fox and wood ant

[Ian Thomas]

Shot these last year on a XL1s, XL2 quality not as good as the original
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unEvS6wNst0

This will open the fox film and you will see the Ant one too

[Gabriel Yeager]

Hey Ian, that was a really cool video! You did an awesome job on compression, what were your settings at when you compressed it?

I loved the video of the fox at 00:55. It looked nice with the lighting.

Did you use auto focus and exposure? Or was it all manual?

Nice stuff, I put a comment on your video (I tried to, but I am not sure if it worked).

My account on YouTube is Mistyriverstudios.

Keep up the good work!
~Gabriel

[Ian Thomas]

Thanks Gabriel

I used Ashampoo movie shrink to reduce the size of the video

All footage was shot in manual mode, i loved the XL1 and XL2 for wildlife filming the XL2 giving outstanding results,

I just hope i can achieve as good with the XLH1 still getting to grips with it

[Dale Guthormsen]

Ian,

that is unquestionably the best fox footage I have seen!!!! Could you please share more on how you went about it, and all that!!!
It obviously was shot near a den, but I truly would like to hear more.

We have foxes, but not many as the cyotes run them down and eat them!!

[Ian Thomas]

Thanks Dale for your kind comments

This was shot over a 3 year period the area had a good population of foxes
plenty of rabbits, The main thing is patience i was going early morning and then again at night sometimes saw nothing but mostly the foxes would appear

No special hides just stood quietly and watched i think the foxes were sometimes aware of me but i was no threat,

Sadly the rabbits got myxomatosis and numbers fell and it looks like the foxes moved on, i still go but its now harder to get those shots,

I will try and post some more shortly

Ian

[Mark Williams]

Ian,

Great fox footage. I have been fortunate to work in a park setting for the last 28 years and have watched many generations of fox offspring come and go. It is amazing when they are young how approachable they are. I have never had the opportunity at work to film them, but you have inspired me to make the time next spring.

Best Regards,

[Ian Thomas]

Thanks Mark

Iam glad that my video has inspired you to film them next spring

The Fox here in the UK is one of our most beautiful animals and although hunting with dogs is banned it is persecuted more than ever, pheasant shooting is big business over here and anything that's a threat to them is wiped out

Fox numbers in my area seem to be dwindling which is such a shame as the fox also does a lot of good too

[Ian Thomas]

This is a short clip of the Wood mouse and the Field vole iam working on

These animals are common here in the UK but rarely seen

Shot with the XLH1 like your comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AgYxQzqHcM

New on youtube works on mine

[Mat Thompson]

Great footage. In both cases you really seem to be unoticed by your subject and you have a nice selection of shots to make up interesting sequences....really nice stuff :) I'd love to spend some time filming foxes and cubs, is it more towards the evening that you see them active? Great hunt shots by the way...

[Ian Thomas]

Hi Matt

Thanks for your kind comments

that year they had 6 cubs to feed + themselfs so were active right through the day

To go unoticed is very difficult it just takes hrs and hrs of time and is very hard work you,ve just gotta stick at it

[Ken Diewert]

Originally Posted by Ian Thomas

This is a short clip of the Wood mouse and the Field vole iam working on

These animals are common here in the UK but rarely seen

Shot with the XLH1 like your comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AgYxQzqHcM

New on youtube works on mine

Ian,

Nice piece. I can imagine that they'd be tricky little buggers to film. More active in low light conditions. Couple of things.

- Did you 'bait' the location? The camera position looks to be locked on.
- Did you bring in light or bounce some in?
- I'm assuming you were wide open on the aperture. Looks like you were holding the shutter at 1/60 or faster, yet no noticeable grain.
- Most H1 users find the EVF to read too bright so (resulting in underexposures), so we've turned the brightness way down to the lowest setting. While your rodents are underexposed, I don't know if you set up to the EVF, or sacrificed exposure to maintain shutter speed.
- Color looks fairly rich, were you using a preset? Looks almost like Steven Dempseys - Panalook (my most frequent setting - I love the way it renders browns and Greens).

[Ian Thomas]

Thanks Ken

in answer to your first question,

it was an area that was used by both mouse and vole ( under a bird feeder )

Yes i did use some light and this made things difficult as the animals took some time to accept it

The camera was looked down on a tripod shutter 1/50 + 6db gain

only preset is the one i set don't know off hand i just wired it to moniter and set it to what i liked, and used a w/b that looked right

on site i used a tv moniter so i didn't have to keep looking through the finder and yes mine is is set to its dullest

[Ian Thomas]

This is some fox cubs playing, all shot in HDV with the XLH1 and downconverted with the HV10 on to my computer

The wide shots are with the 20xHDV lens and the closer shots are with the Tamron 60-300 slr lens, the light was starting to go and i think was 3db gain 50 shutter what do you think
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm1vsbbbeFg

[Ian Thomas]

This is some fox cubs playing, all shot in HDV with the XLH1 and downconverted with the HV10 on to my computer

The wide shots are with the 20xHDV lens and the closer shots are with the Tamron 60-300 slr lens, the light was starting to go and i think was 3db gain 50 shutter what do you think
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm1vsbbbeFg

[Ian Thomas]

Anybody any comments?