have to agree with marcus that the stock mic isn't too sensitive.

lesllie

It's a trade off, I think you're missing that. If the stock mic is too sensitive, then it picks up everything happening around the camcorder. Do you want it so sensitive that it grabs the record button being pushed, your breathing, the tape mechanism? If you do, then throw an AT 4053 on there. It's a hyper card, and will only pick up close/front, but it will hear all the transient sounds from the camcorder as transmitted through the body as well.

One small thing I want to add about XLR cables...DON'T wrap them like you would an extension cord (around your elbow and hand), where the wires can get crimped. A friend did that once at a wedding I was shooting about 8 years ago. The $25 XLR cable was shot after that.

Over and under; I've seen XLR, S-Video and even extension cords all get screwed up because of wrapping it wrong.

heath

Heath is right. You can look at extension cords and see if they've been wound incorrectly. The internal wires get kinked inside the outer sheath and make it look like it's been braided from the inside. If that sort of thing would happen to a mic cable with it's fine wires, I'm sure that would be the end of that. Another thing I have noticed is that the stock mic's cable protrudes pretty far from the XLR plug when connected and that crimps the cable when I put it in my camera case. I now always unplug the mic when putting the camera away.