[Grahame Madge]

Hi, I’m currently working in a busy PR department as a media officer where I’m using a Canon camcorder with a Sennheiser wireless lav mic to record interviews and make short films. Being a one-man operator and interviewer in my opinion the lav is the only way to go. However, with my personal gear (a Canon 550D/T2i) I’m struggling to record decent audio. I use a hotshoe-mounted shotgun mic connected to the camera’s audio in, just to provide a reference track. For the proper audio, I have bought both a wired lav and a shotgun mic, but on a Zoom H1, the audio seems very low, even when the input volume is cranked up to the max. Amplifying sound in post just adds lots of unwanted background hiss.
The two mics weren’t very expensive, although have, in the past, provided usable audio when combined with a minidisc recorder.
I’ve seen that other users are having good success when combining the Zoom with a Rode Videomic. But I’m loathe to buy yet another mic if the input is still very weak. Does anyone please have any advice?
Grahame