Rule #66: Any self respecting " non-human living breathing entity.....on wing or on foot" takes the day off on a hot Sunday afternoon that is the only time you have to shoot....

Bryce,
I'd love to hear some details about your home-made follow focus. Is it mechanical or electronic? I made one myself once. It looked like a 14th century clock with gears and arms. Didn't work worth a damn.

Good afternoon,

Option one is not unfolding as yet.

Option two I have some pretty cool footage. Here is a screen grab.


I love these little guys!!!

boy - I think I've started something with these rules!

I finally got a screen grab uploaded. I think I should have gone to a park and filmed some tame ones, these wild swans are very difficult to get close to - still that's part of the fun I guess

Yes Paul, you started something alright... I haven't found the courage to post the embarrassing ones - yet.

Sounds to me like you could use a telephoto lens on your camera. My big feet tend to scare everything away just the moment before I set the cam on the tripod. It's almost like the birds are screwing with me - waiting for me to turn and unpack, only to turn back and they're gone. If not for the telephoto lenses I get on this camera I'd never fill more than 1/5th of the screen.

Keep at it brother, that swan is beautiful.

Hi Steve,
Here is a link to the post i made of the follow focus. http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=120864
I have tweaked it a little since i posted the photos, & drilled lots of holes in the lens support & parts of the follow focus itself to lighten everything up, but i must say, it works like a charm. I will be heading over to Western Australia for a week to see my brother & sister in law & their new little baby girl on Friday night, so i have high hopes i will be able to do my entry whilst i'm there. Hopefully i will be able to give you a good idea of how my follow focus works in the footage i shoot.

Bryce

Hello All

It`s bussy time for the challenge this time,but I have made a entery
just for fun this time.Cut is on tape and redy but bussy work I think
But shere some photo


VJV.

Nice shots, Vidar!
Seems like we will get some under water footage from you this time. :)


I will most likely end up in the shark tank this round.
Don't think I will get my computer before the deadline.
Still crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

Hallo Trond


The shark tank is no place for you, shure you will make it .
Lykke til Trond!!!



VJV.

Yes I know, the dreadful shark tank is the last place on earth I want to be in.
Hope everyone manage to stay away from that place this round.
Would be very good if everyone can submit an entry this round.

I will at least shoot my video, regardless if I have access to a computer or not.
Hmm, maybe Premiere Pro 2 can be installed on a 8 year old computer running win2k on a 450MHz CPU and 256MB ram? Guess it's worth a try.

This round Trond, I have lisend to your word have fun and take it as it com.
I have been werry busy the last week.But wee got 1-day diving and it was great.
Hope you get the PC.Dont now so much about premier use Final cut.


Best Regards
VJV.

Hey Vidar, what were those shots taken with? Look great fella....very nice indeed!

I spent spent Monday and Tuesday of this week trying to capture something, anything that resembles wildlife. On Monday I crossed paths with hundreds of little, baby frogs crossing a path. I got some good shots, but it would have been cool to get some macro shots. I'm using my standard vx2100 without anything fancy. I'm not sure if it is usable but I thought I would share some scren shots with all of you anyway.

Oliver Pahlow

Yes, rule #11, to have FUN is the most important rule of uwol!

Hello Mat

The clip was taken whid a sony A1,outside Bergen.But I missing a good Housing
Use a EWA bag, not the best in streamy wather.


VJV.



________________

Ahh ok, thats interesting. It produces great results!

Ho are you finding the ewa marine bag? I'm thinking of getting one for my SLR as I'm diving in the Red Sea this Summer...

It's always awesome to get good shots. But it's almost as cool to have interesting experiences. Too bad that you didn't have a macro option, that would have been amazing.

The wind is killing me this week. I hate trying to shoot in big wind. I guess I should look on the bright side. I'm not trapped in flood waters up to my eyeballs like Kevin....

The bag is limit to rec ,you have small manuel controll.But it make good results.
But I think for futures work a good housing is is a must.I think the weight is problem,
in stream I think EAW bag is imposible to hold stady.Light and motion my bee necst.


VJV.


_______________

Good evening,

Tronde, an older version of premiere would likly run.

Perhaps a trial software of one of the consumer prograns like ulead would do the trick????


meryem, I appreciate your trouble with wind!!!! we arre on our second month of winds 20 to fifty clicks everyday. windiest spring I can recall sense new mexico spring of 75!!!


We have had a week of needed rain and unrelenting wind. Rain spoiled my trek last week to bad lands for prairie falcon footage. Had a trek planned for tomarrow, that is not going to happen as it is still raining and you might get in the bad lands with 4x4s but you'd definitely have to walk out.

Looking like my second option is going to be the only option!!!

Dale

Good evening,

Tronde, an older version of premiere would likly run.

Perhaps a trial software of one of the consumer prograns like ulead would do the trick????


meryem, I appreciate your trouble with wind!!!! we arre on our second month of winds 20 to fifty clicks everyday. windiest spring I can recall sense new mexico spring of 75!!!


We have had a week of needed rain and unrelenting wind. Rain spoiled my trek last week to bad lands for prairie falcon footage. Had a trek planned for tomarrow, that is not going to happen as it is still raining and you might get in the bad lands with 4x4s but you'd definitely have to walk out.

Looking like my second option is going to be the only option!!!

Dale

Woo Hoo! My camera is on the FEDEX truck out for delivery...

Hopefully I can do something this weekend as next weekend is booked up.

Another I should have taken the camera moment....

This weekend will be my only opportunity to get out on the land to see if I can capture some wildlife on film. So to get ready I packed up my rifle last evening and headed to the range to fire off a few rounds to insure that everything is sighted and working properly...it would be a hell of a deal to be selected for dinner by a bear and have the gun go click not boom. Anyway all went well, everything is working properly so I headed home...came around a turn in the road and on one of the very few ice free lakes low and behold about 60 swans leasurly feeding.

Another rule for the book...take the darn camera no matter what.

Brian

Thanks Dale.
I'll see what I can do. It will be my only chance to finish anything this round.
But if I don't complete, I will be back stronger and ready for the next round. That is a promise!
Good luck with your entry!

My tale of woe is really a double-edged sword. I am a middle school science teacher, and we have been wrapping up for the year. So I haven't had much time since the topic announcement. I was actually fearing that I wouldn't be able to pull this off, and this was my first attempt at this. I have been trying to find a specific topic to focus on so my video would have a theme, but nothing I was wanting to do would walk in front of me to film.

Today was my big chance, but I had thought that I would only be getting pieces or fragments of what I needed. Turns out I got everything I could want from my shoot today. I shot for about 5 hours on the Northern Cali coast, an hour and a half drive from me, and got lots of fantastic footage. But when I started I was thinking 30 minutes, one hours tops. So after five hours in the sun in a tank top with my shoulders exposed to their first real shot of sun since October, my shoulders could now star in their own lobster video. I think if I place some pipe cleaners in the right places I could shoot a second video of just my upper arms, add some water sounds effects, and no one would ever know I wasn't shooting Maine Lobsters in their natural surroundings.

There was no way I was going to miss the shot for sun screen. So the next four days of pain are well worth the footage I got. Here's to hoping the end product will be worthy. I am excited for people to see what I can do.

Well, this weekend will be my "final cut"-weekend. Have done a rough-cut already which is nice to my eyes.
I think I'm a bit lucky compared to some of you other fellows, that I already collected my footage. And in fact have it stored into my Mac.
But there is always hard to get the best out of the raw material. To build up a story. To make the small adjustments to get it right.
I'm also quite new to the Mac plattform, which make it a little harder, to get the grip on it. I have to look up in the manual how to make things right.
Good luck to everybody, it still plenty of time even if you have no ideas. As Trond use to say: First of all have fun!

Great white egret
 

Just want to let you view a short footage of something I don't think is quite common.
As mention in an ealier thread by Victor Wilcox http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....3&postcount=18 about the Great Egret.

In first part of May I got a phonecall from a friend of mine. He could tell me that a pair of Great White Egret was standing in the middle of nowhere, sourrounded by snow and there was partly ice-cover on the lake.
I rushed for it with my gear and got some very rare footage of this. As you may see in the picture below a pair of Great Egret in front of a pair of Goosander with the snow still cover the ground.
The Great Egret was very shy, so I had to shoot the footage with a 500mm (3600mm) on quite a distance to get this shoots.
I'm curious about if anyone has seen Great Egret in such an environment before?


Link to video footage:
http://www.video-film.no/snutter/great-egret.mov (1.5MB)

BTW, if this is off-topic, please move it to Under-water-over-land forum if required!

Hi Guys:

Sounds like everyone has been active! I'll second Brian's rule of thumb... is it rule #66 by now? TAKE THE CAMERA WITH YOU! I might up it a notch and say, permanently afix the camera to your hand.... I was outside and this beautiful, lone coyote just strolled by, sat down to relax, smiled at me and winked... knowing that I didn't have a camera anywhere within reach. Ahhhhhh! But I got really lucky on some other surprise moments!

Meryem, were you filming the kayaking events in Lyons? The duck moment sounded like the million dollar shot!

Trond. NOT YOU FRIEND! No shark tank for you! Look, we are all family here. PLEASE CONSIDER THIS. We have a week left. Can you at least dump your footage somewhere from tape to digital files? If so, send them to me and tell me what to do and I'll put it together for you. I'll simply be the tech monkey and make it a movie. I'll do just as you say. I'm finished with mine, so I'd be happy to do this. At least you can get something in?

Kevin: Enter your movie of the 500 year flood into UWOL 9. It has nothing to do with wildlife, but it's a wonderful clip and shows how "wild our lives have become" with global warming.... just a thought!

Looking forward to everyones films.

Cat

No ice around here Per, but we've definitely got Great Egrets. And the sounds they make while up in the trees mating and nesting? Holy moses it I was blown away. Sounded like they were speaking to each other, only with half a jar of peanut butter stuck in their throats.


300mm



Oh and Catherine, I feel your pain. Last night, due to wildfires blazing the hills around this area, the sky was filled with smoke which lit up the moon in the most ominous shade of hazy red - but I had no camera...

Per Johan,

nice footage, I love the snow in the back ground!! All we get here are snowy egrets and the odd cattle egret. Would love to see a great egret, you footage is a good second best to a live one!!

New platforms: I moved to Vegas and I have had to do the same things!!! the manual is 400 pages!!!

I appreciate all the extra work you have to under go!!

Can't wait to see your entry!!!


Tronde,

what a great offer!!! gert at it !!

Great footage boys!

here in Oslo there are no wildlife. Hehe.
Only people everywhere.

Looks like i may be heading for the shark tank this time.
I'm still stuck editing a big eventvideo that has to be finnished before i leave for the CEDIA course in London the 22.6

Good luck everybody!!

Ha Ha. Just got the upload information...Haven't even had a chance to start yet!

I'm glad so many others seem to be getting great footage. Looks like Per has enough stuff to put together an entire series let alone a 3 minute clip.

Vaguely know what I'm gonna go for but will have a literally have a 10 hour window of free time to get all the footage I need. Bad weather or a no show from the wildlife will see me taking a second plunge into the shark tank...not good!


Good luck to everyone else.

My rough cut is done now writing the VO hopefully I'll find the time to pull it all together.

A single frame for you.....

Brian

Thank you very much for the great offer.
I plan to shoot some footage tomorrow or the next few days.

Unfortunately, the only computer I have access to, does not even have a firewire connection. So there is no way to even get any footage off the camera at the moment.
A friend of mine returns from out of the country in the evening the day of the deadline, so I might have a few hours to install an NLE, capture, edit, encode and upload from his computer.
But it doesn't look good at the moment.

If worst case happens, and I end up in the dreadful shark tank, I will be very selfish and keep it all by myself! All the rest of you will have to finish and submit an entry!! hahaha

Oh, and everyone:
Remember the rule of the rules.... #11: HAVE FUN!!

Trond,
sorry to hear about your computer trouble! If there is anything I can do, let me know? I could capture the tapes for you and send you the raw files back on CD/DVD if you liked? That way you could try to install premiere on your old pc even if you don't have any firewire.

Trond:

There you go! Per has stepped in to help too. Under the circumstances, I can't imagine Meryem not allowing a helping hand.... how is your hand by the way? Did you really get hit on your bike by a car? Are you okay? Perhaps Per can dump the files for you and if I get the files over the internet, I would be happy to put something together. Just to keep you dry this round. Per and Trond, I'm at your service if you should decide to go for it!

Cat

Trond,

Good luck to you also with the computer - it must be very frustrating. I see the UWOL community is always keen to help where possible. Just another example of the wonderful people we have around us. I hope you manage to work things out.

I have started capturing all my material and think I have enough for a 3 hour documentary! Whilst this may seem good, it does add so much time to the whole process. Wish I had to select 3 minutes from maybe 30 mins to 1 hour of material. Anyway, it is working out I guess.

I have attached a still of some beautiful morning footage. In this shot, I am filming a flock of Red Necked Avocets. The morning light was a brilliant red which made the shots look very nice.

Hi David:

Nice to see you back, we missed you last round. By the looks of your captured photos, you will not disappoint us this time, as always. So glad you are back!

Cat

Trond, I'm standing ready to splice a few clips together for you if you can manage dumping those files... don't be fooled by the warm inviting waters of the tank ;-), keep up the fight and get a snippet in!

nice work guys!
 

WOW looks like loads of players are getting some nice footage. Some ambitious projects as always which is nice to see!

Finally got a chance to go out filming yesterday (been spending most of the month preparing for a job interview with the BBC) and our initial idea of showing how easy wildlife films can be to make may have changed slightly.

After setting off at the unholy hour of 4am in our ...(thinks of suitable word)...unorthodox filming vessel, almost capsizing on numerous occasions (cameras not in waterproof housings), being blown onto a mud bank with a rapidly dropping tide (repeatedly), being stranded and having to wait 3 hours for the water to return, putting a significant hole in the front of our hull, being laughed at by every other water user and given a thorough looking over by the Harbour master we returned beaten, bruised, broken and a little damp from the 12 hour experience.

No idea yet if we got any decent footage but we had a riot of a good time despite near disaster.

Good luck with the final edits guys! I'm off to repair a boat.

Pete

Ps. Is Per ever going to run out of epic wildlife to film?

Per Johan,
That is an awesome offer by a true friend!
Been away from computers the last few days, trying to actually get some useful footage. Read your message here today, and within a minute began trying to install Premiere Pro 2 on this pre-historic computer. Total dissaster, and the famous "blue screen of death" came by to visit. Just got the computer up and running again.
I will do one more attempt tomorrow morning to install Premiere again.

So at the moment, the helping hands from my friends Per Johan and Catherine won't help much. I might get access to another computer (with firewire) this weekend, not sure yet.

Catherine,
Not sure how I could transfer such huge files to you in reasonable time if I ever get the footage captured. Sending the tape to/from Per Johan will take at least 2-3 days, and internationally 5-6 business days. But I will keep your offer in my mind. Thank you very much!
The hand is almost completely recovered. No, I did not get hit by the car, but it was VERY close. (we're talking a few inches). I desided it would hurt less if I went off the road. So my bike and I rolled down a small hill into a trench instead of getting hit by that car, and I just hit a bunch of gravel and some stones instead.
I have been much more worried about visiting the shark tank, than about my hand, haha.

Hi Trond:

I can set up a way for you to ftp some footage if you can manage to dump a few digital files from your tape. That way, larger sizes can come across rather than through email. Maybe if Per is the one dumping some of the footage for you he could be the one to ftp them over to me. We have 3 days left, right? .... I'm ready to pull an all-nighter if it comes to it. If I can get some footage by Saturday morning, I'll get something in for you by the deadline, midnight! It would be a real coup! Just send what you have to Per, now.... it could happen :).

Hopefully, Per it won't be too much work on your end? Just a few clips of some interesting happenings?

Cato