I’ve been playing around with vlogging on the Canon PowerShot G7X. I first tried recording my somewhat frequent video entries when I went to Las Vegas, NV to photograph Armin Van Burren [Driving to Vegas for Armin Van Burren.]
After I exported the footage and began working on it in Adobe Premiere Pro I noticed that in one particular clip in which my NextShark partner was speaking [2:56.] The audio drops and becomes dramatically muffled and inaudible. I later realized from watching and old Casey Neistat video [The Almost Perfect Camera] that my fingers would accidentally cover the microphone. The microphone is positioned directly on top and dead center of the camera.
To avoid any future human-error audio issues I found a quick and budget friendly modification. Using plastic bumpers that you’d normally use to stick to furniture to keep them from sliding around. It’s important that the bumpers are slightly raised and include some adhesive. Bumpers are cheap you probably find them at the dollar store.
The next step is clean the surface of the camera. You want to remove all dust and dirt. Then cut the bumper in half and position them above and below the mic. This will leave an air space that won’t interfere with sound in the event that you cover the mic while holding the camera.
I too find myself inadvertently covering the mic, your solution has got legs, but the three holes in the middle isn’t the mic, that is the wifi sensor, the stereo mic are the two dots either side. I feel it is a design flaw where they are, as it is exactly at the centre of gravity where you want to hold it., they should be pointing forward (like all the other s9x-s1xx cameras)
Hopefully Canon will listen to our feedback and move the mic in the future 🙂
do you know any gimbal to use with the G7X? Thanks!
None that I’m aware of or can recommend fully. For my own setup I use a Gorillapod Focus and hold out the camera like a selfie stick if I’m recording myself. The gorillapod also adds a decent amount of weight to the G7x to help stabilize if you’re simply walking around.
That is actually the opening for the loudspeaker. The two microphones are at the two separated openings on either side. Also consider not blocking the microphones with anything in the direction you are recording.