Manual gain control is a feature that allows the camera user to set the sound level during video recording. It is a very important feature for any decent camera, the Sony Alpha SLT-A77 included. Disappointingly, Sony has not included this feature, and so the cameras have only auto gain control (AGC). AGC, which applies both to internal and external microphones (yes - it ruins even the audio from pro mics!), automatically sets the sound levels depending on how loud the audio signal is, so if someone is speaking, it's fine but if the enviroment is quiet, the camera will amplify the ambient sounds, rendering the audio useless with hissing, humming and lens noise, even with a professional external microphone.
This means that the A77 is useless for recording decent audio, because AGC renders the audio utterly useless with hissing even if it is recorded with a high quality microphone...
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Edited by Drew - Links to petitions again forum rules
