Microphone for sound cameras?

[Patrick]

At some point in the future, I am thinking of buying a super 8 sound camera for exposing my one and only K40 sound cartridge. However, knowing my luck, I would probably end up with a camera without a microphone. I admit that i know next to nothing about audio. Are the types of microphones that would be suitable for these cameras be readily available - including the mounting system that attaches the mic to the camera? Or would it be best to find a deal that consists of both camera and original microphone?

[Will2]

Look for one on eBay with a mic, but if no mic just make sure it has a mic in... most seem to have little 1/8" jacks.

Honestly, the cheapest little mic from Radio Shack would probably do fine since the fidelity of the Super 8 Sound stripe is not that impressive.

I just bought a simple mic from there with a long 1/8 cord. I hand it to my kids and they interview people with it. I also bought an inexpensive wireless lavaliere setup but haven't tried it yet. I have about 8 rolls of Kodachrome Sound film left for the summer, then no more sound film until Kodak decides to make more.

I'm picking up a Zoom H4n this month for more professional applications. Most of my film work is for b-roll purposes without sound.

[JCook]

From my experience working with the stock Canon mic on a 1014XLS plug and play new/old doesn't work well.

I had attempted to use the stock Canon mic to drive the input of a Sharp mini-disc recorder. Due to an impedence mismatch the Canon mic didn't produce enough gain to properly drive the Sharps pre-amp input. If memory serves the Canon mic is not a passive device, it requires a battery therefore it does have some active internal components (low level opamp) and not just the mic element which caused the impedence mismatch. I'm running on grey matter here, don't shoot me if my memory is failing. What I do remember is for me it didn't work and I ended up reading reviews for inexpensive mics prior to purchase.

So in theory, conversely, if I were to attempt to use the Sony mic that I purchased to drive the Sharp as the input to my Canon S8 camera chances are it may overdrive/over modulate the S8 cameras analog mic input. If you have the ability to monitor the audio into your camera via earbud and have a method to manually decrease the signal level into the camera you may be able to attenute the mic input enough using the ear piece output as a sanity check. On my Canon there is a -10 or -20db switch (don't remember which) and a potentiometer to manually reduce the sound level into the Camera. I never tried the Sony mic on my Canon, it may have worked OK using the cameras manual attenuation settings.

When shopping for the sound S8 camera these manual mic settings may be something to shop for as part of your search criteria.

Then again as Will suggested whatever you purchase may work well together right out of the box....