Reddit mentions of JK MIC-J 044 Lavalier Lapel Clip On Omni-Directional Condenser Microphone Compatible with Desktop Computer/Portable Voice Amplifier (Mono 1/8'' TS Plug)

The camera is fine for now. The big improvement needed it how close the mic is to your mouth. If you can plug in a lavalier and hook that to your camera you would be WAY ahead in production quality.

Something as affordable as this is all you need if your camera can work with it.

On a £100 budget, I recommend the [£69.98 Tascam DR-05] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004OU2IQG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B004OU2IQG&linkCode=as2&tag=hybrcamerevo-21), a [£21.99 JK MIC-J 044 lav mic with 20-20kHz frequency response & >58dB signal to noise] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00KMILKGS/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B00KMILKGS&linkCode=as2&tag=hybrcamerevo-21) and a [£4.66 Cables To Go 3.5mm Stereo Male to 3.5mm Mono Female Adapter] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002DWAXLE/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B002DWAXLE&linkCode=as2&tag=hybrcamerevo-21).

Here is why I recommend the JK over the Giant Squid: https://youtu.be/hkLVtPksn2I

With this setup, you will get much cleaner audio - but you will have to sync it with your video in the editing suite.

Hope this is helpful and good luck!

I've been 10 manning (no R8s), bhopping & DMing. I'm all cs, all the time.

Having used nearly every common mouse & keyboard (you can ask about any of them if you like),

Mouse - Zowie and Mionix are pretty great. top 2 mice ATM are the NAOS7000 (large, ergonomic), and the EC1-a (fairly large, semi ergonomic). Both are slightly heavy but amazing. What's nice about the naos7k and the ec1-a is they don't have issues. they aren't made of cardboard like the g400s, they don't have grip sides like the deathadder, rival, and castor, they don't have the screwed up mousewheel of the rival, they aren't laser like the sensei, they aren't a weird shape like the g303, they aren't crazy heavy like the g502, they don't have terrible build quality like the final mouse, and they're both big making them usable with big hands & a hybrid grip unlike the fk1 and za11.

Keyboard - Having used a shit ton of them, my top 2 are the Ducky Legend, and the CM Quickfire TK. Quickfire if you want something a bit smaller, Ducky if you want full size. what's nice about the ducky is the metal around the keyboard (you don't notice how nice it is until you use it), and I like the keycaps. What's nice about the quickfire is it's smaller than normal, but you don't lose any buttons.

Headset - I switched to the ad700x recently and it's pretty freaking amazing. It's known to have the best soundstage out there, and I'd highly recommend it. It's not a headset, but you can combine it with something like the JK Mic-J Clip On Mic and you should be good to go.

I love my H1's. They can auto level, which I personally want out of something I'm not monitoring. I own 3 Sennheiser G3 wireless lavs, which are pretty great and I use for narrative work, but I found them impractical for wedding work. The H1 is easy to use and is really pretty decent. I've even used them for ambient sound/live music, or even recorded it pointed at a speaker for toasts using the built in XY mics since they didn't have any kind of soundboard and I was nervous about the audio. They're also pretty small, especially compared to a wireless transmitter. It's also nice to be able to press record, lock the buttons, and place it on the groom/officiant. When I used the wireless lavs, I had a few people mute them which screws me over. Plus, they're cheap.

I experimented with a few mics, trying to find a compromise between size, attractiveness (I don't want a giant foam windscreen), and quality. I ended up with these - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KMILKGS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_mHmoybG5DVCFN . They give me pretty decent sound while being unobtrusive.

I'm no audio guru but I use these and I like how they sound.

All good questions. As far as the A6000 overheating, I own two of them which I regularly use for photography gigs. They work fantastic for photos, but I can only get about 20-40 minutes of video before they shut down and become worthless. A lot of that depends on the ambient temperature. I was riding in an air conditioned car the first time I noticed it. The camera overheated just from being turned on and in video mode. I've since learned that if you pop the back screen off (pull away from the body of the camera) then it probably won't overheat until you are actually recording. With the screen pulled away it lasts in that 20-40 minute window before it just shuts down on me. If you aren't going to be recording clips longer than 3-5 minutes and then giving the camera lots of breaks, you might never notice it.

As far as the other two cameras, I have been convinced that 4K downsampled to 1080p is just straight up better. If you're going to put it on a Tripod then you have an automatic two camera setup. You can film yourself at a slight distance and then you can cut in close (down to 4x zoom) without any quality loss just by zooming in editing. If you are publishing your videos in 720p (which might be beneficial in some circumstances) then you can zoom even farther without impacting the video quality. Suddenly, you have a full two camera setup without carrying anything more than your G7.

This eliminates the A6000 and Canon Mirrorless cameras because they only do 1080p. The quality of their 1080p video on both is fantastic (I have the EOS M1 and the A6000 and have used both successfully to film commercial projects). But given the option for so many more pixels is just too tempting to me.

If you're going to sit down and take the time to connect your phone as an external monitor then the articulating screen probably isn't as important. But I've done that connection once, maybe twice now. It is just all a royal PITA IMHO and is so easy to solve by simply flipping the screen around. Even if you can't really see the screen well (standing at a distance) you can at least see if you are in the frame which is more than enough in 99% of filming scenarios. You would also then have to manage the battery on two electronic devices throughout the day. Your phone as well as the camera. There would be a 10-30 second setup time before each video clip or photo to connect the app and you would burn through the cameras battery a lot faster since it is running the Wifi. Just a huge tactical nightmare as far as I am concerned.

As far as lenses, I do recommend splurging on the lens. The benefit of picking the G7 is that you will still have a fair amount left over for the lens. You can get the camera used (I see one on Amazon for as low as $420 -- other outlets may have even better). Then invest in a good lens like the Panasonic 20mm F1.7. You might even have enough left over to also snag the Panny 42.5mm F1.7. Those two lenses combined would give you a fair number of shooting options. Or you could get one or the other. Keep in mind that it is a 2x crop from full frame. So the 20mm will be a 40mm on a full frame camera. The 42.5mm is an 85mm (standard portrait length). If you are outdoors the standard kit lenses will probably be quite decent -- but I love having a creamy bokeh background :).

Finally, the EOS M and G7 both have external Microphone ports. One thing we didn't really talk about was audio. You could get a Rode VideoMicro or a pair of Sony Bluetooth Wireless Microphones (if you're going to be standing a little ways back from the camera). That will give you the best sound.

Sony Bluetooth Wireless Mic setup: https://www.amazon.com/Sony-ECMAW4-Wireless-Microphone-Black/dp/B00JWU6WWO

Best Lav mic under $100: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KMILKGS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Those together would make for a nice Wireless audio system. If you prefer more compact then the Rode VideoMicro or VideoMic Pro (more expensive but would handle the distance from the camera better) would be better options. I own all of these and they all work well as far as I am concerned.

I would LOVE if Sony could get their act together on the overheating. But even their solution for the A6500 (which is way out of your budget) is to just add an option to allow the camera to heat up and not shut down when it starts getting hot. That's not acceptable as far as I am concerned so I am probably going to ultimately abandon Sony and go towards 4/3rds for the time being.

Hope this is helpful. This is my opinion, but I'm not the be-all-end-all expert on these things. This is mostly just my experience trying to solve a similar issue to you over the last five years. Good luck! Let me know what you decide to get!

Yeah, I have a Olympus ME-51S and a JK® MIC-J 044 but I prefer the Giant Squid. The ME-51S is nice though too. I do have a Movo WS10n windscreen muff on it too.


Helmet is either my Bell RS-2 or Arai XD3.

> I want to use two cheap lapel microphones.

Do you have a link to the mics you're considering? It might be worth taking this from the abstract to the specific.

> Others use TRRS connectors and I don't know if they are getting power from the device they plug into.

From the quick research that I did, it seems like the TRRS mics that are designed to work with smartphones do, in fact, get enough power to operate from the connector. I don't think, however, that you will be able to drive two mics simultaneously this way.

> If I have two TRRS lapel microphones (presumably monophonic) how do turn them into one stereo channel on a TRS plug, to plug into my camera?

You would need to buy two "converters" (e.g. The AAA battery boxes), one for each mic. It's hard to say without seeing exactly which mic you're considering, but I'm guessing that the "output" connector on the beltpack is TRS, not TRRS. From there, you would connect each TRS cable to the Left/Right breakout cable which would plug into your camera.

Doing it this way would give you one person's voice in your left ear, and the other in your right. You would be able to separate these signals when you edit the video later.

> Would I be wiser to find a pair of single-channel lapel microphones to simple TS plugs and use an adaptor to combine them into one stereo plug - a TRS plug?

That might be simpler, I'm not sure either way is "wiser." Here's a mic you could try.

I think you would be better off making sure eveyone had their own mic. some cheap lavs, 4-channel mixer into your computer or recorder might be alittle cheaper than 2 yetis that need to be shared.

I highly recommend this clip-on wired mic, it's cheap and far higher quality than the price would suggest. Just plug it into your iPhone and you should see an immediate boost in audio quality.