UWOL 19 Tales of Wonder & Woe
 

Last week it was sunny and in the 70’s. Today, gray windy 20’s. How many are waiting out the February weather to get in motion on this theme?

Big ice storm just missed the Washington DC area. Temperatures in the 40s' F today. T2i arrived yesterday. Anxious to find some stationary animals to point at and try out the movie crop. So, so sad it is only standard def (640x480), but I'm really interested to see how insanely close I can get to stuff.

Anyways, the pieces are in place, just need to decide how to depict "motion."

Heavy wind and rain over here,
but I hope the weather will change so I can go out and do some shooting this weekend :)
Not much of that stuff lately.
Hopefully I will get a good idea too.
Motion, motion...?
I'm blowing in the wind ;)
Good luck to you all, folks.

Third highest snow fall in the Chicago area ever...20.2"

You would think I could have done something with that, but no, I just shoveled snow...

We got a storm over here this weekend. But I might take advantage of that and hopefully I can straighten up my story and film my entry this weekend. Have a rough idea about what I want.

Ahhhh,

ther weather is grand here, -1 or 30 f, almost no wind, positively balmy.

Was out with camera today and couldn't find a rock to film, still to much snow on the ground.

Done some filming this weekend.
Didn't expect as deep powder snow as I got here. (about 0,5-1 meter) so things turned out a bit different than planned.
Change of locations and partly also the story and scenery.

Slightly off-topic and not a contest entry, so please forgive my indulgence.

YouTube - ROLEY FIRE 2.wmv

This bushfire is a little uncomfortably close to the home. Up to 36 houses lost on the other side of the hill where the fire ran with the easterly winds.

Hey Bob:

My heart aches for better days in your neck of the woods! If it's not damaging brush fires it's torrential rains and flooding!

Cat

Why oh why oh why did I storyboard nocturnal animal activity when I'm shooting with an HVX200?

Masochism. Must be.

Hi Bob,
Hope the fire doesn't come closer to your home. That's scary!

Hello all,
Hope it is going good for everyone, As for me here in Kansas it is terrible this last two weeks we have gotten around 20" of snow just about to beat the 1894 record already this year.

Have a great day,
Matt Fowler

Well, my first shoot did not yield the footage I was hoping for so I drove 3 hours south of where I live where the same phenomenon occurs and I am most pleased with the results. Great access and huge numbers of animals. Just about done editing. I am feeling for you guys in the snow and cold, I had to suffer through 70 degrees and bright sun ;-). Bit of a cold snap today, only supposed to be 63.

Good Morning,

Good to see others are getting the job done!!!

My first idea has been shot out of the window, well not really it has been trashed, wished I could have shot out the window!

Can't seem to come up with anything new that would not be the same old stuff.

I may have to get the swim suit out! But then I did not really sign up anyway.

As timmy said,

"God Bless Everyone"

Come on, Dale. The sharks are not ready for your company yet.
Still plenty time to come up with an alternative idea. You are always good at finding the wildlife, and they always are in motion! :)


Hope everyone is doing well!

OK then.
I read in the newspaper yesterday about an eagle safari?
No, nothing about what is was, just this:
Everyone who wants to join us on 13. feb is welcome at 10.00 am,
and you'll meet us at Haugsbygda (local harbour).

Well, I'm not sure what to expect, but right now I'm boiling me some caffe, making me 2-3 sandwiches, and off I go about an 30 min or so.

Maybe I'll hit something to shoot for uwol 19.

The weather? It's all fine.
My mood? Very exciting :)

First time I have posted under Wonders and Woes.

Having had several false starts over the past week or so yesterday, I did get some sunshine and also managed to record the event I was after. Bit of a departure for me as most is recorded at the long end of the lens and at quite a distance so sharpness is a bit of a problem.
There was a downside it was quite windy so need to return to get better sound (at least this can be achieved on a dull day) plus I need a few more cut aways. With luck I won't be protein for sharks!

For those of you living much further north than me, thought you might like to see some Snow Buntings that have migrated to us for the winter.

Had some success filming submerged in my local creek. My T2i is performing admirably.

what gear did you use, Ryan, to shoot your creek shots?

T2i with 18-135 lens set to 18mm mostly. Situated inside a 2.5 gallon aquarium. Attached a weight to the aquarium. Ran a USB cable out to my laptop to monitor it out of the water. No little critters or fish in the water right now, but come spring and summer, there are fish, turtles, frogs & tadpoles, etc...in the water and remote monitoring will be good if they don't realize the camera is there. I'm starting to want to look into wireless monitoring if possible, although probably pricey. I imagine there are simple wireless USB connections that simulate a cable, but wirelessly maybe? If the EOS Utility worked off of something like that, suh-weet!

That's good stuff Ryan. I did a similar shoot in a creek last fall with my EX1. Pushed it around with a sandbag in the tank for ballast and a 7 inch Marshall monitor mounted on top to see what I was getting. I'll post some clips after I am done with my UWOL entry.

Looks very cool, Ryan! Underwater shots are always facinating.
I look forward to see your film.

Eagle safari
 

I was out on eagle safari yesterday, and what a day!
Our guide was the leader of Birdlife Norway.
Our mission was of course to look for birds, White-taled Eagle and the Golden Eagle.
But also different kind of seabirds. 26 White-taled Eagles and 3 Golden Eagles and plenty of different seabirds. I think around 35 different species we run across.
After a great tour around our area, we all ended at Runde island, at Christineborg Coast Hotel (Link to website: Christineborg Kysthotel - Forside ) where we got some food and information about starting up a local birdlife unit.
I’m not sure if this will fit the motion-theme for uwol 19, but just had to tell you all about this great day of mine. I leave a picture showing some of the bird watchers.
On forthcoming Wednesday I have one of my exams, but still one weekend to get up with a motion idea?

I’m now somewhat recovered from an upper respiratory infection and I tire very quickly. It remains to be seen if I can come up with a place marker video to stay out of the shark tank. I’ve learned that it is very difficult to think about motion video while spending days on end in bed!

Geir Inge- That sounds like a wonderful trip! Good-luck to your local birdlife group.

Ryan- I recall that Finn-Erik used that technique very effectively in “Barnacle Kingdom” for UC15. I can’t wait to see what you come up with when things start moving this spring.

I hope everyone else is well and making great videos. It sure would be nice to see 19 finished videos for UC19.

great stuff, Ryan! thanks for the pics. I have a splash bag for my UW shots, but it only fits one of my cams. I might have to try the aquarium method...

It is definitely easy to do it with a T2i as far as risk is involved. Nothing like a nice inexpensive camera. (relatively speaking)

I do love looking under the surface though. A whole other world down there.

It's a wrap! I'm done with the editing. Well, most of it. Still struggling with some color correction of one short clip. (thanks to improper white balance setting in one shot)


Geir Inge,
Sounds like you had a cool adventure!
Hope you did well on the exam!

good Morning,

It is looking kind of grim!!!

Shot a bit yesterday but only a tiny bit of anything useful because of the winds!!! changed my theme last night, got up this morning to shoot and it is real cold with horizontal snow, almost white out like.
Not so hot for decent video!!

The Tank is looking closer and closer!!!

Hey Dale:

Two and a half minutes of horizontal snow at least would meet the length requirement and fit the theme ;-).

Sorry to hear that the weather is not helping you out much, Dale. Hope something pops up in the day or so!

Cat

Hey guys

Well I've done nothing yet...but I'm going out tomorrow morning and I'm going to see if I can lay down a film in a day. I'm armed with a varicam, I know my subject and its the right time of year....whether I'll get it....well we will see :-/ !!

I made one in one day last time. You can do it, Mat. Break a leg!

Well...I shot today and got a few nice shots. I didn't get the main behaviour I was after so the film won't really hold up. I'm going to be shooting this subject over the next week so I'll see if I can get it done anyway.

Good afternoon,

Well I got out friday for a couople hours of shooting, got the opening shot yesterday morning. Thought I would have all day Saturday to work on it but I had company show up and 7.5 hours later got onto it working until midnight thinking Saturday night was the dead line (what was I thinking?).

We have had really cold weather for shooting. My sony with a fresh battery just quit recording!!! I do not have a polar mittin for it.

So I got out the polar bear and took the canon xlh1 out for some work. When I was out on Friday it was windy and 27 below zero, ug. Most of the footage was about worthless. I managed to get 3 minutes together.

Sorry I could not get something more unique or different together for you all to watch.

Rule 11 did not prevail until I was in the editing lab!!!!

I am rerendering my entry as I type this.

I think I avoided the shark tank at your expense.

Sorry,

dale

Well, I didn't manage to complete the film I was shooting for this session, so I'll try to upload kind of plan B.
Geir Inge

Re: UWOL 19 Tales of Wonder & Woe
 

I put together a very plain and simple little 60 second piece with no narration.

It is what it is. :)