Here's a blog post on gear: http://mindymcadams.com/tojou/2007/basic-kit-gear-for-the-multimedia-reporter/. An Olympus recorder is great, others swear by the Zoom H2. If you do this much, you'll want a microphone. I know people who've recorded audio on their BlackBerry or other phone, however. And you could always shoot video and separate the audio out in editing software.
There are typically three types of sound you want to gather: natural or ambient, interview and naration. Natural or ambient is background noise that occurs naturally; typically you want at least a full minute of this. The interview is the key part - it's important not to talk over people while interviewing, even saying things like "uh-huh" or "OK." The naration often is recorded later. It may be a simple introduction of the story or it might be an entirely narrated piece such as you'd hear on NPR or other radio news.
Most folks use Audacity with the LAME extension because it's free. GarageBand and other similar programs may work too.
Download Audacity at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/ and LAME from http://lame1.buanzo.com.ar/.
If you're using a Mac, you may want Switch software to convert .WAV files to .MP3. Get it at http://download.cnet.com/Switch-Audio-Converter-for-Mac/3000-2141_4-10703967.html.
If you're using Windows, you'll typically import your .WAV file into iTunes in order to convert to MP3.
Any photo editing software will work, and you don't need to resize the images. You may include your captions with the images and Soundslides will import them
The one requirement: You must save the images in the .JPG format!
Soundslides is the most common and perhaps the most versatile program for merging these two items. The basic software costs $39.95, Soundsides Plus costs $69.95 and allows you more options, such as creating slideshows without audio. This software creates a Flash presentation using your photos and audio, which you then upload to your Web site (one of the most complext processes about the program).
You may download the Soundslides software from this site http://soundslides.com/.
If you've got other, more expensive software, you may also create an audio slideshow in Flash, Final Cut Pro or probably Avid.
WORK FROM A COPY! Protect your original (and yourself) from changes by making a copy and using that to work with.
Video editors will tell you that they typically figure out the audio tracks first. So your first step is typically to edit the audio. Refer to the handouts on how to use Audacity. You can find some of them on Mindy McAdams' great page of tutorials http://www.jtoolkit.com/wp/audio-resources/.
Key concept: You MUST export your audio as an MP3 file. Nothing else will work!
Edit your photos in Photoshop, Microsoft Office Picture Manager on a PC or iPhoto on a Mac. Crop, tone, get the red eyes out of there, etc. There's a decent guideline for that here: http://support.soundslides.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=136.
Once you've edited your photos, put them in a single folder.
This is the easy part! Open Soundslides. Create a new project. Find the folder with your pics, click and watch! Then add your audio.
From here, you can:
Preview your slideshow to make sure you have everything the way you want it. Then export it. This creates a ton of files in your project folder. You'll only be using a few of them, actually.
Once you're satisfied with your slideshow and have exported it, you'll want to post it to the Web. This is maybe the most difficult part.
In the project folder, there's a folder called "publish to web." This is the folder (and contents) you want to upload on your Web site. If you're working with a standard (non-blog) page using, say, Dreamweaver, move the publish-to-web folder to your blog folder, in the place you want it. You might rename it something if it's a single page. Then upload it or "put" it to the site.
If you're putting it on a blog (or even a standalone page on a blog), you'll probably upload it to site via FTP. Then you'll need some embed code. There are great instructions for getting embed code to publish to a blog at this site http://support.soundslides.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=71 from Soundslides. Insert the location, then it gives you the embed code to insert into the code side of your blog post or on your page. You may have to futz with the size.
Finally, you can now convert to MOV4 files, by following these instructions.