external mic does not disable onboard mic?

bumkicho

bumkicho

Well-known member
It came to me as a surprise. I forgot to turn on Rode stereo mic connected to my GH1 for about 20 seconds. When reviewing the clip, GH1 onboard mic picked up the sound. Did I miss a setting where I can disable onboard mic while an external mic is connected?

If onboard mic cannot be disabled, then does GH1 combine sound from external mic and onboard mic when external mic is used?
 
Maybe it's a "feature" kind of like AGC? If it doesn't get anything from the external mic it kicks the internal back on?
 
Ben_B said:
Maybe it's a "feature" kind of like AGC? If it doesn't get anything from the external mic it kicks the internal back on?
Click to expand...


That would actually be kinda cool! I can't imagine any film-makers depending on the on-board mic for anything REAL important, alls I make is wedding videos...and use recorders for almost everything during the ceremony, but the on-cam mic is good for ambient...same for at the reception and pre-ceremony stuff...an on-camera AGC mic is good for that kinda thing IMHO.

But the built in mic sucks...even for just "ambient" stuff and syncing. For ambient stuff, I actually I like AGC on cameras very much, but the GH1's mic is very low quality...which is expected for the price.

Tomorrow I'm receiving an Azden SMX-10 stereo mic (only $68), and will try to see if this is true or not. With no audio meter on the GH1, if your mic battery goes dead, it would be cool if the built-in mic took over. I seriously doubt this is the case, but one can wish! :happy:
 
I suspect that this is a poorly fitting connector problem. Are you sure the mic connector is fully into the GH1 socket and fouling the case? They've not left much room there.
 
I attached an Azden SMX-10 to my GH1, and here's a few things I found...

I attached it using a Hosa 2.5mm-3.5mm right angle adapter. The adapter was rubbing the camera body, which would cause it to pull out just slightly...enough for the mic to be cut off.

I used a razor blade and trimmed down the adapter so that it doesn't rub the camera body.

However..

If the mic became unplugged (I tried this on purpose) DURING recording, the camera did not switch to the built in mic...there simply was NO audio. The mic icon remained on the LCD until you stopped recording.

If I turned the power off on the Azden mic, I still got audio from the Azden, just not as hot.
 
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