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-   -   Bird footage (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/under-water-over-land/68812-bird-footage.html)

Per Johan Naesje June 3rd, 2006 09:00 PM

Bird footage
 
It's brood season up in northern part of europe this time of year. I'm beeing out taken lots of footage of these birds working hard to feed their youngster.

Toghether with my XL-2, a superb camera-system I'm able to get near the action.
The lenses used are Sigma 300mm f/2.8, Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 and Canon 20x L IS.
Shooting outdoor I'm always using a pola-filter, gives me a nice and rich color. Living in PAL-country I set the shutter to 1/50 or 1/100 depending on the light conditions and adjusting the aperture for the right exposure.
A sturdy tripod is strongly recommended beeing at the highest telephoto end. The 300mm gives me 2340mm in 16:9. (300 x 7.8).

Footage 1: http://video-film.no/snutter/staer2.html - A Common Starling putting its nest in an old tree, feeding its youngster.

Footage 2: http://video-film.no/snutter/vaar.html - Some of the species at the bird sanctuary.

Enjoy!

- Per Johan

Meryem Ersoz June 3rd, 2006 09:33 PM

what a treat to get eyeball-to-eyeball with these fabulous creatures....

Per Johan Naesje June 4th, 2006 01:26 PM

Meryem, thanks for your nice comment.

Today I was in the same sanctuary, shooting some footage of the Common coot, this is a bird with a strange look, and the youngster are even worse ;-)

The youngster are no more than 24 hours old, but they are already swimming in the lake.
http://www.video-film.no/snutter/sothoene.html

- Per Johan

Ian Thomas June 4th, 2006 03:39 PM

Per Johan

Well done enjoyed the video clips, just shows how bloody good the XL2 is
in the right hands

Keep the good work up
Ian

Brendan Marnell June 7th, 2006 02:52 PM

I have not seen better video images of birds, Per Johan. I hope you keep at it and pan them in flight too. Your use of equipment is very interesting. I wonder what distance you were from the grebes and starlings and what approximate magnification you were using for the clips of the grebes and starlings? However you did it, the plumage detail is remarkable.

Steve Siegel June 7th, 2006 06:09 PM

Per Johan,
I can't access your video. All I get is an empty box with a red X in the corner. Any tricks?

Per Johan Naesje June 8th, 2006 02:16 AM

Brendan:
as you might have seen on my website, I use the ef-adapter with Sigma 300mm mostly. This gives me a focal lenght of 2340mm (300 x 7.8), in 16:9.
Both footage of the grebes and starling was shoot with this lense.
I always shoot in interlaced mode with shutter at 1/50 or 1/100 depending of the light. Adjusting the aperture for the right exposure. And I always use a pola-filter even in overcast weather. I found the details and colors to be very rich with this filter attached.
The distance from the grebes was approximately 30-40 meter (27-36 yards), weather was not optimal with heavy and dark cloudes and rain showers. So I'm not so pleased with this footage regarding details in the plumage.
The starling footage was better. The distance approximately 8-10 meter (9 yards), some wind but my heavy tripod did a remarkable nice job.
The footage you see on the web is very compressed compared to the original footage, which gives me a nice and sharp picture even on a huge 37" LCD-TV.

Birds in flight: I have done some footage, but its very hard to follow the birds in flight with a focal lenght of 2340mm! I found that beeing on a distance from the action helps. Large birds like swans and goose is easier than ducs and smaller birds. Keeping everything in sharp focus is also hard especially when the birds moves away from or towards the camera. I'm still practice and practice and I know that one day a got what requires to take good footage of birds in flight.

Steve:
Sorry to hear that you was not able to view the footage. This is a flash-movie, so you need a flash-player to view. This link might help you out:
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/downl...ShockwaveFlash

To all:
I am very pleased with all the positive comments I got.

- Per Johan

Dale Guthormsen June 8th, 2006 10:24 PM

Per johan,

I shoot a lot of wildlife. I have hours of footage shot this year. I very much enjoyed your flicks, particularly the waterfowl.
I have been debating on what lens to buy for an ef adapter and I must say I am very impressed with the sigma. Just exactly which one is it?

I have some cool footage of coots. I think it is great to get the footage when they are riding on the hens back!!
We are just now starting to see some ducklings and goslings in our area.

keep up the great work.

I shoot birds in flight a lot through the winter months. the difficulty is mostly keeping things in focus, or just getting them in focus when you find them!!!

Keep up the fine work!!

Per Johan Naesje June 9th, 2006 12:20 AM

Dale,
here is som data about my Sigma 300 lense:
http://www.sigma-photo.co.jp/english...oom/300_28.htm

B&H also have this in stock:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ughType=search

I think this is a superb lense for the XL-2. It's heavy so you should consider to use a rail. Ron Armstrong has made a rail which I use on my system:
http://ronsrail.com/


BTW, the Great Crested Grebe have their youngsters these days. I'm out every day trying to get a footage with the mother swimming with the youngster on her back, hopefully I get some this weekend :-) I post some footage when I got it!

- Per Johan

Ken Diewert June 10th, 2006 09:40 AM

Per Johan,

Very nice work. I know from experience how hard ti can be to keep a smooth follow on moving birds at that zoom range.

What microphone were you using? I notice in particularly the starling series that the birds are callling though the volume is low. I think this can be a problem with a super telephoto, is finding a mic to match. I was looking at some parabolic mics, but may try to make one.

Keep up the great work!

Ken

Per Johan Naesje June 10th, 2006 04:48 PM

Ken, I'm using 2 Senneheiser ME67 shotgun mics. Regarding the starling-footage the wind was very high so I had to reduce the input-level.

Ok, I promised to put some footage online of the Great Crested Grebe. Tonight I was very lucky shooting a couple with 3 youngsters on the mothers back in the water. Take at look at the footage here:
http://video-film.no/snutter/toppdykker.html

The footage might look a little smearing in the colour, but the reason is that it is a lot of movements in the footage wich alter the compressed file. The original avi-file is very sharp and nice looking :-)

Enjoy

Brendan Marnell June 10th, 2006 05:14 PM

Delightful, Per Johan;

May or may not be a new line in Family Albums but must surely be a potential contribution to the study of Natural History. It's not only the younger generations who would be glad and informed to see this subject-matter and standard of footage.

Per Johan Naesje June 11th, 2006 01:10 PM

I have organized a downloadable wmv-file for some of the footage at my website.
You find it below the flash-window; named "Nedlastbar wmv-fil" - in english: download wmv-file. Right-click and select Save as...

Hopefully some of you who could't view the flash-movie now are able to view the footage.

Dale Guthormsen June 11th, 2006 10:51 PM

Per Johan,

Exquisite footage of the greb. We have horned grebs here, now I am stimulated to try to get some footage like that!!

I would be really interested in what your presets are on you camera! The color is awesome!!

I will try to find a source to post some footage. in a couple weeks I have two months holidays and will be filming most every day.

Oh yea, very interesting that the mother who is molting at this time of year is feeding the down to her babies. Other species like raptors make castings of this stuff (they eat their own down when preening) and it works as roughage to keep the digestive system, mainly the crop, clean all the time. Intriguing!!!

Per Johan Naesje June 11th, 2006 11:37 PM

Dale,

Here are the presets:
Gamma: Cine
Knee: Low
Black: Stretch
Color matrix: Cine
Everything else is factory default.

I also got the Fu-1000 viewfinder some weeks ago, this helps me alot maintaining good focus at this extreme telephotoend. As you might see in the greb-footage, half the bird is out of the focal-range cause of the narrow dept of field.

Hope you manage to get some footage on the web Dale. A picture tells you more than 1000 words, a footage tells you.... :-)

Jacques Mersereau June 15th, 2006 07:16 AM

Beautiful footage Per. I especially like the Greb behaviors you captured.

Dale Guthormsen June 15th, 2006 07:20 PM

Per johan,

I shoot in cine as well, I will try the same using defaults. I tend to saturate colors so they look better on the larger screens, eg. 50 inch.
We are trying to get some footage of pronghorn antelope and kids as well as deer with fawns. If I get some I will try to find a means to post them.


dale

Don DesJardin June 16th, 2006 06:09 PM

I'm in the same boat as Dale, and probably others, when it comes to sharing short nature video clips on the Internet. I have a web site, but the guy who built it for me in no longer around, so until I can arrange to have it worked on to incorporate a selection sample clips for downloading, I'm dead in the water. I'm happy to stand behind the camera, and leave web design to someone else. I looked into all the video hosting and sharing site, but they are to cluttered with junk. I wish there was just a site that just dealt with quality nature themes. As an XL1 user, hopefully for not that much longer, I learn nearly everyday from others, and I would like to think that others might learn something that I might be able to offer.

Brendan Marnell June 17th, 2006 03:36 AM

Nature Video Clips
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Don DesJardin
I looked into all the video hosting and sharing site, but they are to cluttered with junk. I wish there was just a site that just dealt with quality nature themes. .

You're spot on, Don. And commerce is not to blame for all the clutter all the time. Even BBC has lost control of the sound and video dubbing mafia listed on its documentaries. But the blame game is not the answer; it just pretends to be an excuse for doing nothing ...

How can we inspire The Kennelmaster Himself to set up a function on DVInfo website for the purpose of publishing clips of nature video from members? Along what lines? How to keep out the clutter and the trash? What standards to apply? Well until we can all attain Per Johan's private answer, there are some ideas to be gathered from this website that publishes clips of Birds; not top-slick to be sure but it gets there, uncluttered and free, with audience participation ... I'm hoping to join the list there sometime ..

http://ibc.hbw.com/ibc/phtml/whatIBC.phtml

Speak to us, O Wise One

Per Johan Naesje June 20th, 2006 12:43 PM

Brendan, I think this is a very good idea. I would like a forum for publishing small clips of wildelife footage.
The XLH1 forum got a site for their footage, so why not one for us too?

This way we could review each others footage, give feedback and ideas, leading to each of us become better wildlife videophotographers.

Meryem Ersoz June 20th, 2006 04:37 PM

we actually have a "footage links" link here in the wildlife forum, but it needs to be turned into a sticky, so that it doesn't get shoved to the bottom of the pile so quickly. i would like to see it renamed "wildlife footage links" and then kept at the top of the page, so that we could have all that juicy footage available in one place. and then more people might be encouraged to post there. hellooooooo, chris! can you tear yourself away from the XL H1 viewfinder long enough to indulge us??? (okay, so i'm jealous. i too would like to have an eyeball glued to the H1 viewfinder....)

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=56456

Brendan Marnell June 20th, 2006 05:38 PM

That's great news Meryem.

Let it be, let it be. Just one more set of linking tricks to learn, but this time the light at the end of the tunnel is a raptor with a glint in his eye, like your sparrowhawk.

Somehow I must persuade my vultures that gliding on 9ft wingspan is not enough anymore, they'll have to learn to smile ...

Dale Guthormsen June 22nd, 2006 10:59 PM

manual lenses
 
After seeing johan pers footage I have decided to buy a non lens adapter and a 300 mm canon fd lens. This wont break the bank and i thought I could try this stuff on before breaking the bank for high end stuff only to find out I may not like it.

first thought, when you have the manual on there do you open up the setting on the camera, adjust the lens aperature and then set shutter to get proper exposure??

Per Johan Naesje June 25th, 2006 02:19 AM

Dale,
you have to experiment a lot with your lense. I found that many lenses are sharpest in the middle of the aperture field, say 5.6 to 11 (safe area). I would not recommend to go higher than 11 on most lenses.

In overcast weather I set the shutter at 1/50 (1/60 NTSC) and adjust the aperture within the safe area. This gives me a proper exposure almost every time. Remember that I use a polarization filter even in overcast weather, but if its poor light you might have to shoot without the filter.

On sunny days it's much more easy to achieve nice and rich color in the footage. Shooting at dawn and dusk gives you the best light (and results). In such conditions I set the shutter to 1/100 (1/120 NTSC) and do the same adjustment as explained above. In very light area like at the beach or in snow, you should also consider to use ND-filters.

Shooting white objects, say gulls or swans, you have to in most instance, underexpose. You must experiment with different settings to become known with your camcorder and lense. Practise, practise, practise is the keyword.


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