What mic should i buy for my Canon XL2 Camera?

Question

i am planing to have a show on a local TV and whnts to know what is the BEST choice in mics i can have .. i am looking to buy one Corded mic and couple of cordless mics . i basically wants to go out , and ask people questions on street, so its outdoor basically .. also i am loooking for best wilress mic system to use for a discussion qroup ... i want 8 to 10 people sitting and discussing issues but i dont want to use shotgun, i need a very good handheld wireless mic to attach to my Canon XL2 ... any suggestion ?

Answer 1

The BEST? In my opinion, the Sennheiser or Sony (pro) wireless lavaliers are probably best - the base stations are battery powered so they can mount on the camcorder or your belt and do not need wall power

This Senheiser system is handy because it has a lav and a adapter for a hand-held (you can use a Shure SM-58 with that adapter - note that you can't use the lav and the handheld at the same time...

http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-EW100EN...

These Sony's are typically used by news gathering folks - so they work well and are rugged:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Microphone-Bo...

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Handheld-Micr...

The similarities in all these units are that they are in UHF (not VHF, FM, 900MHz, 2.4 GHz or 5.4 GHz); they are full diversity; their base stations are battery powered for portability.

Your XL2 has 2 XLR audio-in jacks - if you want to be interviewing 8-10 people, you probably need more than 2 mics. Mackie makes a nice little 8-channel portable mixer that can connect 8 mics - then the mixer connects to the camcorder... or you can get a TASCAM digital recorder with a bunch of channels and replace the audio in the camcorder with the audio from the field recorder during post-production...