I was on vacation camping at Myakka River State Park in Florida for a couple of days last week and could not resist capturing some of the abundant wildlife there for 4K stock footage with my Sony Z280. It is so nice to have a fast 17x zoom lens after struggling with the limitations of removable SLR and PL lenses for the last few years. This is a small sampling of the 252 clips that I will be uploading for stock footage sales.

https://youtu.be/yu1crWvcdJU

Beautiful footage, Doug. Love the grade too. Saturated, but not artificially so. Looks like that 17x came in quite handy. Were you in a blind as well?

Doug, please or beautiful clips. Gives me a better idea of what you submit. I am in Colorado right now and plan on heading back to Atlanta on the back roads tomorrow. Hope to shoot some video. I am still uploading clips to shutter stock. Bob

Some nice footage there. Thanks for sharing.

Wow, thats one hell of a state park. What blows me away is the amount of quality footage "while camping for a couple of days". Great job Doug! I have been camping all my life and have never seen that much wildlife in a couple days if outside our National Park System. Maybe I need to come to Florida. I have been there many times for business but never for pleasure. I don't know what your style of camping is? I spent decades backpacking or otherwise sleeping on the ground every chance I got. Several years ago I bought an RV and got spoiled very quickly. Backpacking in bear country....no problem. Tent camping with those gators around.....NOT A CHANCE!

Your stock program has given me a whole new level of motivation to get out and shoot just for fun like I used too. Adding the challenge of possibly selling something while I am out enjoying the wilderness like I do all the time means I am going to open the camera bags and not just haul them around.

Kind Regards,

Steve

Thanks for the compliments! Yes, it was one hell of a state park. We stopped there for a couple of nights on the way to the Everglades (didn't shoot anything at all there) and then stopped for one more night on the way back home. We had no idea what to expect before we got there but it was so alive with critters for such a small space. Everything in the highlights video (plus about an hour more of good stock) was shot within 25 yards of a paved road that ran for about 3 miles through the woods and meadows. In Yellowstone it would take hundreds of miles of driving to see that many animals. Not that I'm against Yellowstone, mind you, it's my favorite place to visit and 'm going back again this fall, but it can't beat Myakka for concentration of wildlife. I wasn't even planning on shooting anything on this trip but I threw the Z280 and a tripod into the van "just in case". It would have been torture being at the park if I didn't have a camera. I've learned that lesson too many times to not bring a camera with me almost everywhere I go now.

No tents for me, either! I just park the RV someplace and then I disconnect the van and can roam around the countryside for 2-3 hours in the late afternoon until to gets too dark.

Wow, really awesome footage! Such beauty and so much wildlife!

Are those sandhill cranes?

Thanks.
Yes, adults and juvenile Sandhill Cranes. There were at least two different families of three birds in different areas of the park.