Is Quality Audio Possible In-Camera for a Canon T3i ?

[Ed Stahr]

Your best best with the T3i would be to install Magic Lantern on the camera. https://www.magiclantern.fm Be sure to read up and watch a couple of tutorials before jumping in. It is a firmware as on that runs from the SD card and will allow you to disable auto-gain, manually set audio gain, etc. Also has a ton of video features (Histogram, zebras, etc).

Hope it helps.

[Jan Laidlaw]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I’ve heard that Magic Lantern doesn’t actually allow you to disable the auto-gain though: https://youtu.be/yTDgJBZE4Ww

I am wondering if anyone has used the Beachtek DXA-CONNECT XLR Adapter because that’s an option I’m considering, although I’d prefer a less expensive solution.

I don’t know if my attenuator is faulty but I can barely get any sound from it at any level and nothing comes through the headphone splitter either.

I was able to get some results using an ordinary mini to mini cable as shown here: https://youtu.be/AWi0ahWgoEc, but then I can’t use headphones. (Splitter didn’t work with the mini to mini set up either).

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[Blaise Douros]

The answer to your question (Is Quality Audio Possible In-Camera for a Canon T3i?) is a resounding no. You’ll need to record your audio separately on your Zoom recorder if you want it to be decent. The t3i’s audio preamps are hissy, are not properly equalized, and have a very low dynamic range. Magic Lantern can’t fix that.

I own a t3i and H4n in my kit. When I was using it as a primary camera, I could once in awhile get away with using in-camera audio tethered from the H4n, but only in louder environments where the hissing was covered. For interviews, it’s not a feasible solution. You might get away with it if you have the ability to control levels to where your primary audio is so much higher than the hiss that you can use a gate to cut the hiss. But frankly, that’s more of a pain in the ass than just syncing with the recorder audio.

If you are editing in Adobe Premiere, do a quick search on building Multicam Sequences–there’s a fast, automated way to sync camera audio with your recorder’s audio. Otherwise, just clap your hands before each take, and use the audio spike to sync the sound. That’s the sad reality of shooting with DSLR!

[Jan Laidlaw]

I appreciate the response.

I use FCP7 but am considering Pluraleyes. I find it a bit expensive though for my budget.

Found this thread as well: https://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?240822-The-Canon-DSLR-Audio-thread If you scroll down to the video, it basically sums up the post.

I’d still like to find the “best” way to record sound on camera, since much of my shooting will be just a few feet from the camera with a talking head and on a tight timeline.

Thanks again.

[Blaise Douros]

In this case, “best” is more of “least bad.”

I’m sure you can find a way for it to be decent enough for what you’re doing. The key is to get a signal into the t3i that is as hot as possible without clipping the levels-that way, you can reduce the volume enough to make the hissing inaudible. That will take a lot of experimentation on your part, and very careful monitoring and tweaking of your levels before shooting any setup before you hit the record button.

I think you may find that any time you save in post may be negated by the amount of on-set tweaking you have to do to make sure that the audio is properly levelled to eliminate the noise. If I were you, I would rather spend extra time in post with clean audio instead of spending extra time on-set to get mediocre audio. Best of luck.

[Jan Laidlaw]

Thanks, yes, I’ve spent a lot of time tweaking without good results so far.

I’ll be syncing audio right now in post, but still would like to hear of any positive results people have had with in-camera audio, or new ideas.

I would particularly like to know if anyone has used any of the Beachtek adapters with some level of success.

Thanks for the input.