Wildlife demo
 

Quick mockup, still a bit of work to do, but I think it turned out nicely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aww52Bxqxsc

Not bad, Scott. Good compositions/framing. Wildlife is always a great subject to shoot.

One critique/suggestion, though: a tripod. Don't know if you just didn't have one that day or what, but the shakiness really detracted from the beauty of what you were shooting.

Other than that, keep shooting and keep sharing.

Jonathan

Good wildlife footage; nice pacing with the music; and type of music went well with your shots.

I agree with Jonathan; you need a tripod, or a bit steadier hand.

I imagine that you shot with the 20x lens? If you did, and if you used a tripod, it could be a bit shaky when your zoomed in (re: shooting planes). You could try turning off the OIS; that helps a little.

All in all, I thought it looked pretty good.

--JA

Scott,
you got a "good eye" for wildlife filming!
I second that you MUST use a tripod. As you showed us in your film wildlife can be everywhere, in the city, along railroads, out in the wilderness.

There is an uwol-challenge going on. Have you considered to join?

Keep up your good work!

Jeff...

Shouldn't the OIS be turned "ON" to help reduce the shakiness?

Jonathan

Hi Jonathan--

I think there were a couple of people here that suggested to actually turn off the OIS when using the 20x lens while on a tripod.

Also, in my most recent experience in shooting fast moving acrobatic planes, I turned off the OIS. Unfortunately, I had a mixed bag of good and bad footage. But that is mostly due to my inexperience of shooting fast moving acrobatic planes!

I had shot wildlife footage as well, with the OIS turned off; using a tripod (locked and unlocked), and zooming in (fast and slow), the result was good, smooth footage.

I also use a Libec H22 fluid head, which could barely handle the weight of the XL2 with the 20x lens. This makes it challenging for me to smoothly control my Canon; but certainly would be much harder without one. So...

I usually have the OIS on during handheld shots (using my Tiffen Steady Stick), and I turn the OIS off when on a tripod.

Just my dos centavos,

--Jeff

Hey Jeff,

I skipped over the fact you were talking about the instances when the camera is on the tripod. I thought you were talking about off the shoulder. In that case, I agree with ya. Sorry about that. Good info, though. BTW, I use the H55 fluid head on T72 legs and I've had no problems. I was going to go with the H22 but was guided toward the 55 instead.

Jonathan

You know those "shoulda hads" and "coulda bought" moments? I'm having one right now!

We got so much good advice about production equipment that I seem to have glossed over the fact that a good tripod with good fluid head will outlast any camera you buy. Seems we didn't properly budget for a "good tripod" when buying our stuff; I figured I'd mostly go hand-held, all of the time anyway :)

--Jeff