kingfisher slow motion
 

Password is iwp3

Click on the top bar with the text Private Video on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Fantastic.

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Absolutely wonderful! Thank you!

J.

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

That was great. Thanks for posting it.

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How do you know where the bird is going to go for the fish, for ex. when the camera is underwater framing the fish when kingfisher dives in to snatch it, or when it lands on the post...Always wanted to ask it that!
Incredible footage!

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This must have taken a tremendous amount of time and patience.

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That is incredible. I would love to sit through a master class just on how you pulled that off.

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Hi Cees
You are the dutch Charlie Hamilton James ! Love that shot at 3:16..awesome stuff !
Is this sequence for a larger film?
Mat

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It's not real.

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Truly beautiful. Can you say what the frame rate is?

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Steve: it is shot @1500fps with a phantom.

Erick: There is only one way to know for sure where the bird is going to land, dive etc. and that is to make sure it does on exactly the place you want it to. It starts with studying its behavior, then prepare a place it will feed regularly (like a feeder table in your garden, but then a small fish pond in the river). And finally be there for many hours and be prepared to need many attempts to get the few shots that are perfectly right.

Mat: yes, it is for a larger film.

Mark O: after carrying buckets with fish for months, sitting in my hide for weeks and paying the rent for the phantom both my back and my pocket say it is real :-)

Thanks for all your positive responses.

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I am unable to watch the video - I am told it is a private video and I need a password.

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Alan, the. Password is on the first line of Cees original posting.

Mick

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Hi Cees,

Great footage again, loved watching. Assume that this will be linked in with the brilliant kestrel footage you posted a while ago. It was seeing the kestrel footage that prompted me to change to an ex3 from a jvc gy-hm700 but, don't think I will be rushing out to buy a phantom though, he he. Keep us updated as to when and where the final project will be posted or aired!


Mick

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

your hard work paid off and I'd say, with historical relevance!

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Thanks - I completely missed that, concentrating on the player window!

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"Mark O: after carrying buckets with fish for months, sitting in my hide for weeks and paying the rent for the phantom both my back and my pocket say it is real :-)"

Wow. The water looked a bit gelatinous in places so I guessed 3D. How did you manage the underwater shots?

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Even so, that is some impressive fish tossing. I'd still like to be a grunt on a project like that.

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This post is to save someone some trouble. I watched Cees's movie and was totally blown away. Of course, I wanted to try, but it became quickly obvious that the Phantom is way out of my league. But wait, there are cameras (called Bridge Cameras, examples are the Canon Powershot SX 50, Nikon Coolpix P520, Fuji and Panasonic also make models) that will shoot video at 240, 400, even 1000 frames per second. Wow! I started doing the research. Of course, as some of you already know, the images are the size of postage stamps, and the quality is, for lack of a better word, pretty awful.

I wasn't deterred. For the purposes I intended, the image quality was not a big factor. So I bought the Canon Powershot SX 50. It performed as advertised, and in good light, not too far away, the image at 240 fps was really quite good. The only problem, and the one they never mention, was that in the "movie mode" you can't select a shutter speed. It defaults to 1/60th of a second. So with rapid motion (like a flying bird) you get crisp feathers at the top and bottom of the stroke, but a blur while the wing is moving. (Even 1/240th of a second isn't fast enough to sharpen that motion). My dealer finally admitted that all the models are the same in that regard. I guess the camera makers assume that movies are always shot at 1/60th, or 1/24th or whatever is common in Hollywood.

So if anyone is contemplating buying one of these devices to try to get some reasonably sharp slow motion, you may not want to waste your time. I'm going back to my EX3 at 720 60p and 1/500th second.

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Fantastic video ... reminds me of the Slo Mo Guys on Youtube - check them out if you haven't already! I believe they use the same camera, a Phantom.

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Cees,

True art...in my humble opinion. :)

Al

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Steve, it it probably nice to watch this trailer I made some time ago. It shows what a Sony FS700 can do. All the slomo in this trailer is shot with that camera. Click on the top bar of the video with the text Private Video. The password is: iwp2

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Beautiful video. Thanks for posting it. For me the choice would have to be between getting quality slow motion (with the FS700), or getting reasonable telephoto (with the small chip of the EX3, or the soon to be available PMW 300). You can't have both.

Can you answer a question for me? I have puzzled over this, but can't figure it out. If you stop your kingfisher in flight (on the FS700, not the Phantom), there is a lot of motion blur. On the other hand, if you stop the slow motion I get recording at 720 60p, shutter 1/500th sec, on the EX3 and playing at a frame rate of 25% of normal, there is very little motion blur. The EX3 slow motion capacity is inferior to the FS700. I don't understand. Please look at this EX3 clip. Thank you.

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Steve, I don't get what exactly your question is. What element of your clip do you feel is inferior to FS700 slow motion?

I don't necessarily think that motion blur is a bad thing. Indeed you see motion blur when you stop the kingfisher. But to be honest, I don't see it when playing the clip. On the other hand, if you make your shutter speed much shorter than half of the framerate you create judder, which I think can be very visible at times and make the footage look unnatural.

Please have a look at my kestrel trailer, posted in this forum on November 4th 2012. This is mainly shot with EX3. Clips at 1'05", 2'50", 2'55" and 2'58" are shot at 720p 60fps and played at 25fps. I always shoot with shutter angle 180dgr, which in this case is 1/120th sec. (When light is not sufficient I don't hesitate to shoot at 360dgr.)

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Lovely work. I often feel that some effects can be done to death, but I never get sick of wild life in slow motion. Beautiful!

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WOW - this is fantastic. I dont think I have ever seen so fantastic nature slomotion recordings before.
To film this superspeed bird are almost impossible - but not for you.
Aal is perfect. You are very close to your object - get the right spots where it will dive and return to it's hunting place - and you have not tried the impossible - to follow it in flight! I will look foreward to see the film when it is finished. Guess it will take some more years if this is the quality you are going for ;=)

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Dear all,

Today has been an great day for me.

Last year I posted a trailer of Kestrel, a film I am making about this bird. And more recently I posted the kingfisher trailer in this thread.

I have been doing my filming as a side activity so far, running a management consultancy in daily life. However, I have recently decided to give up this secure life and put my effort full time in a new activity - Ispida Wildlife Productions - to follow my boyhoods dream and try to make wildlife films at the highest level I can possibly achieve. The switch to this new life is scheduled to start at new year.

Now today: I have signed a contract today with a national public broadcaster to produce a series of three episodes for Dutch public television and subsequently for the international market. A dream start for my new career. The three films will be broadcasted at the end of 2015 and I will spend the next two years for the production. As you can imagine I am over the moon. I will keep you informed.

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Congratulations, Cees! Best wishes for great success.

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Well done Cees, very exciting, I reckon you'll do well.

Al

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Gefeliciteerd Cees!!!
That is certainly a dream start to your new career. Having said that, since I have watched the stuff you have posted here, i'm really not surprised you landed the contract, & would have to say I think it is well deserved!
Groeten,
Bryce

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Well done and well deserved Cees. Keep us updated with the projects, looking forward to watching if they are ever broadcast here in the UK

Mick

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Good afternoon,

When I watched it I knew it had to be a phantom!!!! When I looked into buying ne it was 93,000 dollars and then select a lens or four for it. Well, I started buying th odd lottery ticket!!!

Truly some beautiful footage, the best kingfisher stuff I ever saw!!!!

So, when under water did you set up and then release some minnows??

what kind of under water housing was there for that big camera?


Congrats on going full time professional and living the dream, it doesnt come easy!!!!!

Re: kingfisher slow motion
 

Came back and revisited this one,

Such a beautiful work

vishal