Boling VM-i1 Compact Cardioid Condenser On-Camera Microphone Compatiable with Smartphones Tablets and Camcorders

Not as effective as I thought it would be. The quality of recording was similar to the small mic I had purchased before

It's common knowledge that the inbuilt mics on cameras aren't much good, and my Sony A6400 is no exception.So if you're serious about producing a decent video you need a better mic, and for most common circumstances the choice will come down to either a lavalier / lapel mic or a small shotgun mic like this one. The choice will depend on what you're trying to achieve and how much faffing about with equipment you can deal with.A lavalier is great for isolating the subject's voice since it can be mounted so close to their mouth, but it comes with the hassle of attaching it, hiding the wire, being tethered to the camera, changing batteries and remembering to switch it on (if it's a battery-powered one, which most good ones are). Don't get me wrong, the sound quality can be excellent and very much worth it if circustances allow, but they are a bit more work.On the other hand a small camera-mounted shotgun mic like this is perfect for quickly shooting a video where the subject isn't too far from the camera. Say about a meter or so. In that position it picks up sounds really well, with pretty good rejection of off-axis background noise. Much further than that and the sound level of the subject drops off quickly, while the relative level of background noise increases.So with that in mind it's well suited for vlogging, talking head videos or for a high-quality video conferencing setup. It's super quick and convenient too. Once it's mounted on the camera and plugged in, there's nothing else to do. No batteries needed, no power switches to forget to turn on. It just works exactly like the camera's internal mic, only much better-sounding.With the subject at an appropriate distance, the sound quality is really good with a nice, full tone. Certainly a massive improvement over the Sony A6400's inbuilt mic. It's fairly directional but you can't expect miracles and any off-axis background noise in the room will still be picked up to some extent.The shock mounts feel a little stiff but to be fair no handing noise came through when I was testing so they must work. The dead cat does its job well and I haven't noticed it shedding any hairs as yet.So as long as this type of mic is suitable for your use-case then it's a solid choice within its price range.

When the microphone arrived, I was pleased to see two leads, one labelled for camera the other for phone or tablet. It comes with a foam wind shield and a furry one for outdoor use. The mounting’s supplied were solid and provided good support for the mic. Fitting the mount to the camera was quick and simple, allowing me to get on with recording.While the microphone on my camera is good, it does tend to pick up the background noise alongside my voice when I’m shooting a video. This microphone picked up my voice and hardly any background noises, producing good quality sound at a reasonable level. But there are two provisos here – the pick up on my voice was good at up to about a metre when facing the camera. If I was behind the camera to film, I turned the mic to face me to get the best sound as it’s directional.The microphone also produces superior sound when recording on my mobile phone. This makes the microphone perfect for vlogging, headshot videos and podcasts. For the price it’s a great little microphone that produces excellent quality voice recordings. Being compact, it’s easy to carry around or fit into a camera bag.

This is a smart little microphone, small in size but big on features. It arrived in a nice enough presentation box with the features printed on the base. Inside the box is a carry bag with draw strings that contained the mic and the foam windshield. Also in the box was a ‘furry’ type windshield plus an instruction book - some references are quite a giggle but throughout they point to the features okay. Also included are two connecting leads, thoughtfully with tags on them so as to give an idea of what fits what: one for a camera and one for a mobile device - its alright for the Android system it points out in the instructions although I am using it on a camera for video presently. There is one ‘hot shoe’ type camera mount but there are two mic mounts supplied (red in colour) or ‘shock absorbing stands’ according to the instructions, that seem robust and quite springy once the mic is fitted. Also a nice touch is an Allen type key is also supplied for changing the mounts over as and when required. In use it performs well: due to the springy mount, it does not pick up any ‘near camera’ handling noise, but more importantly the sound is quite crisp and rather sensitive. Using it with the ‘furry’ windshield on a friend’s camera to see how it performed on a different spec camera while going across the fields taking some video using it proved it coped quite well considering the wind speed etc. Priced at £32-00 (as reviewed mid November 2020) I think its quite reasonable value considering its size but more importantly the results it achieves.

Great audio quality, so why only four stars? Well I think it's a bit plasticy. It doesn't actually feel very high quality.I suppose the casing isn't really the bit that counts. In fairness the audio you can record with this is way better than the internal audio for a lot of cameras (I tried on Canon cameras).In terms of overall sound quality, it does pick up autofocus noise if your lens is a bit noisy so you might want to mount it on some kind of extension to get it away from the lens.The deadcat that comes with it looks ridiculous, but it seems to do a decent job (not 100%, but good).For the money I think it's a decent mic and it really just falls shy of 5 stars. If I could give 4.5 stars I would.You may not be as shallow as I am and may not care how that it feels a bit plasticy. If you're thinking *purely* about the sound quality, for the price I'd say it's a 5 star.I haven't tried it on a tablet, or phone and that's not what I need it for so I won't be testing it that way.