Good first mic?
 

Ok, so I have had my Panasonic pv-dv852 for about a month now and I've already shot a 2 minute short that turned out great. I am wondering what would be a good mic to invest in for my first external mic. I am more concerned with capturing dialogue and possibly setting up a ghetto boom to use in an upcoming short where there much more talking. Price is a big concern, I really can't afford spending 150+ on this thing, my camcorder and filters and wide angle lense already broke my bank! Thanks everyone!

Hey!
Give us your exact budget and we will give you some ideas.
You can find a used Sennheiser MKE300 shotgun mic for $120ish, and it will plug into your mic jack, so you don't need XLR inputs.

Hey Dylan,
That sounds like a nice price, that's about what I was looking at. I'll check out the for sale forum and ebay and see what I can find. Are mics pretty reliable used?

I really don't know how reliable used mics are. As with anything used, there are a whole lot of factors that can be taken into consideration to judge it's reliability.

Maybe some of the audio tech oriented guys can give some advice about used mics?