Rode Videomic

On-camera shotgun microphone. If you don’t start out with separately recording sound, then this is really a recommended buy. The sound of this microphone is good enough for most things and noise level is not too bad.

Price ~150$

Rode Videomic Pro

The higher quality version of the video mic, Rode came out with after their success with the original video mic. I have not used it myself but have read only good things about it.

Price ~270$

Rode NTG-1/NTG-2

A very good entry-level shotgun mic with good sound but not as noiseless as its more expensive brother NTG-3. For most filmmakers starting out this will probably be more than good enough.

Price ~250$

The NTG-2 is basically the NTG-1 but with the option of battery power so you can connect it directly to a camera that does not have XLR inputs. Since it is generally not a great idea to record sound with a low-end camera, I do not think this option is really too important but if you find a cheap one on ebay, there is no reason not to buy it.

Price ~270$

Sennheiser MKH-416

This is the classic film/broadcast mic with great sound and a super-low noise level. It is expensive and probably not the first mic you want to buy if you don’t know if you want to stick with filmmaking but worth its price. I have bought a few of those used on ebay for 300-400$ and never had a problem with one of them.

Price ~1000$

Rode NTG-3

It’s more or less in the same league as the MKH-416 from what I have read but I have not used one myself. It is much harder to find used ones, though.

Price ~700$

Rode Lavalier

Simply a great lavalier mic with good value for money. I had bought cheaper ones on ebay but never used them since the sound was not really usable for what I wanted to used them for (typically dialog when it is difficult to get a shotgun mic in place or simply to save time and personnel during the shoot).

Price ~250$