Tips needed for shooting trees

[Ray Dunakin]

Anyone have some suggestions on how to shoot creative, interesting video of trees? I'm not talking about a whole forest, just local trees in the neighborhood. Framing is a bit tricky since trees are generally tall, vertical things, while video is horizontal.

[Mark Watson]

I have put the base of my camera flat against the tree trunk, pointing straight up towards the sky and gotten good shots. Works well with palm trees.

Maybe mix in some slider shots amongst your pans.

I've seen in some movies where they start a shot at a distance from a line of trees, and rather than do a continuous zoom action, they do a chop zoom where it jumps to a closer view in 3-4 steps.

I started rigging up a zip line for my camera today, on a 300 foot run through some trees on my property. Haven't done a test yet.

Mark

Edit: One more: Find a small tree of a certain variety (even if you have to pick one up at a nursery and plant it yourself). Start recording as you zoom into it (ECU),until it gets a little blurry. Stop recording. Then, set up your camera zoomed in on a full grown tree, fully zoomed in, slightly blurred. Start recording and zoom out.

[Rainer Listing]

Drones were made for shooting trees. Save yourself a lot of time rigging zip lines.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Mark has shared some nice tips. I would also not forget to go for closeups for eg to show various patterns in the bark etc.

[Ray Dunakin]

Thanks guys, great tips!

BTW, I do have a few shots taken with the drone, and was planning to do more but DJI changed the software and now I can't fly it in my neighborhood. :(

[Donald McPherson]

Also with drones remember you cannot use for profit unless you have a commercial licence. Which seems a bummer for the hobbyist who might get asked to take the odd photo or video. (But that could be an entirely different thread.)