Sound from USM or IS ?

[mike.online]

Hi All,

Quick Question, I'm using the internal mic in the 5D and i'm getting a constant crunhing sort of sound out of the audio in the 5D. Is this USM or IS ? If its IS, then its easy enough to fix (yes the test is easy... i'll try today).

but on the topic of fixing, would it be easy enough to remove this background noise with a filter? anyone had any luck trying to do this ?

- Mike

[k bennett]

Hey, Mike,

The internal mike just has too many compromises to make it usable, at least IMHO. If you want a simple camera mounted solution, get a short shotgun mike like the Rode Video Mic or the Sennheiser MKE 400. These will run the audio directly into the camera if you want, which still doesn't fix the auto gain problem, but at least you'll get cleaner sound from the mike. The shock mounting will reduce handling noise, and it should be far enough from the lens to eliminate IS noise.

The better solution is to use an external audio recorder, of course, but that's another step up in cost and complexity. But it's much better.

Good luck.

[Chris Sanderson]

From my experience with the Canon 5dii and the 7d, if the lens' IS is switched on, virtually any mic mounted on the camera and positioned above the lens will pick up the grinding noise of the IS - some lenses are far noisier than others. Shotguns are less susceptible but still unacceptable. Shock mounting makes little difference since the majority of the noise is picked up through the air, not through the body/mounting.

The grinding noise is fairly wide spectrum so it is very difficult to filter out.

The solution is to set IS off or keep the mic well away from the lens.

[mike.online]

Thanks for the replies  

Just as is always expected with photography: "further investment required. "

would make a good product warning label