Sandhill Cranes shot on Epic

[Kyle Wullschleger]

For now this is just a montage of shots from my first time out to shoot the cranes here in Nebraska - I will be going out more later in March to pull together enough shots to make a mini documentary that tells a story.

Sandhill Cranes - Nebraska

This was shot on my Red Epic with a canon 400mm f/5.6 - the slow motion is at 120fps.

Hope you enjoy it!

[Mick Jenner]

Thanks for sharing and showing us the what this camera is capable of.

Mick

[Kyle Wullschleger]

You know - I just hit play through the forum - the compression looks awful here. Definitely view it in HD from the vimeo website - its still compressed for the web, but it looks much, much better there!

-Kyle

[J. Stephen McDonald]

The subjects are good and you approached them very well to get this footage. However, this illustrates how difficult it is to get video of wildlife in flocks or herds, when using so much magnification. The depth-of-focus is so short, that only the birds at an exact distance are in focus. All the rest are blurred. When birds beyond those in focus are blurred, it's not so bad, but when those in the foreground are not in focus, it's distracting. The only solutions are to get closer and also use cameras with small sensors, to deepen the focusing range.

With many of those on this forum, it's heresy to suggest that large-sensor cameras are not suitable for such things. If only one bird were being shot or they were all at the same distance, a large-sensor camera could be effective, even though it would be difficult to keep it in focus with rapidly-changing distances. The fact is, that if a skilled shooter were using it, an inexpensive camera or camcorder with a small sensor would give better results on distant flocks and herds, with high magnification.