Common Crane close-up
 

Hi all,
I was a trip to Hornborgarsjöen in Sweden last weekend to do some footage of the Common Crane http://www.hornborga.com/eng/index.asp
Hornborgarsjöen is a breeding and resting place for migratory birds. The Common Crane is one of them and 1. of April was a top with 13900 in one day. This weekend the number was a bit limited, but almost 1000 was still there.
I got some stunning footage of this beautiful bird. Sitting in a hide I was able to film som real nice close-up of the bird.
The close-up is shot with Canon XLH1 + Canon 500mm f4.0L, shutter 1/50, aperture f17 + CPL-filter. It was early evening with a bright light from the sun.
The distance to the bird approx. 7-8 meter, the bird was moving slightly and it was hard to frame it properly!

Link: http://video-film.no/snutter/crane-closeup.mov (23.5 MB)
Please download before viewing!


Enjoy!

Common crane close-up
 

Per,
I truly look forward to your posts! You always capture such beautiful footage. As someone who is seriously considering buying the "H1", your clips are highly compelling to make that purchase sooner than later. Keep up the wonderful work!!!

Me too. :-D
Again some beautiful footage shot by Per!

Regards, Oliver

This caught my eye as the cranes/ducks/geese/pelicans have just returned to our neighbourhood marsh. I'm itching to get some footage once the ice opens up a bit for access :-) How far would you say you were from the crane with the 500mm ?

blind
 

Per Johan,

Here is something we haven't talked much about, what do you use for a portable blind?? A couple snaps would be interesting.

I shot some ariel footage of a large flock of migrating cranes on Sunday, with my gl2.

I mentioned it in my first thread: 7-8 meter from the Crane. This is almost the nearest you can manage to take footage of slightly moving objects. It's veeery hard to maintain focus and follow the object! The head of the Crane fill the entire viewfinder and you have to guess the next movement of the bird.

Dale, the blind I was filming from at this place is stationary and you have to rent them for one day. You are not allowed to put up your own blind on places like this!

Anyway, I got a mobile blind which I often used in areas where this is allowed. This is a kind of tent which is very easy to use:
http://kikkert.no/default.asp?VS=detalj&ID=170021 Sorry, text in norwegian only!

As usual, fascinating footage, Per Johan, including what may be the longest wink in nature videography. The use of a permanently based hide makes good sense ... it reduces anxiety among the birds.

I also enjoyed your corvaxcorvax enormously; your footage revealed some delightful mutual grooming I've never seen among ravens before. You really are pushing out the limits of nature videography ... it's doing us all good to be shown how well it can be done. No wonder you're accused of being a professional cameraman ... few of them show as much insight into wildlife behaviour as you do and they frequently end up with a sit-com scenario or emotional tale rather than high quality nature study.

Per,

I have been looking at some of the turkey hunting blinds very similar to this. they roll up and have a shoulder sling on them which is far better than my 6foot x 4foot framed blind that I have to tote in a vehicle.
Curiously, how is the heat inside of it.