You could spend LOTS of money on a mic, and this audio quality will not change. You need to control the audio level going in to the camcorder.

An alternative is to use an external "field recorder" like those from M-Audio, Edirol, Marantz, Zoom, TASCAM and others (my favorite, Fostex). They all have manual audio control. In the editing process, replace the audio from the camcorder with the audio from the field recorder. Since this is external, the camcorder manufacturer does not matter.