This is some footage I took this afternoon of the cherry blossoms in San Francisco and the parrots that come in to feed on them.

http://www.jlboyce.com/video/20070316-Cherry_Blossoms.mov

looks like you've crushed your whites

Not crushed, blown out. In order to dial any colour out on the birds, I had to blow out the sky. Anytime you see blue in the background, you'll notice the colours on the birds get a lot more muted, so I just blew everything out and tried to stick buildings and branches in the background as much as I could.

Did you try using a polarizer?

No, all I had was the camera. Sometimes I bring a shoulder brace, but this time I just held it and ran around. I'm definitely looking at getting a polarizer though, I'd really love one. I run into the problem with blowing out the sky to preserve my colours a lot, so I want something that will help prevent that.

What about the HVX's 1/64 ND filter? That probably would have helped.

That's whose been eating my cherry blossoms !

Nice job, nice music. Bring a tripod with you with that camera. .you never know when you may need it. ie Aliens landing, big earthquake, etc.

Thanks on the music, I made that last summer at a screenwriting camp. You're right on the tripod, but my only one is enormous, I bought a big one that can support a few hundred pounds (figured I'd rather have too much tripod than too little) but it's too bulky for casual travel. I should really buy a smaller one to carry.

John, I tried the 1/8 and 1/64 filters, which brought the background into colour, but the birds them darkened dramatically, almost becoming silhouettes. I think it was mostly the time of day that made the sky too hot, plus I was shooting up into the trees. I'd like to try again on a more overcast day.

re: Tripod . I purchased an older MILLER tripod used, great price. I found with used tripods you can get a great value if you try it out ahead of time and see if you like it. I earlier bought a used tripod which looked brand new and 1/2 the price of it new. Most HVX users get tripods that have a max weight of 20 pounds, over that you dont need the extra weight.

Nice work. Expose for the subject. If you want a blue sky pull a luma key and add it in post. Great work with the handheld too. I'm educated guessing you're at about 25 feet @ 45-55mm FL. That's ridiculously hard with a handheld like the HVX.

Thanks Charles! I was generally 55mm on the zoom and between 2 - 30 feet from the birds, averaging about 10. They're not much bigger than tennis balls so most of the work to getting them to fill up the frame - like the 2nd shot, for example, the parrot was so close that the macro focus wouldn't go close enough, so I had to start backing out a little bit. Past that it was one hand through the miniDV door strap on the zoom control, one hand on the focus ring and iris control and just constantly adjusting.

I'll probably go back with a monopod or buy a light duty tripod and do better.