On Wed, 26 Dec 2001 00:30:22 GMT, mdknight@pacific.net.sg (Sir Loin of Beef) wrote:

>So far I've seen 2 Sony microphones available for the PC9.
>
>One is cylindrical and seems like a directional mic. The other is
>shaped somewhat like a hemisphere rather than a long cylinder and fits
>nicely on top of the PC 9.
>
>Can anyone highlight the differences between the 2? Do they really
>perform much better than the built in mic, since the PC9 does not use
>an intelligent hot shoe and cannot use audio zooming?
>
>I've been recording with no additional hardware and in crowded
>conditions, the crowd noise drowns out the subject I'm recording.

This is unlikely to change, with either mic. The smaller is
similar to the built-in mic, the other (908c) is only
slightly more directional. In crowd situations, unless the
speaker of interest is VERY close to the mic compared with
others, even a good shotgun mic will fail to separate the
voice of interest from the background very well... Large,
compared with the camera (and possibly showing in the image
area if a WA converter is used), the MKE-300 Sennheiser
is the best bet in a "inexpensive" ($175, and mono) mic
for isolating a bit a particular voice (but don't expect
miracles! ;-). BTW, "zoom" mics often sound quite bad
near at least one of the zoom extremes, and having it change
quality while shooting is not very desirable - better to
use a good fixed-angle mic...