Adding audio to pictures

[David5833]

TLDR: Looking for recommendations about recording bird songs in conjunction with stills or for occasional videos.

Longer version: I recently posted a photo of a bird singing and 3dpan asked if I had recorded a video. I almost never do video and on the rare occasions that I have done it, was never concerned about audio quality. However, thinking about it I realized that it is possible to attach up to 30 seconds of audio recording to a still image during playback with both my OM-1 and my E-M5iii.

I had never used that feature so I did a few test recordings, speaking while looking at the rear of the camera. The audio quality using the built-in microphone of the E-M5iii sounded pretty poor, so I compared it to the audio that I recorded in video mode. I couldn't tell a difference. I haven't tried the OM-1 audio.

This feature would definitely come in handy for making notes about a still image, but I'm not sure I would want to go through the trouble of carrying around an external mike for the OM-1 to get high quality audio, for example of bird songs, to attach to stills, nor do I expect that I will get seriously into making videos at this late point in my life. Still, it might be entertaining to do once in a while, so I'm wondering if anyone can recommend an inexpensive external mike or other solution that would significantly improve the quality of audio to attach to still images. Who knows, maybe I'd even make a short video once in a while. There are several mikes on Amazon in the $40 USD range and I'd be willing to spend that much if it would make a big difference versus the built-in mike.

Any suggestions?

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/143821723@N06/

 

[Allan Brown]

TLDR: Looking for recommendations about recording bird songs in conjunction with stills or for occasional videos.

Longer version: I recently posted a photo of a bird singing and 3dpan asked if I had recorded a video. I almost never do video and on the rare occasions that I have done it, was never concerned about audio quality. However, thinking about it I realized that it is possible to attach up to 30 seconds of audio recording to a still image during playback with both my OM-1 and my E-M5iii.

I had never used that feature so I did a few test recordings, speaking while looking at the rear of the camera. The audio quality using the built-in microphone of the E-M5iii sounded pretty poor, so I compared it to the audio that I recorded in video mode. I couldn't tell a difference. I haven't tried the OM-1 audio.

This feature would definitely come in handy for making notes about a still image, but I'm not sure I would want to go through the trouble of carrying around an external mike for the OM-1 to get high quality audio, for example of bird songs, to attach to stills, nor do I expect that I will get seriously into making videos at this late point in my life. Still, it might be entertaining to do once in a while, so I'm wondering if anyone can recommend an inexpensive external mike or other solution that would significantly improve the quality of audio to attach to still images. Who knows, maybe I'd even make a short video once in a while. There are several mikes on Amazon in the $40 USD range and I'd be willing to spend that much if it would make a big difference versus the built-in mike.

Any suggestions?

I have done this with both the internal mics and an external stereo shotgun mic. I find the audio quality is good enough for the purpose using the shotgun mic.

If you want better sound, it will cost more than $40

Allan

 

[David5833]

...If you want better sound, it will cost more than $40

The more I think about it, the more it sounds like a silly idea for a lot of reasons anyway.