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For example, in Kenya two years ago we watched a leopard stalk and kill a jackal, an action that took place nearly two hundred yards away and far too distant for our camera lenses to do justice. On that same trip we watched a mother cheetah and her three full-grown cubs harass a wildebeest mother and her half-grown calf, eventually driving off the mother and killing the calf. Much of the action took place in the shade of a large acacia tree and, frankly, the light was often horrible for 35mm still camera shooting. Yet we were able to record both events, and do so wonderfully. We did so with video.
The trick is knowing when to do which. For Mary and I, our livelihoods are based upon and dependent upon our 35mm still photography. So, if there's an image that can be made with our cameras, we do so. When we come upon a great scene or a great subject, we reach for our cameras first. But afterwards, when we've virtually exhausted all of our shooting options, we often turn to our video cameras and record more images, without having a sense of repetition. The only times that we reach first for our camcorders is when the lighting is poor, or when the subject's action just screams "Video!" Case in point, on my first trip to South Georgia Island, one of the premiere wildlife photography locations on this planet, I eagerly anticipated my visit to the Salisbury Plains, where hundreds of thousands of king penguins nest. I'd seen the images — birds stacked together in colonies that swept to the horizon, climbing the slopes of the surrounding hillsides that define these plains. On the day of our visit we left long before sunrise, all prepared to film the birds in the golden light of dawn. But dawn never came, or so it seemed, for good shooting light eluded us all day and we barely had enough light for our f/2.8 lenses by 8 AM, nearly three hours after we had arrived on the beach! The photographers in our group were understandably disappointed and frustrated, making the best of the terrible conditions by using slow shutter speeds and short lenses. In contrast, the videographers in the group were a happy lot, filming away as soon as they arrived on the beach and shooting throughout the day. Personally, I'd have gone nuts without the video camera, since there was so much to shoot but such poor light conditions. And that, folks, is one of the real advantages of a video camera. You can film surprisingly bright images in incredibly low light. Basically, if it looks good in the viewfinder, it'll look good on the computer monitor or television screen as well. What you see is what you get. This immediate feedback can be so enticing that it's easy to grab the video camera first. You might suspect, then, that your still photography would suffer if you add a camcorder to your equipment list. Here's our hard and fast rule (mind you, rules are made to be broken and we're guilty of this at times): If the light is poor, and 35mm still camera shooting is impossible, or would produce images we know would be throw-aways, we shoot video. If we already have everything we need on 35mm film, we shoot video. Conversely, if the light's good, if the subject's good, if we can shoot 35mm, we do so first. We rarely try to do both at the same time — almost always both mediums suffer. But separately, one at a time, it works, and does so wonderfully. The world of amateur moving picture photography has come a long, long way since the days of the super 8mm camera of thirty years ago, or the big, clunky VHS or BETA camcorders that replaced them. Today, in this digital age, there are wonderful assortments of small but sophisticated video recorders that capture images in a digital format. These DV video cameras come in a variety of sizes, and offer a variety of features. One of the most noteworthy is the magnification possible with just a standard zoom. Since the DV chip is tiny and reads such a small image area, a given focal length produces an image size that is 7.2 times larger than what would be recorded on 35mm film. It's not uncommon, then, to see DV video cameras with an optical zoom range that goes up to 12X, 16X, or even 20X. Note the word 'optical' zoom. There's also a digital zoom where the individual pixels can be enlarged, just like the zoom feature on a photo manipulation program such as Adobe Photoshop. This feature allows you to zoom in until the image is so enlarged each pixel shows up as a colored square, resulting in a barely recognizable series of blocks of color. In a DV digital zoom, the image is so distorted and 'blocky' it is useless for anyone with discerning image tastes. Only use the digital zoom feature if there is no other possible way to capture the image or action. One of the two DV camcorders we use is the Canon XL-1, which is unique in accepting EOS camera lenses. Remember, any 35mm camera's magnification, or equivalent focal length, is 7.2X greater when mounted on a DV camcorder. I often use a 70-200mm with a 1.4X tele-converter, giving me a total focal length of 280mm in 35mm terms, or the equivalent of a 2,016mm lens in digital! With this combination we've filmed frame-filling robins at fifty feet, or leopards tackling jackals at 200 yards. If we mount my 400mm f/2.8 lens on the camera, I have a whopping 2,880mm lens in DV format! At those magnifications the biggest issue is camera steadiness and finding the subject. Keeping the camera steady actually isn't very difficult if the lens is mounted to a tripod. The weight of an XL-1 is fairly light, and the system balances well on a tripod. Finding a subject at 2,880mm is more difficult, since the narrow angle of view makes missing a tiny target very, very easy. But when you pinpoint the subject ... well, imagine frame-filling a malachite kingfisher 100' from the camera! And the image quality is superb. Another feature offered by some, but not all, video cameras is a flip out viewing screen. This is a handy feature for immediate playback where several folks can enjoy the video on a small screen simultaneously. Although we often see folks using the flip out screen as their viewfinder, don't do it. Most screens are difficult to view in bright light, and we don't believe the compositions and camera handling are as fine-tuned when a camcorder is handled in this way. DV tapes are tiny, just a bit larger than the small audiotapes for pocket tape recorders. It's easy to carry a whole trip's supply in a small bag. Camcorders can go through batteries, however, so we'd recommend using the largest rechargeable batteries you can find for your camcorder. On the negative side, there's the very real issue of what to do with all the tape footage you shoot. If you want to lose friends, host dinner parties where you are the sole attendant, or drive people to bed early, then show your footage unedited. If you want to impress your friends, edit your tapes and produce a short video. Less is best, and the more less it is, the better the video will be. If you're reading this from a computer screen your editing worries are over. DV is designed to be edited with a computer and there are a variety of software programs already available. Some new MAC machines are equipped for DV editing via a firewire, a special connecting cord that plugs directly into the computer's firewire port. Most PC computers lack firewire ports, but one can be added with a video capture card. This card is different from the video card that comes with your computer, since the supplied card lacks the firewire port. A capture card works fine, and it's how I edit my videos, but you must be sure that your computer has an available slot to mount a video capture card. Video editing requires a huge amount of storage, too, so you'll need a large hard drive to store data. You'll also need a fast, AV-rated hard drive, since the data transfer from a digital image to the computer occurs rapidly, and can quickly swamp conventional hard drives. Generally, you can't use your computer's hard drive for this — you'll end up either crashing the system or losing frames (called dropped frames) as the data recording fails to keep up with the data transfer. If you don't go the MAC route with special DV capabilities, you'll have two options for video editing. You can adapt your present computer to DV editing via a video capture card, or you can purchase a "turn key" system where the computer is designed for DV editing with all the necessary bells and whistles. Turn key systems are generally more expensive, but they'll solve the headaches of installing video capture cards and attaching accessory AV hard drives to your present computer. If you shop for a turn key system, watch out for memory. We'd suggest having at least 2 hours of real video storage available. Otherwise, you'll run out of room and be forced to edit your tape in pieces by constantly downloading to your camcorder. Most important of all, if you don't have a turn key system, be sure that you can do the installation work or that you know someone who can. Many computer stores don't deal with these products and won't touch them. Make sure you have a competent resource person before you invest, and we cannot stress that enough. 
Even if you never edit, and rarely view your videotapes again, we know you'll
enjoy the experience. For us, it certainly has reduced the frustration level
when we've been at great sites and unable to shoot due to poor light or too
distant subjects. For us, video has become another extension of our enjoyment of
the natural world. Perhaps, if there's interest, we'll do a future column on the
basic how-to's of shooting scenes and of editing. Please let us know!B&H Photo and Video, the sponsor of this column, offers everything you'll need in the DV video line, from camcorders to computers. So far we've only produced one professional video, The Video Guide to Photographing on Safari with Joe and Mary Ann McDonald. You can order directly from us via email at hoothollow@acsworld.net. |
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Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris, Inc. P.O. Box 655, Vashon Island, Washington USA 98070 Phone: (206) 463-5383 Fax: (206) 463-5484 Email: info@photosafaris.com Copyright © 2008, Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris, Inc. |