Anonymous
05/06/2009 12:54 pm
| ore and more, outdoorsmen are taking to the field with their video cameras. So in this months tip, we will take a look at three basics on how to shoot better video while in the field. There is no way that I can cover all of the finer points of filming in the outdoors in this article and I promise to do so in a future post but if you will cover these three basics, then your home videos should immediately improve, so lets get started.
I am writing under the assumption that you will have a hunter and a camera man. Filming one’s self is one of the toughest challenges while videoing in the outdoors and while not impossible, it comes with a whole other can of worms to deal with. I will cover those aspects in a future article. If you don’t however, these still apply.
Steady as she goes:
Make a concerted effort to shoot everything off of a tripod or tree arm. This is a simple one to understand as to the whys. Bottom line, the footage is steady and there is far less chance of camera jump when the shot happens. If filming a spot and stalk hunt, keep your tripod extended and at the ready. Try to anticipate if you will be filming from a standing, kneeling or sitting position and adjust the tripod accordingly before the stalk takes place so that when the moment of truth does come, all you have to do is throw down and start rolling. Since most folks use their personal palm cams, a quality tripod and most importantly a quality head can be had for right around $100.00 that will easily handle these lighter weight cameras. Your footage will have a much smoother and fluid motion when panning left and right or up and down. Oh and be sure to have your tension setting tight enough so that you can take your hand off of the arm when the shot takes place (unless of course you are having to pan with a moving subject). And by the way…they work on spotting scopes too!
Auto vs. Manual Focus:
Most cameras have the ability to allow the user to make a choice between manual and auto focus and they both have their place. Scenario: You are sitting in a tree stand and a buck walks into view for the camera, but you are filming the deer through several small branches and limbs and such. As you zoom in, the auto focus nine times out of ten will be constantly adjusting back and fourth from the subject to the branches, never giving you a fully static, in focus shot until you get PAST the branches. If the subject is moving, getting past the branches won’t matter since they will be passing in front of the lens as you pan to follow the subject. This same thing can happen when sitting on the ground filming a turkey hunt and the bird is playing peek-a-boo in the undergrowth of a thicket or in and out of the CRP grass in a field. The manual focus feature will keep this from happening. What you will want to do it to switch your camera to manual focus and then zoom all the way out as far as your OPTICAL not digital zoom will go, and then fine focus the camera on a far away branch or particular tree or whatever. Now when you pull back in, everything between the camera and that branch or tree will be in focus relative to how tight you are zoomed in or out. For times when you are filming in open country however, you can simply apply the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) principal by keeping the camera on auto focus and all should be ok but if the situation changes and you have to go to manual, you now know how to fight the auto focus battle with your camera.
Shot Framing:
One of the most common tendencies an inexperienced camera man has is to zoom in too tight on a subject. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of places where those nice tight shots of a bucks face or a bull elk screaming his head off as the steam comes out of his nostrils are awesome to get but these types of shots are extras to the over all footage. Make sure you get as much good pre-roll of the animal coming in and doing their thing. Scenario: You are filming a buck feeding with his head down in a cut corn field. You zoom in. The buck raises his head to check out his surroundings and now his antlers or even his entire head is cut off. You immediately zoom out to see the entire animal and when he puts his head back down you move in again. A steady zoom out to the animal until he takes up almost ¾ ‘s of the view finder is always better than the constant in and out of the zoom. Stay back just a bit, when framed right, the buck should be able to lift his head and there still be just a tad bit of space between the top of his antlers and the viewfinder window. Another good rule of thumb is that if the animal can take a step or two and some part of him is cut off…you are too tight. Another reason staying just a tad wider rather than tight is so that you can follow the subject as they move. Let’s say the animal starts to trot or you hunter has just made a shot, now the animal has run completely out of the frame and is difficult to reacquire in the view finder, especially when in tight. Another element to good footage is relation. Scenario: A buck is feeding with five or six does nearby. While we all want to see the buck, it gives the viewer a better perspective of what the situation is for the hunter if the camera slowly pulls back off the buck until a few or several of the deer and the terrain around them can be seen. Now we have tied perspective and relation together. Let the camera roll on this more wide shot for a minute or so and then come back into your subject. This can sometimes be difficult for a camera man because the viewfinder windows are so small or he wants to make the animal appear larger than what he is. Try and remember, the footage is going to look a lot bigger on a regular television and an animal is what an animal is as far as its size so concentrate on getting the best steady, in-focus, properly framed shot you can. | Quote |
