My kids are such good sports. I asked them to spend a couple seconds helping me compare the audio quality between the three sources:

The T2i built in audio – obviously not the preferred method of capturing audio, but it has to work in a pinch and I wanted to hear how it sounds next to the other two options.

The Zoom H1 mounted to the top of the camera – this picked up plenty of me talking and a little of Evan talking. Here we have a case where I think it would have sounded fine if an adult would have been talking louder from the same spot Evan was. In his defense, it is a little bizarre to have to tell your dad how old you are!

Audio Technica ATR3340 Lav Microphone – I mounted this to Aaron’s shirt. His first instinct was to lift it up and stick it right next to his mouth to talk. He quickly learned to just let it pick up audio naturally and I think the result is fairly good. If you listen carefully about midway through his “interview” you can hear the classic sound of a cell phone (my iPhone in my pocket) causing hum.

Always remember to monitor your audio and turn your cell phone off so as not to ruin a real interview!

Also, I should note that I didn’t get off to a good start with the ATR-3350. I took it out of the box, recorded this and proceeded to leave it turned on for the amount of time it took me to edit the video. Better buy some extra batteries to have on hand.