White balance

[Robert J. Wolff]

Good Evening, Brendan.

I am not aquainted with your cam. With my Xl-1s, or, my Xl-2, I shoot many tapes each year on wild life.

My solution to your backlight problems, is to find a ground level coloration of your subject; and, than, use the exposure lock on the lens, which will keep the iris from changing as you pan into the sky. (I do not know if your cam has exposure lock).

For instance: If your subject is dark in colouring, lock on a deeply shaded item. If it is lighter, adjust accordingly.

[Brendan Marnell]

Originally Posted by John M. McCloskey

might even want to look into a varizoom VZ Rock LANC. The more you can keep your hands off the camera at full zoom the less shaky your video will be.

Any other comments on remote controllers with slow zoom and good focus? Some are having trouble using ZR 1000 with Canon ... does anyone use Bebob Zoe with Canon. Varizoom recommend VZ Pro-L and VZ PG-L for Canon ... any experience with these, please?

Robert, I'm going to try out your exposure lock suggestion ... thank you.

[Tom Bouse]

I have owned a Varizoom VZ Pro-L for a number of years. I love it.

[Graham Bernard]

Originally Posted by Brendan Marnell

Any other comments on remote controllers with slow zoom and good focus? Some are having trouble using ZR 1000 with Canon

Working fine here.

Grazie

[Brendan Marnell]

Tom and Grazie, thank you. You are both Canon users.

1. What length of cable to use with your controllers? I'm being offered 30cm (= 1 ft) with ZR 1000. I need up to 20ft ...
2. Have you used autofocus and manual focus via your controllers, successfully?

[Dale Guthormsen]

Brendan,

I am curious what you are planning on doing where you need a 20 foot remote??

My immediate thought is setting camera at a nest site where your blind has to be elsewhere.

I to am curious about how others may sove this problem.

[Brendan Marnell]

Dale

At one roadside cliff location where vultures roost (2 pics on this thread) the sun can be fierce and the only shade is in the car. 20ft cable would give me scope to park the car so that both my wife and I can shoot out from the same side.

On second thoughts I have now found that the standard wireless controller zooms quite smoothly when the zoom rate in CAM SET-UP is set to SLOW. I'm not sure that the autofocus adjusts as efficiently but I'll keep practising.

[Yeo Wee Han]

Brendan,

I would think that shooting in better light is the first solution you should think of unless the birds are only at their spot during the midday.

Another point is you will have totally no control of the tripod head movement when you are zooming in from 20ft. The action of zooming is 99% of the time accompanied by a pan, tilt or a combo of both.

Cheers

WeeHan

[Dale Guthormsen]

yeo,

there is a wireless remote monitor that is good up to a couple hundrred feet, with that you could then zoom apporpriately.

ShotWatcher.com

To get even more exotic you could get a 12 volt remote pan head similar to the ones used on a crane and run it from the blind or car as well.

I recently bought a small and economical car battery and for 6.00 dollars I bought a lighter socket with clips. I clip it to the battery and run any 12 volt device off it. It lasts for ages and is rechargable. with ac available one can hook straight to a trickle charger and run forever.

another option is an inverter to run off your car.

Have I digressed again???

[Yeo Wee Han]

You're right on Dale. My issue was the movement of the head when zooming and the remote head comes into play here...:)

Cheers

WeeHan

[Brendan Marnell]

Originally Posted by Robert J. Wolff

My solution to your backlight problems, is to find a ground level coloration of your subject; and, than, use the exposure lock on the lens, which will keep the iris from changing as you pan into the sky. (I do not know if your cam has exposure lock).

For instance: If your subject is dark in colouring, lock on a deeply shaded item. If it is lighter, adjust accordingly.

.... and the answer that works for me is described above by Robert. After repeat testing on a house chimney at 40 yards with a bright grey sky behind I can clearly identify an inch square patch of lichen on the brick wall of the chimney (after locking autoexposure while focussing on the dull tiled roof). As expected the silvery hoods on the chimney pots are almost completely washed out and that's fine.

Many thanks Robert.

And thanks to everybody for the usual generous sharing of wisdom (among other things) on DVInfo ... my wireless controller may be adequate for the remote problem but I have more tests to do.