Buying suggestions for camcorder preamp/microphone

[Langsuyar]

I'm hoping for some purchasing advice. I need to buy a small, easily portable microphone preamp that I can carry around with my camcorder, a Canon HV20. Ideally the preamp provides its own power and has 1/4 jacks (or smaller) for input and output. My camera only accepts a 2.5mm jack for audio input in the first place, and the (cheap) microphones I own use those jacks as well (though I'm not opposed to buying a new mic with 3-pin if necessary).

Any suggestions? This is for recording interview audio in the field, so size, weight and ease of use are very important to me. Shouldn't be too expensive, either - I don't need perfect audio, just a good, loud feed.

[kojdogg]

i'd check out naiant msh microphones- www.naiant.com
they sound great and are very inexpensive. depending on the specs of your camcorder you might be able to run one of them from your camcorder's built-in preamp. you could contact jon there and he could tell you if it will work for you.

[Langsuyar]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check out the microphones, but I don't think the camcorder preamp will be good enough. Tried it before (with a cheap dynamic microphone, granted) and didn't get a decent signal - way quiet. I think I'll need an external preamp.