Footage from Norway
 

Here is some footage from Norway, in the northern part of Europe.
I shoot with my xl2 (pal), 20x lense + 1.6x extender in some part of the movie
Camera settings: all footage shoot in 50i, 16:9, automatic mode mostly, with exp.lock on, adjusting iris and shutter for the best result.
The location was high up in the mountains up to 6500 feet. Night temperature down to 8 degree farenheit.
The camera functioned very well in the low temperature but battery went out very quick so I was happy to have with me spare batteries!

The file size is large so please right click, and save it to your locale machine before open!

link to footage:
http://www.video-film.no/snutter/footage.html

Enjoy
- Per Johan

Beautiful!

I have experienced problems with the LCD when shooting in temps in the 20s farenheit. The darn thing starts to lag big time. It doesn;t effect the footage on tape but can cause some issues while shooting and watching on the LCD. I would guess you saw something like this at 8 degrees Farenheit..no?

Norway lies in the northern part of Europe? Now I know! But seriously, Your video has whetted my appetite for a trip to Scandinavia, maybe with my new camera, called HDX100 or whatever.
I have one question: Was the lens stabilizer on or off while Your shooting?

Per,

STUNNING footage! Even down-sampled to 512x288 it looked great and was very edited together. I noticed that the file properties report a frame rate of 29.0fps...I would have anticipated 25fps since you're shooting PAL?

Looks great and very cold....

Thanks all for your comment!

Marty: I didn't experience any lag in the viewfinger when I was filming, nor in the night shoot at 8 degree farenheit! As I told the camera functioned remarkable well in that cold temperature, albeit my batteries died very quick. Spare batteries is a good thing filming in the wilderness especially in wintertemperatures.

Robert: As far as I remember I didn't use the stabilizer during these shoots, because I was using a tripod.

Pete: OK, I will try to render a new file with your suggestion, should be exciting to compare any difference!

- Per Johan

Subtle and quietly haunting. Very nice. Can you tell me who did the music on the second track?

No need to go to extra work because of me. I am simply curious about the frame rate; your WMV file is 29 fps and therefore non-standard for either PAL or NTSC (NTSC is 29.97). But for sure, there is NOTHING wrong with changing such things; the artist may do with his or her art whatever it is that the artist wishes! I simply wondered if that specific frame rate was deliberate, or just slipped into the settings by accident. ;-) Along those lines, what software did you use to edit and then to export to WMV?

EDIT: Also, I meant to ask you if you used any particular filters when the camera was pointed at the sun? Looks like it was no problem for you, but I've been too concerned about damaging the camera to do such things as sunrises and sunsets.

Pete: You was right! I took a closer look into the settings for the program (Windows Media Encoder 9.00) I used to convert the avi-file to wmv and the settings was default to ntsc (29.97/30 fps). Changing the format to pal (25 fps), reduced the file-size to 33.8 mb (the size was originally 53.1 mb!)
For NLE I am using Pinnacle Liquid Pro 6.0, some of the footage (the full moon and sunset) was speeded up to 16x, while the water drop was reduced 0.2x
I also used the grey-filter (1/32) on the sunset shoot and reduced the iris to protect the ccd-chip (done a lot of sunset-footage without discovering any problems with the camera afterwards), does anybody have any comments to this?

Scott: The music on the second track is - "chants, hymns and dances" composed by Gurdjieff, performed by Anja Lechner violincello and Vassilis Tsabropoulos piano. ECM New Series 1888, B0003036-02

- Per Johan

Beautyfull footage Per ! Love it !

Frank

Hi Per,

Am impressed with your beautiful country. Well shot. Was it windy in some of the shots? I notice some vibration in the shots. I'm not trying to take from the shots but when this happens to me it annoys me. Sometimes it's impossible to avoid when you're at the telephoto end. Like the music btw, aptly chosen.

Donie

Donie,
I can tell you that it was veeery windy, in some of the shots. I also used a to small and unstable tripod, so it was almost impossible to shoot any good and stable footage at full telephoto!

So, what I learned from this trip was that even if its heavy to carry, bring with you your best and heavyest tripod!

- Per Johan

Really really nice stuff. Thanks for sharing - it looked great and was a pleasure to watch. I have a couple of friends who used to live there and they would try to describe to me the beauty of the area. Now, I think I may have a better idea thanks to your work.
-Jon

Wow!

This is one of the best things about DV---the clarity and freedom which these sophisticated tools make available to so many people. I really treasure modest-scale work like this: filmmaking in a direct, personal sense.

As I watched it, I thought: "It's not just the landscape---anybody could go out and get acceptable imagery from views like that. It's the craft."

I mean your craft; your editing (that opening sequence of moonrise & moonset is deeply satisfying); your use of music. The pacing.

Really encouraging to see this kind of work, Per. It's like reading a poem you might have written.

Marty; I was recently shooting at -20f. XL1. No problems, except cold fingers!
Per;
Nice stuff. I am very impressed with the country my ancesters came from. Your techniques are excellent and convey a feeling of being there. Very good work.

Keep it up!

Best;

Ron

breathtaking! excellent work man!

this reminds me of the possibilites of people living all over the world with access to very exotic locations =^). i don't think modern filmmaking is bound by any means @all =^).

Canon should buy this....

how do you get to those locales? are they just in your backyard? do you drive? helicopter? hike? etc?

Super! Congratulations. I really revived the quiteness I felt during the trip my wife and I made through Norway many years ago...
On the sunset "burn-in" risk: if you never set for high shutter speeds (>1/50 for PAL) and you don't get vertical streaking in the pics (well overflow and/or photon leakage), there is no risk for the CCD structure. Furher on it is preferable to go first for the highest acceptable F-numbers before adding ND filters.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ron Armstrong : Marty; I was recently shooting at -20f. XL1. No problems, except cold fingers!
Per;
Nice stuff. I am very impressed with the country my ancesters came from. Your techniques are excellent and convey a feeling of being there. Very good work.

Keep it up!

Best;

Ron -->>>

My experience for 4 years with the XL1 viewfinder in cold weather never showed any issues. 2 times in the cold (20-30 degrees farenheit) and it slows down bigtime for me.

FWIW