GL2 Frame stills...hawk eating prey!!!
 

In case anyone is wondering how good (or bad) are frame stills (not the digital pictures via SD Card- but actual single frame grabs) from the GL2....I've posted a sample "grabs" page here

http://stevenunez.com/GL2frames/gl2grabs.html

It's of an immature redtail hawk in a Bronx, NYC park eating a bird it just caught- this series of pictures came from video I shot today while at the park with a nature photographer friend....the video was outstandingly good and the GL2 proved itself a remarkable camera.... the GL2 is just awesome.

PS- These shots were taken with a Sony 1.7X telephoto video adapter attached to the front of the GL2 via 58mm threads....so there's a slight degradation of video quality- but minimal.....the resulting shots would therefore be at 34X optical zoom! This hawk was quite high in the tree.....see for yourself.

Do you have a clip we can see too?

I guess if there's enough interest in seeing the video- i can edit something real quick with FCP and post it......

I can tell you personally that the video impressed me and the few people who saw it- we all viewed it full screen on an 23" HD Apple Cinema Display and we were floored- the GL2 impressed us all quite a bit.


I can understand all the user enthusiasm for it- I just got rid of the Panasonic DVX100 and don't regret it a bit....awesome zoom and excellent batt life make the GL2 an excellent nature / documentary camera....I'm sold!

Steve,
As usual, great shots (gory subject <g>).

Glad to hear you're liking the GL2. I really like mine. It's the most impressive camera I've seen in its price bracket and produces really striking footage if given the chance.

WOW!
 

I agree with Ken.

Just as an aside. As we are starting to see what IS possible with this prosumer cammy, the conversations relating to the "concerns" over the low light levels seem to have "faded" and "dimmed". I do appreciate that there are times when this low light option is a "must", but seeing the glorious work Steve has produced, gives me great satisfaction - I just love looking at the clarity and "depth" this cammy produces

Again as Ken said,"produces really striking footage if given the chance" - THIS says it all for me.

Steve - Thanks for taking the time and bother to share with us what you've discovered about the GL2 - XM2 here in the UK!

Grazie

Steve, very nice work. The 40x stuff shows very little color fringing in the background. It looks like you found a good combination.

Steve, I'd like to copy these over to the Image Gallery on our GL2 Son of Watchdog page, with a link back of course

Video is posted!
 

Chris,

Sure thing....I've added a video to make the visit to the page worthwhile.

Let me know what you guys think.

Nice video! I really enjoyed the bit near the end with the fading jump cuts and the feel of the music. Hadn't seen that type of jump-cut usage in nature footage before, but I liked it. Very dreamy and intriguing because of the effect the music has while you're watching what is basically a brutal part of nature. Sad and beautiful at the same time.

Was that footage taken in the GL2's Frame mode?

Lovely footage, Steve. Thanks for sharing.

BTW, what was it you didn't like about the DVX?

I'm really glad you guys liked it....creating video is a hobby for me and having anyone enjoy a piece i've created is a real ego-booster for me...thanks again.

The video was shot in normal interlaced mode in "Easy" rec mode...I usually shoot in "Manual" mode with my XL1s but am not familiar enough with the GL2 to record in "Manual" yet. The video was compressed and deinterlaced with Cleaner 5.1.1 using the Sorenson 3 codec- the music comes from the "BackTraxx" music library.


-- As for what I didn't like about the Panasonic DVX100;
Extreme wide angle lens- excellent lens but not suited for telephoto videography of which nature videographers like myself would want- the 10X zoom wouldn't zoom in very far due to the WA lens design.

No quick "Easy" record mode- when you just need to pick up the cam and start shooting at something taking place- this camera does not have an "easy" mode therefore you'll need to adjust aperature, shutter and gain manually to suit the lighting conditions- it''s a 100% "all the time" manual camera- not for the run and gun type shooting I sometimes employ...when something is unfolding on the spot- you'll likely miss the action with a DVX.

The DVX is undoubtedly an awesome cam- but it's more suited for true "Indie" type filmmakers who will be shooting under controlled conditions- or under conditions where they can setup and adjust the camera to match lighting- probably 90% tripod mounted. The image quality is the best i've seen (beats my XL1s for sure)....the form factor and control placement of the Panasonic is excellent....it's a serious piece of camera well suited to studio or film enviornments- I dont feel it would make a good "on the fly" type camera.....if I were making a music video or film- i'd go with the Panasonic DVX for sure!

I'll miss the comanding presence it has (much lke the XL's)....but the Canon GL2 makes me smile every time I shoot with it- it's a keeper.

Cool video, thanks a ton!

Great footage, Steve. I wouldn't have thought there would be hawks in NYC.

Steve has devoted many, many hours documenting this apparent anachronism. Last year I had the priveledge of seeing some short clips of Steve's work, then shot with an XL1s, that he was doing for the NY Parks. They were on-par with work you'd see on Animal Planet documentaries. Some top-notch shots. As anyone who's tried to get good wildlife footage knows, this work takes great patience, great determination and mastery of one's tools.

Robert, urban environments are full of wildlife as they adapt to their coexistence with man. Eight or nine years ago I shot Snowy Owls at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland. Wildlife is everywhere, you need to know where to look. Central Park is an oasis in a harsh urban landscape for wildlife. At certain times of the year (migration) it is easier to find birds there than many more natural settings. It acts like a magnet attracting birds because of the shelter and food it supplies. You end up with a concentration of wildlife in a very small area.

We now have foxes, wandering about central London! We often have one lope through our back garden in Wembley!

Grazie

Steve,

Beautiful work... The detail is awesome. Such is nature...

Add me to your email list (s) and keep me posted of your endeavors.

Cheers!

Derrick

Added a clip-
 

Thanks so much guys for the nice compliments.

It does take quite a bit of effort and patience to get any sort of useable footage worthy of making into a video...thanks to the lightweight and great battery efficiency of the GL2- the effort seems well worth it.

I've added a link to video short showing the rough times raptors in NYC have in acquiring prey. In the clip a Cooper's hawk attempts to catch a bird and just doesn't seem to have it together- to make matters worse- the hawk tries to catch this prey during medium snowfall.....I hope you guys like the clip. Go to the regular hawk clip as linked at the beginning of this thread- and when you get to the page where the redtail hawk video is posted- you'll see text linking you to the Cooper's hawk clip- enjoy!

(PS- Thankfully the Firestore is working manually and I'm not shooting tapes anymore- makes the long recording sessions cost effective when shooting for an hour+ for 10 seconds of useable footage!)

Great video Steve. Makes me want to grab my GL2 and go sit in the woods to try and film some action in the wild.
Show us more.

Thanks Steve.

It's terribly cold out (19`) and sadly no new footage for today.....I have tons of footage on file and can always put stuff together. Most of my video is of hawks with some owls and insect video as well.....I have a few clips posted on my site- stevenunez.com .....just don't expect too much- this is all a hobby for me- just having fun!

Enjoying the GL2 very much...can't wait for 60 degree+ weather!

You nature guys should all go out and shoot some video...I bet even pigeons could be made into a good subject for video should someone try.

~~We should have weekly challenges on this board- how about it Chris? Weekly assignments for the entire board to tackle and post- would be great fun.

I noticed an "effect" I've seen before and was wondering what
other people think of it. When looking at your footage look
closely at the sky (especially surrouding the tree). In my view/
opinion it doesn't look right. It looks off color and perhaps a bit
over exposed? Now I'm not trying to say this is a bad video or
anything, it is just something I've seen a couple of times before
(on my own footage too, especially with my digital still camera)
and was wondering where this comes from. My gut says the
auto white balancer is acting up here.... Any thoughts on this?

I think what you're referring to is called "Chromatic abberation"....it's common amongst digital capture devices such as digital cameras and camcorders- I believe it's caused by the camera's interpretation of contrasting edges and it's luminance/chroma values- in digital camera circles it's also referred to as "color fringing".....exposure settings and CCD quality affect the final output- in my case that footage was shot in "Easy/Green Box" mode- I think the camera made a pretty good, on the fly adjustment of available parameters to make what it thought was the best settings to render the footage well- I'm willing to bet that if i were to shoot the same footage in manual mode- with careful selection of aperature (Iris) and shutter speeds- I can vary the intensity of this fringing and possibly make the abberation disappear altogether......but overall the GL2 did a good job- but I did too notice the abberation.

Just my guess this is what you are referring to.

Okay... thanks. I hadn't considered that possibility. By chromatic
abberation you are probably reffering to the blue-like lines you
are seeing surrounding the tree branches, right? What more caught
my eye was a feeling that the color of the sky on these regions
is a tad to blue/green instead of blue. You think this might be
chromatic abberation as well?

Steve, I wonder if you can upload -- or send to me via email -- four or five full-size (720x480) frames, as uncompressed jpeg's.
It looks like the largest ones on your page are 555x370. Thanks in advance,

Full-size now posted
 

Chris,

I've recapped a bunch of stills from that short video sequence. All the stills are full size and represent the quality of typical frame grabs in regular "interlaced" Normal mode. There are many more stills posted and were deinterlaced using Adobe Photoshop.

Feel free to post a link to that page on your "Stills" page- or feel free to copy them yourself and post them as you see fit. I will leave this page on my site for forum members to see and critique as to GL2 frame still quality.
(shot in "Easy" mode)

***NOTE: There was a Sony 1.7x tele lens on the GL2 to capture the action so high up the tree. It degraded still image quality slightly but the footage remained excellent.***

----------------------------------------------------
We're swampped in a snow-blizzard as I type...if it lets up I'm gonna go out and try to find the raptors for new footage- they love hunting in the snow...stay tuned.
(PS- I hate the cold!!!!)

Adapter?
 

Like everyone here, I loved your photos. Nice work.

I'm curious about the adapter you mentioned: the 1.7X sony telephoto adapter. It increases the optical zoom by 1.7x, but it degrades the images slightly? Do you know why that is?

Would the images have been even sharper had they been taken in Movie Mode?

Thanks-

Regardless of what is often said- anytime you put ANY type of filter- glass protector or any sort of filter in front of a lens- there will be some degree of image degradation.......just think of it this way.....if you stacked 1000 of them (whatever filter we would be referring to) on top of each other- it would be apparent that the image seen through them would not be crystal clear (if visible at all)- there would be light falloff and image degradation- if a lens or filter was 100% non-affecting- you should be able to stack 1000 together and still look through them without a problem........the big thing is that most of us will usually just put on a single filter at a time- perhaps 2 at most.....the image degradation would be neglible, but I gurantee a machine calibrated to detect image irregularities or light falloff would be ablew to detect it- but our eyes wouldn't (for high quality filters or add-on lenses)


..the Sony 1.7X tele extender is a great add-on and doesn't affect image quality much at all- I can't measure such an offset in image quality- but i'd be willing to guess perhaps a 1% to 4% change (just speculation) if that much...myself and friends cannot tell what was shot with the extender on or off- the image quality is that good! I attribute the image quality to the great flourite lens the GL2 uses as stock equippment. For $299 the Sony 1.7X tele extender should be considered by anyone feeling the need for tele-videography.

Does anyone use any other telel extender and have any remarks? I believe Century offers a 2X extender- anyone use one?

As for the images being sharper in "Movie" mode (Frame)- there's a catch 22 there.....

...interlaced video has more resolution (no 25% reduction) and does produce sharper images than Frame mode does- problem is- the images would show interlacing fields and would need a "de-interlace" filter used- Adobe Photoshop has this filter under the Filters:Video:deinterlace option- so any sharpness gained using interlaced mode would be negated once you run the PS filter.......but onscreen- interlaced video is sharper.

Steve - I have the 2x Century Optics extender and I'm very pleased with it.

Great web page! Fantastic shots using only the easy mode. I agree however with manual adjustments the sky color would have been truer; as I found out just recently by simply using the sunlight icon setting it makes a considerable difference. White Balancing by using a simple piece of typing paper outdoors gives even better, truer color results. I encourage you all to experiment with all these settings in the future. I regret not using any sort of white balance settings with any shots my web page, but at least I realize now that I wasn't using the cam to its full potential.

Buddy,

thanks for the compliments. A custom WB under the shooting conditions will always produce better video- the problem is- when shooting birds or any animal that moves from place to place- I use a general WB setting for outdoors as they tend to move around (the animals)....one moment the hawk is sitting on a branch in dappled light- next moment it flies off to direct sunlight- so for me it's a bit hard to get the perfect WB settings- but the GL2 does a great job averaging everything out....the GL2 is a great "run and gun" camera. I had the much touted Panasonic DVX100 which is a phenomenal camera- but wasn't as "on the go" capable as the GL2....I wish I still had the DVX but it's not a good nature camera- it needed too much pre-setup- as a film camera- it's the best.

The GL2 has become my secret weapon, I recently shot an audition reel for an "Andrew Sisters" act. I shot the whole thing in less than ten minutes with only one Tota light. The booking agency had never seen anything I'd shot. It was a last minute deal so they weren't expecting much. When the woman started to view the footage her mouth dropped open (I thought I was going to get fired on the spot!) When it was over she asked me what I shot it with (again, I thought it was axe time) I told her I shot it all on the GL2 and I don't think she believed me at first, she asked again if I shot it with a BetaCam. She said she has been reviewing audition tapes for 20+ years and she said it was some of the best image quality she had ever seen. It's also about 10lbs lighter than a BCam and about 1/2 the weight of an XL1(s) it has it shortcomings, but they are most definately outweighed by the image quality, the insane run times with bp945's and the ability to "just shoot" and end up with outstanding images.

Thanks Buddy for your fantastic footage and the insight on the Panasonic DVX100, everyone has been raving about it but all of your points are valid. I have not read anything negative about it until you mentioned you got rid of yours. Not a bad camera just not suited to your style of shooting. Thanks for the honest info.

Mark

p.s. I delivered the Andrew Sisters on SVHS

GL2 & XM2 Rules! Okay!
 

Mark! - Brilliant!

Any chance of seeing an itsy bitsy piece of the footage? Pretty PLease!!

There's a link at the begining of this thread that shows the slides and there's a link there to the actual source video- but try this for the video......

http://stevenunez.com/GL2frames/gl2grabsvideo.html

Let me know how that works.

"Andrew Sisters" act. from Mark
 

Sorry Steve,

It was the "Andrew Sisters" act from Mark Austen - Apologies.