What kind of Microphone?

[R Beardsley]

I know some of you guys out there know a lot about microphones, and I hope you can help me choose what to get. I am helping a friend digitize a lot of photographs from a museum of local history, and need to get some narratives from her elderly father on most of them. I've been looking at a simple digital recorder like this one on Ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7353100694 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7353100694)
Maybe I don't need this much recorder, but what the heck, it's inexpensive,
The problem is that I haven't the foggiest idea of what make, model or type of mike to get for an elderly gentleman to record his narratives in a seated living room evironment. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[pelly3s]

if you dont want to spend a lot of money go with the CAD C195 its got a very flat response and is very sensative. The only thing to remember is that you have to make sure whatever small digital recorder had phantom power. Although you can go with a large diaphragm dynamic like an EV RE-20 or 27, or a Sennheiser 421 which depending on how he speaks would give you a very full sound. I guess the question is how much money do you want to spend and what kind of voice does the man have

[P.Warner]

I would record two channels. One from a tietack lavalier such as a Shure SM-11 and the other from a room mic. The great EV RE-20 would be fine.
The adversity to overcome will be ambient room noise(air conditioner, etc) and sibilance.
In hindsight, the most cherished historical narratives I've recorded were discussions and shared reminiscences.

[R Beardsley]

That is interesting. I wondered why I would need more than one track, and hadn't considered two microphones. I like that idea

[pelly3s]

another option to this whole thing would be a shotgun mic aimed directly at the speaker, and a lav mic i personally like the SM93