M. Gilden
Canon DSLR Moderator
i agree, dishe, you can get decent audio with ml and the onboard mic. i also plug a sony stereo mic into the camera and get excellent audio. i do use a zoom h4, this gives me the most flexibility in post, i can use both tracks if i want, maybe just to add ambience...
Well, I don't actually use the onboard mic ever (when would you use that?), but I use a mic into the camera's jack all the time. I like to keep my setups as simple as possible to minimize setup and take down, so I was very thankful not to need an external recorder.
But... there was one shoot recently where I wasn't monitoring the audio and accidentally had the gain in camera set too high, resulting in overblown bits of talking.
The client didn't notice or care, so we went with it, but having a backup source of audio can be a good idea at times. Also, I'm not so sure that I'd fault the camera for that, since I very well could have made the same mistake with any sound recorder!
But this discussion is off topic, better suited for the Audio Thread:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?240822-The-Canon-DSLR-Audio-thread