ABSTRACT

Depending on your topic, some background noise may be acceptable or even desirable. Just make sure you can hear your subject over the ruckus.

Unless you have a high-end professional camera, your built-in microphone is absolutely worthless for anything more than your 3-year-old’s birthday party. First, the microphone is built into the camera’s body, and is very sensitive to noise from zoom, focus and tape drive motors. The second problem is a matter of distance. Even though you can zoom in on a subject from across the room, the microphone is stuck 20 feet away. Trust me, you need an external microphone.