Hello, world.

I'm a semi-pro (moving step by step from still photo and wildlife slideshow/multimedia producing) DV wildlife- film-maker. I life and shoot in Finland. I'm a professional photojournalist and biologist, but hoping to fill more of my days (= feeding my family) totally with wildlife-film making.

Right now I'm using XL1 boosted with Nikon still photo lenses for telephoto options.

I'm making small budget wildlife films (doing about everything myself, including shooting, sound recording, editing and composing music) and hoping to stay small enough. I'm not heading towards international markets, but to stay small. The main reason for this is to stay independent enough, when it comes to choosing subjects and viewpoints to them in my films.

Are there other serious wildlife-filming people using the XL1 in this community? Just thinking of changing experiences & wanting to see something that has been shot with this fine camera (which compensates its technical cons with it's super light weight compared to bigger cameras. A real treasure for a lone filmmaker).

Best regards from Finland,
just an inch from full summer

Korpijäärä
Jami Jokinen

Welcome aboard Jami. Although I'm not into wildlife at all I shot
some nice footage in the first couple of weeks. Just to try out
the camera. Loved the footage instantly. I think there are also
a couple of other guys in here that use it for wildlife.... Good luck
with your films!

Hi Jami,
I am interested in wildlife video as well. My current project is trying to get some wolf video for ABC news, a daunting task at best. I really want to get into bird photography as bird watching is a passion of mine. I just wanted to say welcome and good luck. Also I am considering doing a documentary on a Finnish settlement here in Idaho and was wondering if you would be interested in providing some background video. This is all very early and probably wouldn't go into production until 2003. Let me know what you think.

Steve Nunez ("stevenyc1@aol.com" is his handle here) recently used his XL1s to shoot a documentary for the New York parks on some red-tail hawks making their living in a Brooklyn park. Steve's an amateur but I saw some of his footage and it was first-rate in my eyes. Perhaps he'll chime-in here.

Jami, what part of Finland are you in? My cousin is an English professor at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi.

Hi all.

Thanks for the plug Ken.

As Ken mentioned I have quite a bit of footage of the local NYC wildlife species (especially red-tail hawks)- I am Bronx based and as such shoot most of the video locally (except for my trip tomorrow to Florida- hoping for some good footage)- if anyone thinks they might have need of any of my footage- just throw me an email and we'll see what I can do for you- I am not a pro- just a serious home user (shooter)...

have fun everyone- you only live once!

Hi Jami,

You might also want to search these threads for posts from Michael Rosenberger. He makes a living shooting outdoor programs...called the "Arizona Sportsman's Journal." His company is called "Azuho Productions" (http://www.azuho.com).

He's a really friendly guy...and his posts all say how willing he is to help out.

D.Eric...I can't imagine a more difficult task than filming wolves. How do you shoot something that doesn't want to be seen...and is good at it? Really interesting, though.