Still confused about audio and dslr

I currently own and 7D and use both the zoom H1 and rode videomic.
My question is for the best audio quality, what's a better option for run-n-gun?
1. Zoom H1 recording independently on hotshoe mount
2. Rode plugged into H1
3. Rode plugged into 7D

Good question. However, you might want to add to your question what type of shooting needs of yours, such as interviewing, live concerts, birthday parties, etc.

Subscribed..

weddings and other family styled events.
For speeches, I use a lav mic plugged into a H1 and use the camera or a second H1 strategically placed for backup.

Chad what kind of quality are you getting with the rode plugged into the 7d by itself?

Well seeing how the 7D has AGC and no way to defeat it, the answer to your question is probably something like: "Well, I get better reach with the Rode mic, but the AGC still ramps up and down the noise floor so much that it still makes it pretty hard to edit it together."

It doesn't really matter how great of a mic, mixer or sound board you plug into a 7D directly, the fact remains that the AGC of the camera still messes it up pretty bad.

I used my 7D as a second, cut away camera for an interview a while back and fed the camera a left and right feed of the signal that was was being feed to the main camera (HDX900) from my sound bag (Sound Devices 552, Lectro 411A with a Sanken COS11 lav), there was still the hunting around of AGC whenever the subject took a moment to answer a question. The background noise floor rose up and then down once the subject started answer. Pretty annoying stuff, but it was simply a pretty decent scratch track so the two bits of video could be synced later in post.

So, without being able to kill AGC an external recorder is the best option.

There are a couple of interface boxes available which defeat AGC by sending an inaudible sound to raise the noise threshold. These also have the advantage of headphone sockets and phantom power to XLR sockets. (search Beachtek or Juicedlink) They are more expensive than an external recorder but will give you sync'ed audio in the camera, monitoring and access to any mic you care to choose.