I shot this stock footage at a prescribed burn last Friday. 80% is with the Z280 with a few F55 shots mixed in for super-slow mo. I'm loving the little Z280 the more I use it. So nice to have a fast 17x zoom lens for banging off a bunch of different shots very quickly. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Canaveral Marshes Prescribed Fire - Highlights Video on Vimeo

Awesome. Love it!

Andrew

Nice job Doug, Both shooting and cutting. What was your mode of transportation? You obviously were not on foot or those firefighters would not have let you have your way like that? You covered some ground.

I have only had two careers in my life. In the first one I was a firefighter/medic. Since then I have been an imagemaker. Seems like two separate lifetimes now. It has been a long time since I fought fire for a living but those images brought back many memories. Those guys look confident and relaxed in your video. Firefighters love to fight fire, that is what they live for. But believe me, the real stress for all of them was not over until the last flame was out. Prescribed burns are very risky business. The firefighters START the fire, if you lose that fight you go down in flames. Messing around with mother nature is the work of men that think they know more than her. That is a fight mortal men often lose.

Glad you had a great shoot. Great stuff!

Kind Regards,

Steve

Nice job Doug, Both shooting and cutting. What was your mode of transportation?

Good question, Steve.

I have a golf cart so I could drive back and forth on a dirt trail that borders where they were doing the burn. In fact, the tracking shot at :42 was done while I was also driving the golf cart. I've got about a minute of usable tracking footage from that shot but I liked the way the palm trees passed at that point. You'll notice that the Marsh Master is actually on the other side of a fence. Funny thing is that about 5 minute before that shot I had just given the driver of that machine a lift back to his truck at the staging area to get his phone.

I agree with everything you've said about the men and women who do that. I mostly cut this video together for their benefit, and of course, I'm already repurposing a lot of it for stock. I actually got 225 shots out of the day.

More wildfire footage from the Z280 last week. This one shows graded vs. ungraded.

THE POWER OF GRADING STOCK FOOTAGE - PART ONE FIRE AND SMOKE on Vimeo

Hello,
I read on B&H that some people complained of soft focus issues on Z280 and image distortion. Any one have these issues?

I've had my Z90 now since 2018 and love it, shot a lot of content for clients and just returned from the Birdsville Big Red Bash, when this is edited I'll link back for those interested.
The Z280 is now in my sights and wondering how much of an upgrade this will be for me.

Hello,
I read on B&H that some people complained of soft focus issues on Z280 and image distortion. Any one have these issues?

Funny that you should ask about that topic because I just released a new video yesterday that addresses that very thing.

https://youtu.be/U_JSeBvpkKo

Morning Doug,

Just about to watch this video on the Z280 as I also have seen some soft looking footage.
Hey quick question, do you have info on the low light info between the Z90 and Z280.
I'm seeing lots of noise in my Z90 in low light at iso 800 and even in bright day light conditions in the shadows, I'm wondering if there's an issue with my camera as I don't recall this amount of noise before.

Good evening, Simon,

The Z90 is not as good at lowlight as the Z280 but I don't find it particularly noisy. Of course, using a good custom Picture Profile makes a big difference. Also, "800 ISO" is a meaningless number. What you want to do is change the camera to show GAIN instead of ISO and keep it on 0dB as much as possible. If you go above 0dB, then you are introducing noise. The Z90 is a great little camera so just pay attention to the details and you'll get some nice results.

Thanks Doug,
Yep I'm using your recommend profile from your training series. Funny I've had this set to ISO and keeping an eye on that, I'll try gain instead.

Cheers, Simon