Using an external microphone is a quick and easy way to get better sounding audio with only the effort of plugging in a cable and pointing the microphone in the right direction. An external mic is built to handle these conditions, often they come with a wind shield and a shock mount to avoid picking up unwanted movement sound. The nature of the internal mic allows wind to whistle through the holes and create some quite harsh noise. Internal microphone audio on cameras and phones can be great in quiet indoor situations, but as soon as you get outside in noisy environments you will notice that the quality starts to deteriorate.

This is aimed at people using small self powered plug in microphones with 3.5mm audio cables (typical headphone jack size) in to something like a phone, tablet, DSLR or Mirrorless camera. This post addresses some simple microphone and audio problems that I have seen and experienced many times.

This is a question that can have many different answers and variables with so many affordable microphones in todays market.

The external mic I bought is not working on my camera or phone.

Mirillis action not recording audio