Camcorder Built in Mic, or External?

[VideoTechMan]

I was wondering on whether the audio quality based on connecting an external microphone to the camcorder would be better as to using the built-in mic thats on the camera. I have the Sony TRV-350 D8 camcorder and just today I bought the Shure PG-58 microphone with the XLR connections, along with a Yamaha MG10/2 mixer. Now the camcorder has an 1/4" mic input, so its obvious that I will probably need an XLR adapter to connect the mic to the camcorder.

Has anyone used an external mic with their camcorder? If so how were the results?

VTM

[gshelley61]

A remote mic will drastically reduce camcorder motor noise. Also important for dialog to isolate the speaker from surrounding noises (that's why TV reporters use hand held microphones). Sign Video makes high quality XLR to camcorder mic input adapters:

http://www.signvideo.com/xlr-pro_xlr_adapter-audio-mixer.htm

[Slyce]

External microphones can make dramatic improvements to the audio quality of your footage. I use Sennheiser's UHF radio micophones (with lapel mic) on a Sony TRV-11E MiniDV video camera. Audio quality is clean and focussed, as opposed to the broad coverage the built-in mic records.

It's definitely worth following up on.