Camcorder Reviews

I own a Sony trv8 camcorder.The head was dirty and this cleaning cassette worked for me although I have to clean it 4 times.

Not seeing many reviews, I'm writing this as a warning. This mic is horrible. I bought it to get rid of the "motor noise" from my Canon Optura Pi, as many others have. When I listen now, the sound is much worse. You can barely hear people speak over the loud humming... THIS MIC IS HORRIBLE!

Although you can't get this item through Amazon directly, I thought I'd submit a review since I found it fustrating not finding anything on this microphone. After ordering it from BH Photo, I tried it out on my Canon Optura 20. The main reason I purchased an external microphone was to get rid of the annoying motor buzz noise. I thought the DM-50 having been made by Canon would have been very compatible with the Optura 20. I was wrong. The intelligent hot shoe worked nicely as it was convenient not to have to worry about turning the microphone on. The sound quality was horrible. It got rid of the motor noise somewhat but you can still hear it. What was bad was that the microphone produced an ambient annoying hissing, dirty noise, even with the wind sock. I thought it was perhaps picking up motor noise from nearby appliances but did not turn out to be the case. The microphone also picked up the hum from the zoom when zooming quickly, however this was the least annoying.

I ended up getting the Sony ECM-MSD1. It was cheaper, got rid of the motor noise and produced no noise artifacts. It does pick up the zooming noise though, but this might not be a problem since the zoom shouldn't be used that often anyways and usually at a slow speeds.