Getting started with Nature and Wildlife video

[Kaya Saman]

Originally Posted by Bob Safay

I would highly recommend Doug's courses on filming wildlife. I have been an active wildlife videographer for over 25 years and I learned so much from Doug's courses. Also, as Doug mentioned I always use a camcorder. Presently I shoot with the Canon XF605. The versatility of a camcorder in the field is amazing. If anyone doesn't think that a camcorder isn't good enough for wildlife should check out some of my videos from Africa and South America.

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1110764704

Wow! The image quality out of the camcorder is amazing!!

It really shows what you can do with such a simple (or should that be integrated device) and in a way puts more expensive gear to shame

Can you color grade with these things? Do they shoot raw or log formats?


It's exactly what Roger has just come back with.....

Sorry for the confusion. I used both my camcorder rig and the mirrorless camera that replaced my old Nikon after it died. Quite a few times I've used both the camcorder and mirrorless or dslr, mixing in stills and video from the second camera. By the way, the format of the video isn't nearly as important as proper framing, focus, exposure, and white balance. I just use mp4 myself. I've included a short video illustration link. Even more so if you're just making video for a hobby. It really helps me keep my sense of mental, emotional, and spiritual well being in this crazy twenty first century. While doing it as a business was fulfilling, it's much more fun now.

as you get the best of both worlds using both systems.

You wouldn't be able to get mega long reach with a camcorder - taking away the expense of fast super telephoto lenses, and I guess you loose some versatility too in that you can't do macro and use probe lenses or even the specialist Laowa high magnification lenses built for microscopy like 10-50x or whatever the ratio was....

But yeah I definitely see where this is going for quality and convenience!


This is from an organization is Turkey - yes the language is in Turkish. I'm not sure if it's for conservation or ecology purposes but the trail cam footage is amazing. Though they do say that they leave them out for 3-6 months.

â*�â*�â*�ULUYAN KURTLAR ! BAÄžIRAN VAÅžAKLAR ! MUHTEÅžEM GÖRÃœNTÃœLERE TANIK OLUN!â*�â*�â*� - YouTube

I guess it's about like what was said earlier: "telling a story"

- side note: I'm not based in Turkey but I know the country well as I grew up there pretty much so following things is easy for me. From West to East they have some really amazing animals including a salamander with sea slug style external fan gills - one of the ecology based series in the region of Hakkari between the Iraqi and Iranian borders (ancient Mesopotamia basically):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbWj...XFn2ZldA%3D%3D


....now that's a fascinating creature!


Then you can add stuff like Doug's amazing teaching material. ps. I'm sold!! :-D


Honestly, thank you so much everyone for responding and interacting so kindly with me!! I really appreciate it and I'm glad I found this place. I feel like I can learn a lot here :-)

I just really hope my health improves at some stage... the last few days have been so difficult and I ended up taking pain killers trying to mitigate a trauma response.
Hopefully I can find a specialist somehow who will look a Neurodivergent person and be able to help but that's another story.
I really wana get out there and start exploring and adventuring and back to my photography and start learning about filming too....
In fact I rediscovered Wikiloc yesterday which I had forgotten about completely that features many off-road and hiking trails.
Perfect to take you in the middle of nowhere and hopefully find places to research for habitats and animal distributions.
That's also part of the fun, learning about environments and what lives there.....

[Kaya Saman]

Here's a short video illustrating how I use both cameras: https://youtu.be/ASWP1BG2wNM?si=JoXjvq5qIRBNiaGg

This shows exactly what Doug was talking about in his "tutorial videos" about adding motion and dynamicy into the shot, at the beginning where you slowly zoom into the Blackbird perched on the foliage.

Very interesting!

[Roger Van Duyn]

Glad you watched it. Part of what I hoped to convey is to pay attention to the conditions, the quality of the light, especially the direction it's coming from. Also, really listen. In that video I was able to use noise reduction to remove traffic noise coming from nearby highways. But, many times I have to replace much of the sound that I've recorded with sound from another day. I try to use sound from the same location, same season. Sometimes I'm out before sunrise when it's too dark to get good video, but there isn't much traffic on the road to make noise. So, I shoot it for B-roll and export the audio track for later use. I try to capture what's useful for telling a story at some future time when there's time to work on it.

[Kaya Saman]

Roger, exactly! Time of day and light really matters.

I remember when I was starting with birds in flight photography and the bird was silhouetted against a bright sky.

Here you have 2 options, either grab the dark bird or over expose and blow the surroundings out but the bird will come out fine.

This can't be done in video sadly to the same level because with video things move and it's not static.


Same for sound! Removing unwanted noise.... yes sure there are tools like EQ and filters which you can cut or attenuate various frequencies.
At least with wind in a microphone it usually ends up as low frequency rumble so having one of those fluffy things on top of the mic can really help there.

But more broad spectrum frequencies like people talking or a city background drop will be much harder especially if things are densely packed together.

Field mic'ing is a really amazing subject in itself though and something I could talk all day about even though I have yet to try it.

Back when I when I did audio engineering mic placement was so important and also allowing a bit of bleed from other instruments etc... to give a more "live" feel.

I've always thought about the best way to capture in-field ambiance and one possible idea is to have a stereo pair with a bit of width (of course playing around with the distance is needed)

I'm not sure if having a large diaphragm condenser mic as a 3rd (live) mic would be of use?

It's such an exciting subject though :-)

[Bob Safay]

Kaya, glad you enjoyed the video. The footage right out of the XF605 is great. I did minimum grading. Yes, you can color grade the footage and you can also shoot on CLOG3. I shoot in REC 709. As for long reach the built-in Canon lens goes from 35 mm equivalency of 25.5 - 383.5 mm. Plus, Canon makes an optical 1.5 tele extender that pushes you to 574mm. Look at the zoom range of the Sony Z200. Plus, camcorders and cinema cameras have built in XLR's for capturing sound while in the field. Camcorders are just so versatile. I have been taking Doug Jensen's courses since early 2012. I even had the opportunity to spend a morning filming birds with him at Merritt Island, Florida. One really good lesson I learned from him was that no matter what mirrorless camera, cinema camera or camcorder you decide on, take the time to learn everything about it. Experiment with different settings, try different attachments. Keep notes on what worked and what didn't. Rent equipment and try before you buy. Below is the link to another video I shot at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. I shot this entire video using the Canon XF605 and a Sennheiser MKE 600 Microphone. Good luck and happy filming.

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1132945888