Cheap Wireless Lav Mic

[briancmo]

Anyone have a suggestion for a sub $100 wireless lav mic I can buy on craislist, or ebay? Looking to connect one to my Flip camcorder and just want decent audio while travelling in europe.

What kind of limitations might they impose, aside from not working through walls...

[JohnJH]

i wouldn't skimp on price for wireless lavs, you get what you pay for, and if you want noisey, static/interference filled sound then that's what $100 will buy you. i'd look into a sennheiser g2, its 5x the cost, but its quality pro gear that will deliver quality sound without fail. you can sell it when you're done and recoup most of your expenses. also, i'd look into the broadcast frequency restrictions for whatever country you're traveling in, complications with EU regulations may arise.

[Trey T]

or you can just purchase a voice recorder w/ lav mic for like under 60bucks, like olympus ds30
relatively clean but not as clean as the Zoom H4 but it gets the job done well. especially when you're travelling, you want it to be compact.

audio sync in post is required.

[Matthew Craggs]

Are you looking for just the mic, or a kit with transmitter and receiver?

If you're looking for the whole kit, please please please spend the money and get a Sennheiser G2 system. I know that money can be a factor, and I know that you may want it for bumming around and taking home videos, but you don't the difference in price of any gear as much as you do with wireless lav mics.

A cheap tripod you can work around and hide the faults. A cheap camera you can work around. Even a DIY-steadicam you can get decent results from if you build it right and only use it in certain conditions. But bad audio you will notice and there is no working around.

That being said, if you're just looking for the mic itself, there are options under $100. I couldn't tell you if they're any good or not because I have always used, and loved, the mics that came with the G2 system.

[briancmo]

I own right now a Sony ECM 77...i think or 44B? which is hardwired, but I need something wireless to attach to my Kodak Zi8

[maxsideburn]

I use an Azden Pro system as my backup kit and it works pretty well, don't remember how much it costs, probably over $100, but it's not ridiculous like some other systems. Should be under $200.

[briancmo]

I use an Azden Pro system as my backup kit and it works pretty well, don't remember how much it costs, probably over $100, but it's not ridiculous like some other systems. Should be under $200.

any idea which model?

[maxsideburn]

this is the one I have:

http://www.azdencorp.com/new/product.php?productid=93396&cat=35&page=1

It's not as good as Sennheiser, which I also use, but it gets the job done pretty good.

of course back in the day I had also tried some of those cheap $20-$30 eBay chinese kits....let's just say that it sorta worked, better than nothing, but the construction was so poor that I wouldn't expect it to last more than a few shoots. The only other cheap option is the flash-based audio recorder like someone mentioned. If you're not doing really long scenes then audio-drift shouldn't be an issue.