Audio Question

[bieber]

I'm sure this is an exceptionally n00b-ish question, so lets try to keep the eyes from rolling ;) I've decided to try my hand at shooting a short film this Summer, since I'll have access to a 5D Mark II and I've been itching to do some serious video work. I'm moderately experienced with video stuff, but thus far I've had pretty near 0 contact with all the technical details of the audio side of things, which is apparently going to be the big problem working with the 5DII.

So assuming I were to get my hands on a decent shotgun mic with XLR output, would anything particularly horrible happen if I were to just buy an XLR-3.5mm cable and plug it straight in to the camera? I know the standard is to balance the mic in the camera, but that's obviously not an option with the 5D and separate balancers are expensive (and also the one gizmo that I'm pretty sure I won't be able to borrow from anyone). I know AGC is a pain, but I would assume I could defeat that by running the audio I actually want into one channel, and running a constant tone into the other channel from an iPod or something, couldn't I? Other than that, what kind of audio could I expect from a direct cable like that? And would there be any (cheap) way to get phantom power to the mic that way if it needed it?

[Terjay]

Get a dedicated audio recorder.

[JohnJH]

you can defeat the AGC with a magic lantern hacks for the 5D. the hack will also allow you to monitor sound directly off the 5D through the usb/av out on the camera. running a shotgun directly into the cam without any preamps or mixers is doable, but not advisable. of course the safest setup would be to have a double system option that has a line out that can plug directly into the 5D (like a zoom h4n). i just so happen to be selling mine here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=190896