Inexpensive shotgun mic?

Question

i have a canon zr930. i am going to get an external mic for it. the most i would like to spend is $80. i need one with good quality sound and with a long enough cord to be mounted on a pole.

Answer 1

The cheapest shotgun I can think of is the Audio Technica ATR-55. You can get it for about $40-50. However, if you're planning on mounting it on a pole (you can use the Rode VC1 extension cable), I wouldn't recommend going longer than 10'. Since the ATR-55 has an unbalanced outputs and you probably don't want to spend $100 or more on an XLR mic, using longer cable lengths will cause your recordings to be more susceptible to interference. Your best bet? Turn off all cell phones and run your camera off of battery power when shooting. By the way, if you need a cheap boompole, I am selling painter's pole adapters on eBay ;-)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...

Hope this helps!