Eurasian Lynx with cubs footage

[Per Johan Naesje]

Hello, long time since I wrote at DVI forum!
I would like to share some great footage of the Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx) with the community. This is domesticated animals shoot on a wildlife park and I was lucky to get access to get some footage of this beautiful animals.
One of the female lynx got two cubs in June and they are now in its most beautiful state, playing, running and hiding through out the park.
This is footage not possible to get in the wild (IMHO) and what amazed me most was the similarity to ordinary house cats in the behaviour between the cubs and the mother!
The footage is shot with Canon EOS C100MkII with two different lenses; the EF-S 18-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS STM and EF 300mm f2.8 L IS USM. The 18-135 footage was shot handheld with IS and the 300mm with tripod.
Some of the footage is shot in middle of the day in strong sunshine and most of the cubs footage is shot in early morning light.
Thanks to the 3 inbuilt ND-filters at the C100MkII, I managed to get good exposure even in the middle of the day recordings.
ISO was set to default 850 and I tried to use wide aperture, adding ND to get nice and blurry backgrounds.
This is a very nice camcorder for wildlife recording even if its only HD (1920X1080) and I mostly record in 1080p60 for being able to slow down footage in post. The color richness of the Canon camcorder is very good. I shot in wide DR which give nice dynamic range from shadows to highlight, much better than my previous 5DMkIII was able to!
I would very much appreciate what you think about this footage!

Gaupene Langedrag on Vimeo

[Ronald Jackson]

Nice video, a pity that oh so civilised Norway allows the hunting of Lynxes.


Ron

[Mick Jenner]

Hi Per, great to see you back on here. Great footage, very clean with excellent detail. To me the colours look just a little flat maybe a tad more saturation could have been added in post just to give them a slight punch? The problem is colour grading is always subjective and what looks good to one person may not to another. Nevertheless, really enjoyed and as always with you beautifully filmed. Pleased you are getting on well with the 100. Mick

[Steve Siegel]

Hi Per,

It is indeed good to see you back here. I agree with Mick that maybe a little more contrast would be useful, but as you watch, your eye gets used to the lightness of the cats. Also your slight slow motion is effective, especially with the cubs. The best part, I think, is that you shot the whole video at ground level. A nice touch.

[Stephen de Vere]

Not trying to be negative here but, rather, helpfully critical (as if I was viewing this as a Producer)...

It lacks big closeups (eg. ears, tail, feet) and so an editor will be limited as to what they can do with the sequence.

As it's a captive setup I guess wide/establishing shots might have been hard or impossible to get. There are other ways to introduce a subject like just catching glimpses through foliage, letting the subject enter frame etc.

One or two shots have slight focus error (focus is a little behind the subject).

[Doug Jensen]

I think this video is meant to be a showcase for the stock footage he is selling, and when looked at it in that light, it does an excellent job of accomplishing that task. I do the same thing. Your comments about other shots and cutaways are spot-on if he was on an assignment and someone needed an editor to build an entire sequence, but stock footage isn't purchased like that anymore. Most people are going to buy one or two shots that fit a hole in a production and they aren't going to buy close-ups of ears, tails, etc. When I'm out shooting for stock, without a specific assignment, I don't waste time anymore on scene setters, detail shots, etc. because they will never see the light of day. It would be nice if we worked in a world where someone is interested in buying 20 minutes of trimmed b-roll with lots of variety and sequences that can be built, but I certainly don't live in that world. Just my opinion.

BTW, I think footage looks great.

[Bob Safay]

Per Johan, good to have you back. This is some beautiful footage. I think the degree of slow motion was perfect. There were several shots where I felt that she was looking directly into my eyes. Also, the little cubs were a treat to watch, your right, so much like house cats playing. It was a pleasure to watch it. Bob

[John Nantz]

Hi Per,
That was some very nice footage and enjoyable to watch. Shared it with my wife who in turn shared it with others.

Well, first, it was late in the day when I watched it and with the cats yawning it got me doing it too. Watching all that yawning kinda begs the question of how much sleep does a cat need? Cats seem to sleep a lot.

One thing that was interesting was one of the shots following an adult cat and it was noticeable how steady and smooth the head was. Compare that to a pigeon or many birds and when they walk their head goes back and forth. Walking like that would give me a real headache.

The footage (er, clips) with the cubs was really good. The one bringing home his trophy and he almost fell of the rock. The two cubs play-sparring, really good.

Getting down and low to their level was a good angle. That was good stuff.

Some people discount the feelings of animals but on closer analysis it is amazing how similar animals behave compared to some humans. Just recently there was an article on the BBC about a penguin in South America that was rescued from an oil spill some five years ago and every year it returns to the same beach to visit the man who rescued it. That is amazing. In the last scene the penguin takes a shower in the mans house.

Here is a shot of the cover of a magazine in Wien with very similar coloring to your video.

[Stephen de Vere]

Does not offering footage like this for sale without disclosing the facts, particularly when the captive nature of it has been actively concealed, put you at risk of criminal prosecution?

[Doug Jensen]

Criminal prosecution? What is the specific law that has been broken for not disclosing where it was shot?

I suppose if someone specifically represents that video shot in the wild was really shot in a captive situation then he might be liable in a civil suit if the buyer found out, but that doesn't make it a prosecutable crime.

I'm not going to go back and read this thread again, but I don't recall the OP ever saying where it was shot. If he doesn't say where/how/when it was shot, then there is no deceit at all, let a lone a crime being committed anyway.

[John Nantz]

There is a timely news article about the lynx on the BBC dated March 28, 2016 titled “The return of the lynx.” The return of the lynx - BBC News

In the article it said that the Iberian lynx eats mostly rabbit. Based on that, a caption for the picture in Post #8 could be “Dinner as seen though the eyes of a lynx”.

What are the small tufts of black hair on their ear good for? According to the article, it improves their hearing.
The Eurasian lynx can weigh up to 40Kg (88 lbs). That’s a BIG kitty! Not your grandmother’s lap cat.

Also according to the article, the first lynx born in the UK will be the first in 1,300 years.

@ Doug: Just read your post and had the same question. However, there are some weird laws out there. Heck, in the ‘good ol’ USA’ weren’t there some posts last year bout it being illegal to take a video in a National Park without a permit? And there are lots of National Parks. Can you imagine going to Yosemite or the Grand Canyon and not being able to take a video? That’s crazy. So, “Who knows what evil lurks in …” the laws.

It would be helpful to have a list of laws with regard to videography. Does anyone know of any?

[Gordon Hoffman]

Per Johan states in his post "This is domesticated animals shoot on a wildlife park and I was lucky to get access to get some footage of this beautiful animal" so he's not hiding anything.

Gordon

[Stephen de Vere]

Originally Posted by Gordon Hoffman

Per Johan states in his post "This is domesticated animals shoot on a wildlife park and I was lucky to get access to get some footage of this beautiful animal" so he's not hiding anything.

I was referring to the footage as offered for sale at pond5d, not here.

Why such footage, so carefully created to appear 'wild', is not described as "captive" beggars belief IMO.

[Mat Thompson]

Hi Per
Nice to read a post from you and see you posting some more footage. I just worked on an ITV series her in the UK and got to shoot 5 species of smaller cats in similar situation, it was a really fun job.

Stephen - I hear what you are saying but I think some of this is a bit strong. Every wildlife programme on tele would be full of disclaimers if everything about its construction was disclosed.

Cheers
Mat