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Question

How to use a non-Canon ext mic with a Legria/Vixia HFS-21?

Jun 10, 2011 11:15AM PDT

I have a Canon Legria HFS-21 video camera and a non-Canon external microphone with a 3.5mm jack input - a Que Video Microphone.

I bought this after hearing a well known Australian videojournalist talk about it. He uses it with his Sony equivalent video camera and the quality is fantastic.

When I plug it in I cannot hear anything other than an audio drone sound. If I tap the microphone really hard I can get some sound out of it and the same if I blow very hard into the mic. However, normal sound that the camera's internal microphone picks up is not picked up.

I have tested the mic with my digital Marantz audio recorder and after finding the right settings with the microphone manufacturer's help, it works fine (so the problem is not the mic).

The manufacturer is still looking into the problem with the camera and it's not just this model it doesn't work with. It also doesn't work with the Canon HV100 (I think that's the model... one of the more pro models anyway).

Can anyone help? I have tried a mono to stereo converter on the off chance that was the issue, but that hasn't solved the problem.

The auto gain control has been suggested as a problem, but the only AGC I have on my camera relates to the image as far as I can tell and doesn't seem to change the audio no matter what it is set at.

Thank you in advance for all help and suggestions.

Emma

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