[Nick Ravenscroft]

Well I do use it for documentaries, agreed its not ideal, but actually with a bit of tinkering it can work really well. I have cracked the firmware with Magic Bullet and attached a pre-amp to an external Rode NTG-2 shotgun which I mount on top. The sound is actually really good this way. In the States you can get quite an expensive pre-amp made by Juiced Link, it attaches to the tripod screw of your camera, they are very expensive to get in the UK, so I use something cheaper that’s just jack in, jack out, made by a UK company FEL.

But check out the videos of Juiced Link, the sound is better than a zoom, (but I’ve always thought they were really bad anyway). You can get a decent useable sound with a Juiced Link and mic, or with any half-decent pre-amp and a mic. You just want to avoid the pre-amp in the 550D. But you have to add Magic Lantern over the top, that allows you to remove the AGC (Auto Gain Control) which is a heavy compressor, (boosts the quiet, reduces the loud) then you can record clean onto your SD with the video, NICE saves any messing around.

Although with Plural Eyes syncing external audio with another recorder is a piece of cake, true if your recorder is sampling at a different resolution to the camera you will get drift, but you can easily work out what the difference is, and adjust accordingly before sync…

Ummm if you have the money much better to get a video-camera and not piss around, as I clearly have in order to achieve what a normal video camera would have done without any hassle! But then I have no money, perhaps because I spend too much time working out how to do things cheaply?? I dunno chicken and egg…