Snow Goose Hunt and GL2?
 

I do allot of snow goose hunting each year. This year I am attempting to film all of our hunts. I will be using a gl2 for a camera. I am unable to practice on the actual birds I will be filming until the first day of the hunt, but I have been practicing on local ducks that has raised a couple of questions in my mind?

Will a wide angle lens me necessary and why?

When the geese start to tornado down into the spread, they are from 300 yards plus down to about 30 yards. If I am on auto focus, will the camera be switching focus to different birds without my control?

If I stay in manual focus, is there a way to focus on something in the distance and everything closer than that will be in focus?

I will be primarily shooting into the sky and under a variety of light conditions, but mostly sunny and partly cloudy,w hat filters should I buy?

Thanks!

Chris

Chris,

I shoot hours of snow goose video every year. I use a gl2 and an xl2.

I doubt you will find any need for a wide angle. I have a century wide angle and have yet to ever use it.

The focus thing is always an issue. When i have large flocks, and mean thousands and thousands if you use AF you will have it switching on you and messing things up. I always shoot in MF. Depending on where you are in relation to your decoys will also make a difference. Knowing that they will likly come to you into the wind will allow you to position your self better,

Don't try to shoot and film the same hunt!! My experience on hunts is you have to focus on one or the other.

I set the lens to full focal length where everything past that point is in focus. As they approach you can draw the zoom back quite a ways before losing focus and having to manually adjust it with the ring. It takes practice!!

you are always going to have depth of field issues. Shoot at 1/60th a second as that will give you more depth of field. I recomend you shoot in the frame mode as well. If you shoot with a faster shutter you will assuredly get the wing flutter look!! by shooting slower shutter in frame/progressive the wings will blur and look more like you see it with you own eyes.
Also, shooting in bright light us your nd filter and i recomend a polizer as well. Evening shots I do not use eihter unless I want a more open aperature which means less depth of field.

Chris and Dale, forgive me for butting in here but I just have to understand what you're doing and what you mean Dale when you say "I set the lens to full focal length where everything past that point is in focus", please?

full focal length?
 

If you could explain how to set the full focal length up as discussed on my gl2 that would be great.

Thanks,
Chris

Here is what I mean:

Every camera has a given distance where from that point and further everything beyond is in focus. If you shoot at as small of an aperature as possible (example f 32) this will also give you the greatest amount of depth of field, the area that is in focus. If you think about binoculars you can buy binoculars where everything is in focus and you have no center focus. With a camera you can focus to that point, then what I do is draw back on the zoom keeping everything in focus. When I lose focus I reset it to correct focus. Then, I film and everything at distance will be in focus from that point until your zoom is fully extended, whatever that may be for the given lens. I find this best for filming large flocks where maximum depth of field is needed.
If I get time I will look through my log book for some flying footage filmed like this and attach a short clip for you. May a few days as I have two shoots tomarrow (figure skating) and a wedding that needs editing. and yes, I have a day job too. But I plan to shoot some fighting partridge tomarrow if I can find some that have paired up, gotta have some fun too!!

I hope the explanation is adequate, if not let me know and i will try to do better.