I spent a little time tonight running audio tests with my new Audio-Technica wired lavalier mic plugged into my camera. I’m using a Canon T3i with the ATR3350 lavalier mic.

After listening to the recordings of the AT lav mic and testing iMovie’s noise reduction, it doesn’t bode that well for the little, inexpensive lav (it’s about $25, so no harm done).

While the lav mic sounds more full, it’s got a really high noise floor (lots of background hiss). Since I don’t care much for how iMovie handles its “reduce background noise” feature (it introduces a lot of weird artifacts; full of pumping audio, garbled sounds, and generally underwater-sounding audio), that’s not good. I may do a more full set of audio tests in the future; I’m not sure if this little mic is going to make the cut for my audio/video production needs.