How can I get the best performance from my camcorder's microphone?
All camcorders have a microphone and it's called a fixed microphone, meaning it's part of the camera, it's built into it and it can't be removed. So you've got to take a couple things into consideration. Where is your subject standing, where is the microphone placed? Couple of suggestions: if you have a mic jack, you might want to consider using a portable microphone in certain environments. If you have a headphone jack wear the headphones. Listen to the sound itself. A couple things you can do as well, is you can try bring things to shield the microphone from wind, if there's wind coming across it, just by either holding your hand where the wind is coming from can improve your sound. You also want to consider the levels. Is there a level control on the camcorder? Can you set levels yourself. Are standing too close to a speaker and it's blowing the sound out too loud. So maybe you can set manual levels. Let's say though that your camera has none of these. All you can do is press record and the sound you get is the sound you get. At least, you want to try and listen to or think of where is my subject placed. Maybe I can move closer to it, maybe I can change my positioning, am I standing next to something that's very loud and all I have to do is move a few feet to the left or right to improve the sound performance of that microphone. So think about the sound as much as you think about the video because it is as much a part of the viewing experience as being in focus is. Sound is really important.
