don't laugh.......I used a golf ball retriever! It worked GREAT! It can extend however far I want it to and all I need to do is slap som e gaffer tape around the mic (which I keep in its shock mount) to the end hole of the golf ball retriever and voila......instant boom pole.

I got it for free from a friend of mine. I'm sure it isn't quite as good as a professional one would be but I figure hey, it's free and it works!

i need friend to give me free stuff to heh

You might also want to check places like musiciansfriend.com for good prices on audio stuff. No affiliation -- they've just been very good to me. I seem to recall you can get some of the cheaper XLR cables there for like $8 for 25ft. Radio Shack cables will run you about $25/25ft and RS stuff is mediocre grade at best.

As for max length of cable runs, that's where the balanced/XLR stuff shines. A couple of hundred feet should be no problem (other than cable cost ;).

If you really wanted to just extend the on-board mic by 10 feet or so, it should be trivial (and relatively cheap) to extend the cable with standard Radio Shack crap, or make your own. You probably won't find anything with the Canon custom dual plug/jack arrangement, so just extend each with seperate cables. If I recall, you'd need a 1/8" phone stereo extension cable and a 3/32" phone mono extension cable. If you're handy with a soldering iron (or have a good friend who is) it should be pretty easy to cook something up. Note however that this stuff is unbalanced and long runs may result in hum and other noise creeping into your audio. To reduce the likelihood of this, make sure your pair of cables are the same length and they should be taped together.

If you use the broomstick and phone extension cables, please post pics. ;-)

-cw-

hehe saddly i dont have a pic of it but it worked well

i used 25 ft xlr cable taped it to the broom stick
i use a sock to wrap around the shockmount on the SGM then taped it on a angle so it kinda looked like a V shap

only thing i had to be carful with , well my boom holder had to be carfull with was not to move his hands on the pole while we were shooting. or the mic would pick up a kind of scraching sound

but it worked great and it cost me a old broom handle like 3 ft of ductape and a clean fresh outta the dryer white sock

cheers
Mike

I recently purchased a nice extendable pole that works much like the golf ball retriever in that it is variable length. Got it at a big home improvement store. It's the long yellow pole for changing light bulbs out of high ceiling fixtures. This thing is awesome other than the bright yellow paint job. Very sturdy and will reach out there a long way. I plan to change out the mediocre hand grip at the base with something more like dirt bike handlebar grips. Will let you know how it works when I am done.

-gb-

that cool can you post a pic of it when your done i would like to to see it

Cheers
Mike