Mono/stereo recording

franmonaj

I've been using the Nikkon D5100 to record video, mainly, and the camera works great. I actually bought it because of the audio imput, to record with an external microphone.

Now, the main problem I have is that no matter if I use my wireless mic, a lapel microphone, you name it, whenever I'm using that input, then all the sound is recorded on one side. I'm using the imovie program to edit and I don't have a feature (not that I know of at least) to correct that.

Do you guys have any suggestions to correct that straight from the camera? Is there a mono/stereo choice in the cam menu?

Thank you in advance,
Fran

bruto

I take it you're using a monaural microphone. The jack in the camera is a stereo jack, and the easiest thing to do is to get a mono to stereo adapter. I think it's a pretty standard item, and might be available from Radio Shack, or a chain store like Wal Mart, Staples, etc.

What you want will look something like this:

(see here)
Note that the center section of that plug is the second stereo channel. On a mono plug, there is no such section, and that channel gets no signal. An adapter should give you a mono signal to both channels.