I recently scored one of those panasonic 3 chips and was looking for a good mic. I found one made by panasonic for the gs200 but its out of my price range. Although I had heard that the sony ECM-MSD1 was pretty good mic to have. Here's the question, will it work with my gs200, or do I need a sony. Any help appreciated.

I found another mic that might work, but i really need to know if anybody does know.

im not sure but i think im getting a gs120 or possibly a 200 tommorrow. so once you find out please let me know, ill also try to ask some people tommorrow at the store.

and the only cons i see about the panasonics is the low light situation and the image stabilizer being bad. how are they working for you?

The gs200 is really working good, the 120 also seems really nice. And seeing as how these are the cheapest 3 chips out right now I hihgly recommend getting one. The only cons really are the low light like you said, but i recently had a sony handy cam which works really good under low light so I use that for most of my low lit shots. As for the mic I read that they are universal in platform, if that means it will work with a panasonic then I'll be buying one. I will let you lnow later today if it works.

the panasonics are beautiful cameras when it comes to having heaps of light(ive got a GS400), but their video gain is realy subtle, and doesnt work as well as the sony, but has a lot less of the related noise.

Sennheiser make a little shotgun for hand held cameras, the MKE300, and as with most sennheiser products it is very good quality, but has a fairly unattractive price tag.