Cannon XL2 Question please
 

Hi

I'm kind of a little new to this type of camera..
I shooting parrots and i want to get a close shot, but with the tail so long its hard to get close up, the lens hood of the XL2 is longer then higher, my question is to get the close up shot and still get a good picture would i have to turn the whole camera vertical or can i just spin the lens hood?
Seeing that the resolution im shooting at is 720x480
720 wide and 480 high?

The camera will be on a tripod..

I hope the make scenes


Thanks for any help..

Sorry, but you can't shoot video in a portrait aspect ratio. Either 4:3 or 16:9 widescreen.

Just work with mixing up the shots, get some wider ones that include the whole parrot as well as some tighter shots of the chest and head of the parrot. Don't be afraid to have more than just the parrot in the shot, try to get an interesting background if you can that doesn't take away from the subject.

Greg

Forget turning the camera on its side to get "tall" shots, unless you expect to have your viewers turn their television sets on their side to watch your video. In the video world, you're pretty much locked in landscape format.

Instead, take advantage of the fact that you have motion available. Start a sequence with a full-length shot of the bird, showing it full-frame from head to tail. Then cut to a closeup of the tail (if that's what you want) and then pan upwards to the head. Cut to different closeups of interesting parts of the bird, then maybe another full-length shot from a different angle. Use video to recreate the experience of walking around the subject and taking a closer look at it.

Martin

Hi Tom,

To get the shot you need, you have to turn the camera 90 degrees and then turn the image
90 degrees when you edit the footage.

There is nothing like living in a house with 12 parrots to keep you in line;')

Terry

Make the parrot lay down...

Haha, sorry that's all I got. The suggestion above is what I would do.

I suppose you *could* rotate your camera 90 degrees, but because video is strictly a horizontal medium you would end up having to rotate the picture in post which will force you to zoom the picture in post in order to lose the vertical black bars to the left and right of your picture. Of course zooming will end up degrading the picture and cutting off parts of the bird... Which ends up putting you back as square 1.

The easiest thing to do (as others have said) is to use the advantages of the medium- being able to move the camera, and using different shots cut together- to get your overall image across. Best of luck!

Jeff