Quality of the microphone?
 

How good is the inbuilt mic of EX1? Has anyone done any sort of recording with it? I'm soon travelling with lots of and will mostly shoot only silent material so i'm planning to leave optional mic home... but I'll need to do very small interview so how close the camera must be to the target and on what angle?

I have not checked my internal mic yet but from past experience (25 years) I haven't heard an internal mic that is any good on any camera.. If you are recording an interview you will need an external mic, either a stick mic or a lavalier mic that you can pin onto the subject. You will also need to record in manual mode to get a decent consistant level of sound.

I agree with Bruce. Not only would I not use an internal mic, I wouldn't use a camera mounted shot gun either for interviews unless you have no other choice. Lav or hand hels as Bruce says. A boom mic would work too but you're probably not going to be in that situation.

It all depends on your audio standards but you always want to get the mic as close to the subject. You can use a very directional shotgun but you'd probably want to just be a couple of feet away depending on the noise in the environment or the room acoustics.

A built in stereo mic is going to pick up all sorts of noise and sound reflections. It's going to have the least useful sound compared to all other options.

I bought a Samson boundary mic a few years ago. Pretty cheap, nothing really special but it's small enough to sneak into a camera bag. Seems it might be a good mic that'd passably cover almost anything in a room, at a pinch you could gaff it to a wall or piece of board or just sit it on a coffee table in shot if the interview isn't round table.

My original post seemed to have one sentence with missing words.. point was that i'm going to china and will have atleast 2 SLRs and 4 lenses in my backpack with EX1 and macbook. I have shotgun mic but at this point i really have to think what is necessary for me to have with me because there's only certain amount of space and each item makes the backpack weight more and since stuff in it is so expensive i have to keep it with me constantly.

So can someone describe me the "features" of inbuilt mic.. how it does in silent room, outside etc... how my camera needs to be angled if i want both sound and picture etc... I haven't tested the inbuilt mic myself and i don't honestly have time to start testing it in different conditions.

It's a Stereo mic so it's not going to be very directional. In fact, just the opposite, it'll pick up stuff from all sides. Good if you want stereo ambient sound. Not good if you want reasonably clean voice for interviews. It's not like a good shotgun.

A lav mic is small.

BTW I ended up buying the Sony ECM-680S shotgun ($150 Sony rebate if purchased within 30 days of the EX1) which is Stereo/Mono switchable. As a Stereo mic is got really nice separation. As a Mono mic it's got good side rejection. It's around $900 though (before rebate and I got the price knocked down to below $800) and it's on it's not a "short" shotgun (yet doesn't get into the picture using the EX1 mount).