Panasonic DMW-MS1 External Microphone for Panasonic GH1

by Panasonic

Product Details

• Item Weight: 5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002EGDFD2
• Item model number: DMW-MS1
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #30 in Camera & Photo > Accessories > Professional Video Accessories > Microphones
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 17, 2003

Product Description

Stereo Microphone for Panasonic LUMIX DSLR Model DMC-GH1

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Price and Design Flaw Mar this Microphone, February 12, 2010

By 

B. Fuller (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Panasonic DMW-MS1 External Microphone for Panasonic GH1 (Electronics)

First off, I have a stills background with very little experience in video so I can't talk techno-geek when it comes to sound. I am just going to relate my experiences with it and what I have read about the microphone.

This microphone does make recordings sound better than with the built in microphone on the GH1. With that said, the difference is not night and day so you need to decide if it is worth the extra money and hassle of carrying this microphone around. After owning the mic I would say it is not worth it for home movies around the house and many other situations. Some examples of where I do think it would be worthwhile are: 1) if you are recording your kids plays or recitals. 2) if you are a teacher recording students speeches. 3) Recording bird sounds while filming. 4) Recording your kid playing sports and you want to record every swear word I mean grunt of victory. Basically, anytime you have a specific intention to record the sound of something further than 20ft away. If you do that often then this mic is probably worth it for you.

From what I have read the GH1 cannot really do professional sound as it has auto gain built into it and this feature cannot be switched off. The other thing that I have read is that professional sound recording is not done from a distance but from close up. (In movies there are mics usually right overhead or maybe a small mic inside the clothes of the actors.) I am not saying you can't shoot an award winning film with this mic I am just saying it is not the industry standard.

As far as the mic goes it also has a huge design flaw as far as I am concerned. The mic is not powered by the camera and has a separate battery (1 AAA) and switch. It does have a battery indicator light but that light does not indicate when the mic is on or off. it just blinks once when you switch the mic on. What this means is that on a regular basis I either don't remember to switch the mic on or I forget to switch it off. I will say that when you record video without it switched on you really get some nice sound free video. No noise. You do get a message on the camera when you switch it on with the mic attached reminding you to turn on the mic but that 1 time reminder is easily forgotten.

The construction of this mic seems relatively sturdy and very light weight and portable. So that is a plus. The front of the mic has a shock absorber so it should be able to take some light weight hits and keep working. Also, the plate that slides into the hot shoe is metal. Finally, the microphone does pivot up and down for selective aiming.

Overall, this mic is overpriced. However, it does improve the sound quality from distant recordings. I think there are specific instances where it would be worthwhile improvement over the built in mic but you are risking not getting any sound at all from a mic with either a dead batter or that is switched off.

Pros:

Better sound than built in mic
Light weight
Small
Relatively well constructed

Cons:

Expensive
Easy to forget to switch on or off leading to the possibility of no sound recorded
Expensive

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This Mic is good, but watchout, you have to remember to turn it on!, May 28, 2010

By 

Philip Carmichael (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Panasonic DMW-MS1 External Microphone for Panasonic GH1 (Electronics)

We used this mic to record about 60+ minutes of video a day for 5 days. The quality of the sound recording was good, really quite good, even in stereo, and the wind noise reduction feature on the mic works well.

My hold-back on giving this mic a rating of 5 is that we forgot to turn the mic on for some segments of the video recording we were doing. When you need to get setup fast, meaning setup a tripod, get fresh batteries in the camera and mic, pick your shot and start recording in 1-2 minutes, things happen. We focused on getting the right shot, but that cost us sound more than once when we forgot to turn the mic on.

It would be great if this mic had an auto-on feature that would turn it on when plugged into the microphone port on our camera. That, to us, would make it ideal.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice mic, maybe not for everyone, August 11, 2010

By 

M. Loomis (Cincinnati) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Panasonic DMW-MS1 External Microphone for Panasonic GH1 (Electronics)

I bought this microphone for use in my GH1, thinking it would give me a more focused sound like a shotgun mic. It sure looks like a small shotgun mic so I was expecting the same sort of results. Instead, this mic is more like the mic that is built in to the camera, just better and less tinny. There are three problems with this product: One, the built-in mic is a pretty good stereo mic for what it is and I don't know if this external mic really is worth it for the price; Two, there is only a single mini plug on the GH1 so if you have anything else that needs to use it like a flash or remote shutter you are screwed. It would have been nice if there was a 3.5 headphone plug specifically for a mic to keep the 2.5 plug free; and Three, you have to physically turn it on and off every time you use it, so either you forget to turn it on and you have zero audio on your clip or you forget to turn it off and risk having a dead battery and again have zero audio.

All that being said, I usually keep it on my camera at all times and after the first time I forgot to turn it off I have remembered to turn it on and off every time. The sound is better than the on camera mic, it just isn't a shotgun mic. But it is stereo, which is nice, unlike the Rode shotgun which I also looked at. Bottom line, if you can get the mic for a good price (I paid $115 and that may have been about $10 more than I think it is worth now that I have used it) then it is a nice, and nice looking, add on for your GH1.