[BadAss]

I own a Sony VX2100 and have a wedding coming up in a few weeks. And I was wondering if it would be better to upgrade the built in mic to an external zoom mic for use at the speeches? I don't want any ambient sounds at this stage, just the person speaking and I think hand helds and radio mics are impractical.

Does anyone know if adding an external mic would reap any benifits over the excisting mic? I'll also be using a wide angle lense at this point so cant use an overly long mic with it.

Any recommendations?

[MarkE19]

Although I have never used you r cam I am sure that a good add on mic will improve the sound. What is your budget?

Something like the SENNHEISER MKE300D is a good starting point at £179.99 from www.keene.co.uk
Do a bit of searching as I'm sure I've seen this a bit cheaper elsewhere.

or if you want something a bit more then the Sennheiser K6 system is excellent, but the price is a fair bit more than the above mic. Do a search on here for it as I have suggested the K6 system in the past, but can't find a link to the kit now as I'm at work. expect to pay £500+ for it though.

Mark.

[MarkE19]

OK, so its 03:15 in the morning and I'm bored, so I've done the search for you. Take a look at my reply in This thread

Mark.

k6 system is good, but factor in the cost of a beech berakout box (£300), the big benefit of using an XLR mic system is that the signal is ballanced, even going through the breakout box (which connects via an unballanced audio / mic in socket) you loose this benefit.

MKE300 is good, try the E version on your cam first, its £40 cheaper and will probaly work fine.

For weddings I usually put a radio mic on the groom with the lavelier head half way down the grooms lapel (the side closest tot he vicar/priest/rabi etc), even a directional mic will suffer from reverb and any other ambient noise in beteween the camera and subject (coughing, farting etc) a omni radio mic with close pick up will not.

Sennheiser make pretty good radio mics from £300 upwards.

[BadAss]

Ive gone for the MKE300D from keene. I just think it would be too much hastle putting clip on mic's on people when there's a million other things to get right.

I also bought the Sony LCH-VX2000 hard carry case from Amazon.co.uk for £195 which I thought was very cheap.

Cheers guys.

[Kevo]

Good choice of mic.

I used to use one of these when I did weddings semi-pro nearly 10 years ago!

Try and get the mic as close as you can on the speeches maybe with the help of an assitance.
Invest in some quality extension cable for the mic and a good pair of closed back headphones.
I also used a paint roller extension as a mic boom arm!

[BadAss]

I suppose the question now is do I get the people to hold the mic or leave it attached to the camera?

If they hold it then I'll loose controle and if they forget to pick it up or pass it on then its all gonna mess up. If its on the cam then i'm garranteed ill get something half decent. What do you think?

[BadAss]

I could do with some new headphones too, the cats chewed the wires on the ones i've got now. Any suggestions?

[Kevo]

If you can put the mic on a small stand and place it on the table in front of them then that would be ideal, just remember that they 'pass the mic' on to the next person who talks.
Alternativley get someone to hold the mic on a boom either above, below or to one side but out of shot.
Don't forget to stick trailing cables down with good old gaffa tape. Don't want anybody tripping over them and sueing you!
Don't worry too much if you have to resort to leaving the mic on the camera. It'll still be infinitley better than the built in one. It really depends on how far away you are from the action.

Don't know about headphones, any half decent brand'll do, as long as they're closed back. It's not hi-fi music you're listening to.