african Dream
 

When I found this challenge, I had no pre conceived ideas, as I had only bought my camera about 3 weeks earlier. Being my first camera, I was just too keen to get out and film anything. Living in Africa I wanted to try capture how man and animals depend on water for survival, but also for recreation. I know I have a lot to learn,and I am having so much fun learning

What camera are you using?

Joh,

Thanks for participating!!

Everyone here is learning, just at different levels. go back through some of the prior compititions and see how individuals have improved sense January!!!

A couple thoughts: shorten up the clips and alter the music a bit more throughout.

shoot shoot shoot. practice makes perfect

I liked seeing the coot not much different than the ones up here.

Hi John.
I think you’ve put together a nice piece of work, I enjoyed watching birds I’ve never seen before. Nicely done and good luck in uwol.

Geir Inge

Hi John!

Welcome to uwol! Nice job for a first attempt! Dale had good comments earlier so take advantage of those. You had really steady filming in this, no camera shakes or anything! I loved the birds. Next time try getting out and about a bit more to different areas. Africa is so exciting and unknown for most of us, we would love to see more of it.

Can't wait to see what you do for uwol5

Have fun!

Sincerely,

Cat Russell

good work john, i'm glad you climbed on board with the rest of us.

enjoyable film.

brian

Thanks for the feed back everyone,Its an honour to have my video watched by all of you,and more of an honour to get your feed back and advise.I will be showing a whole lot more of my country and continent in future challenges.I was just so keen to get on with the filming once the theme was announced,that I just got out there and filmed.Had everything done 2 days later,no thinking about it or any planning.This was the third thing I have ever filmed,the first being my dog in our yard the day I bought my camera,and a BMX event that my nephew was racing in.Louis I am using a small consumer camera a Panasonic nv-gs75 3ccd.

Hi John,
I liked many of your shots - particularly at the end with the river bed just a trickle of water, followed by the water spraying in the swimming pool. I thought this conveyed where we are as a human race to some degree.

In terms of some hints, I would not film without a tripod in these situations and would discourage using zoom, unless it is real slow. Where you used a tripod, the shots came up beautifully. Probably best to use zoom just to compose the shot, then hit the record button.

Loved the water bird shots as I also like to see the bird life in other countries. Well done...

Hi John and welcome onboard the uwol community!
Your entry was nice to watch, most have been said about it! I think you gonna improve throughout this challenge, don't hestate to ask if you got any questions. There are lots of expertice here. The most important is to use a tripod when you are in telephotoarea.

Good luck

Thanks Per and David.Everything I have read about using zoom on the forum is "dont use zoom"..Having said that the temptation to just get that bit closer to the action is sometimes to great to resist.I still think using very slow zoom in the right situation could work,I just have not mastered it yet.thanks again for your comments will leave that zoom button out.

John...you are in Africa so where is the big game? Hippos, Elephants and such, all frolicking in the water...just kidding of course.

Nice job on the video, my suggestion would be to try to stick to one subject matter weather that is birds, the water in Africa or it might have been fun to take us on a short journey with the folks in the small boat...

Fun little video

Jeff

hi john: welcome to UWOL. i am so excited to see some footage from africa--you are our first entrant from that part of the world to complete a submission, so props to you. i'd like to see more participants from that enormous land mass climb on board.

UWOL is a great place to develop your skills and have fun doing it.

Hi John, welcome to the UWOL family. Stay with us for the next challenges.

You made a nice film. I enjoyed watching it.
Nice music too.
A detail you might try to improve is the panning/tilting. Some of it could have been more smooth.

Thanks for the comments Trond,cant wait for the next challenge to try out some of the new things I have learnd.As for the panning and tilting,I have a real el cheapo tripod and its about as smooth as sandpaper.I think it will be the first piece of equipment that I upgrade.

This was fun to watch, I really enjoyed it. And I look forward to seeing more of Africa, a continent I've visited several times now.

Ruth