Luis Caffesse
Admin
IIt also comes with headphone jack to monitor sound being recorded.
Not quite - it comes iwht a headphone jack which will allow you to monitor the sound going through the beachtek... but keep in mind that's NOT what's being recorded...
the only way to monitor the recorded signal would be to monitor off the 5D itself, but unfortunately Canon (along with Panasonic) didn't seem to think a headphone jack was worth the effort to add to these cameras.
That may not seem like a big deal - but just last week I was shooting some tests with the 5D, partly to see if the audio was "good enough" for some of the stuff I shoot. I tested the Zoom, along with the Beachtek, as well as just the 5D on it's own....
Well, when it came to the beachtek, we shot about a minute of basic interview stuff (just tests)... some basic talking, etc, everything sounded great via the headphones.... go to play it back, and guess what? Static. Nothing but white noise. No audio had been recorded.
And yes, I'm certain that was user error... obviously some setting incorrect, something not hooked up right, any number of things could have gone wrong - but the point is exactly that - any number of things can go wrong at any moment, and if you're not monitoring the actual recorded signal you have no way of knowing because the audio coming out of the beachtek's headphone jack sounds great... EVEN IF the camera isn't recording anything.
Until these manufacturers decide to take their own claims seriously about the great audio recording capability of these cameras (read both Canon and Panasonics sites on the DSLRs and you'll see paragraphs devoted to the audio capabilities) and include the simplest of things (ie a headphone jack) onto the camera - the only way to confidently record and monitor audio is going to be some sort of dual system.
Anything other than monitoring the actual recorded signal is taking a serious risk.
Just my two cents.