Monitoring Audio and Manual vs Auto levels
 

One quick question about monitoring audio: When gain is set to manually I can monitor it using my headphones but when I switch to auto I can't hear anything? Is this how its suppose to work? I guess someone might say why would you need to when its set to auto, well sometimes you just want hear what its recording.

The other thing is I've gone back and forth on whether to use auto or manual. I've tended to use auto more often because I've found I'm too busy to doing other things to be able to properly adjust the levels. If the levels are set manually either too high or too low they have a more profound negative impact on the end result than any comprises I'd be able to notice using auto.

I'm curious about everyone's take on this.

Pete, is that with a Z1? It sounded wierd to me, so I tested with mine, and it doesn't do that. I can monitor on auto with both internal and external mics.

I use auto a lot with run and gun for ambient sound. Often, I will use an external mic, put channed 1 on auto for a safety track, and channel 2 on manual for better control. You can't do that with the internal mic.

I was mistaken auto does output audio but its just hard to hear. I just tested it in a quiet environment, when set to manual high gain I can hear clearly but when its set to auto its a harder because the gain is lower. So, in a louder environment its just harder to hear. Btw, I have the volume turned up all the way.

The headphone amp on the Z1 is beyond pathetic, in my humble opinion. The ONLY way I've been able to hear anything with ANY background noise is with very efficient in-the-ear buds or closed back headphones. I keep a set of Sony earbuds with a resistance of 16 ohms around with sensitivity of 105dBw around JUST for this purpose.

BTW, the PD150 wasn't any better. I wish Sony would allow us the option to blow our own eardrums out instead of supplying a camera with an unusable headphone out.

Good to know I'm not imagining things and there isn't anything defective with the camera. I'm using Sony MDR-V6 closed headphones which are good quality but yeah the camera could use a better amp.