Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => General Forum => Topic started by: Ragged Robin on February 03, 2010, 07:47:19 PM
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Studying a subject to photograph is intriguing and satisfying when it works out but how often is the shot too late, out of focus or in bad light?
Capturing moments on camera can be a real challenge and action shots are often full of surprises and detail missed with the naked eye, so when the birds were moving so fast on the feeders I had a try....
with the video setting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFMoqysBHHc
and video stills
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Robin, you are lucky to have all those lovely little birds in your garden.
The only small birds we have at the moment are chickadees.
I couldn't view the movie on youtube with my computer, I don't have whatever is needed to view m4v files but lucky for me Edgar has whatever is needed so I was able to view it eventually.
I bet you spend a lot of time watching the birds.
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I was not able to view the video earlier... but I just clicked back again and was wable to view it right away.... go figure!!
Lovely footage and the long-tailed tits are so pretty... I'm jealous that you are able to film them :D
A super ideas for a thread... "capturing the moment" has so many directions to travel in......
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Helen, so pleased you will see the video eventually - the whole thing happened so quickly I wasn't sure what I had captured or where to point the camera for fear of missing some gem whilst the birds were feeding so frantically. The onset of the snowy weather just brought them out into the open and then they disappeared with only the regulars on the feeders now but they are still a joy to watch :D
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I was not able to view the video earlier... but I just clicked back again and was wable to view it right away.... go figure!!
Lovely footage and the long-tailed tits are so pretty... I'm jealous that you are able to film them :D
A super ideas for a thread... "capturing the moment" has so many directions to travel in......
Oh good - I found it difficult to view to begin with too, Maggi, it just hung there in the black loading and so I was trying to work out what to do...but my library kept telling me it was loaded :P Anyway glad it's up and running and look forward to seeing other captured moments of all sorts here :)
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RR,
Enjoyed your pics and the video a lot!
Thanks for showing!
Gerd
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Thanks Gerd, have you ever tried using video to capture moments? I was amazed that the video setting on my camera made it possible to record what was otherwise almost impossible!
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hmm....getting used to a new keyboard, just lost the message...
i haven't tried the video for this kind of thing, but seems likely an easier way to get pics of this kind of subject!
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Cohan, next time you go into your yard and beyond maybe you could capture something for this thread - your hoar frost image is still in my mind as being an outstanding moment... a fabulous red sky this morning over the Alps....though fading as this shot was taken!
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Nice one, Robin.
Paddy
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Thanks Paddy, the red morning sky followed an amazing sunset on the previous evening - I don't remember seeing both one after the other like that before - all change from crystal clear light to clouds building up over the peaks bringing more snow today....
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Thanks Gerd, have you ever tried using video to capture moments? I was amazed that the video setting on my camera made it possible to record what was otherwise almost impossible!
RR,
Unfortunately no video setting on my camera. Also I miss a telephoto lens. So I have to
enjoy wildlife pics from others - not bad either.
Gerd
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Cohan, next time you go into your yard and beyond maybe you could capture something for this thread - your hoar frost image is still in my mind as being an outstanding moment... a fabulous red sky this morning over the Alps....though fading as this shot was taken!
nice--those sunrise/set moments are always very fleeting/changeable..this wasn't video though, was it?
we have had so much fog/frost this year!(today the frost is dense from 2 days of fog, and now the sun is out, so i have to get out there a bit before work.)
tons of pics i am still sorting--and just switched to a new computer, so i am still figuring out the existing software and trying to move over some old familiars...lol
funny thing is for initial resizing/compressing and batch naming i still haven't found anything i like as well as my old fuji software (3 cameras ago!)
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No time to get the video camera Cohan it was over in seconds! I missed the peak moment and this is a still shot as it went over. Do hope your computer set up isn't too difficult to install....I hate even doing updates :o do you have a PC or Mac?
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No time to get the video camera Cohan it was over in seconds! I missed the peak moment and this is a still shot as it went over. Do hope your computer set up isn't too difficult to install....I hate even doing updates :o do you have a PC or Mac?
ah, i thought perhaps you were doing the vids with the regular camera; i have the capability, but don't do it often..
i have pc, mac would be nice, but beyond my means...lol; this is a new laptop which as these things go is much more powerful than the old desktop, which wasn' that many years old! set-up wasn't bad (and frankly, i didn't have to do that much of it!) but i find i don't care for the way a lot of things work on the new windows 7-i find many things seem to need 2 steps that were one step before! but i suppose some of that i will just get used to, and other things hopefully i will eventually tweak to my satisfaction..
nicest change is simply the size of the machine--esp since the old one had one of the giant old monitors (although still really quite good, being sony)
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Just had a look at your nice video, Robin. However, it was the sound of the siskins in full song that attracted my attention. Exactly the same sound here if I open the window this morning with a flock of about 30 siskins with several male birds chorusing together. Along with Great Tits, one of the early spring songsters...
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Stephen, thanks for your generous comments sounds as if you have some wonderful bird song too! Im really pleased you enjoyed the Siskin chorus. The singing was so loud in the larch tree close by to where the birds were feeding.
We are lucky here in the mountains that you can record a bird sound track clean without background noise of machinery and aircraft, if you choose your moment ;) All was shot and recorded on my Canon Powershot SX1 IS and I was delighted at the overall quality....I now see that there is a sound recording only setting as well as well as the video setting and will give it a go with more birdsong. I would love to hear/see any recordings from your garden. Understanding and recognising birdsong in particular is one of my aims this year and for that of course I have to find out where they like to be 8)
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I'm pleased that I learned bird song of most of the common birds when I was young. It really adds a dimension to one's experience of nature. One of my neighbour's could tell what make of car had just passed up on the road, but probably didn't hear the birds....
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Perhaps surprisingly, video is also effective at capturing moments with wildflowers. I think it provides a better appreciation of the habitat. For me, the setting of alpine flowers is at least half the enjoyment.
This is a video I made of a hike in the Pyrenees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wEFCmxYDbM
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David, I was so thrilled to share your hike in the Pyrenees through your video and got a real feeling and atmosphere of place, how high up you were and where the wildflowers you saw were happy in their natural habitats. It is particularly useful too to see the annotations you added afterwards right by the flower so one can link both image and name together and remember them. The size and proportions of the alpine flowers is well shown too with the zoom, thanks for sharing your experience :)
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Robin:
Thanks for your kind comments. As you can imagine, it's a lot of fun putting the videos together.
You can find more alpine flower hiking videos here:
http://www.mountainflora.ca/Site/Mountainflora_Hikes.html
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That was very nice David. Who was taking the film if that was you in the video? Some music to accompany perhaps? Maybe Strauss's Alpine Symphony? :)
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Lesley:
No that's not me in the video. You are forgetting that I am just 22. So I'm the one running around with the camera.
In the originals I have the Pyrenees videos set to Spanish guitar music from Julian Bream CDs. I removed the sound track before uploading to YouTube. Although many people do it, I do not think one should use music performed by others on YouTube because of copyright.
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Luckily, David, at your very young age, there is still lots of time for you to learn to play the guitar to accompany the films yourself!! :D ;D I don't know what's keeping you...;) ;D
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Too many rocks to move Maggi and even at 22 one gets tired after a day of that! :)
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Maggi:
You may find this hard to believe but at 22, I did play the Spanish guitar. I arrived there from playing folk and blues in the 60s. I became reasonably competent but then let it lapse as the folk and blues took over again. Now I have lost the art pretty much completely. As Lesley says, there are too many rocks to move. But with grandchildren running around now, my wife is urging me to take up the guitar again, at least to accompany children's songs!
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You'll need to rest those rock hardened hands and get back to music making, David.... as well as playing for the little ones, there is always the prospect of the SRGC Forum Band! ;D
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My God, a grandfather at 22. Took me until my fifties to have grandchildren. ???
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This bird is constantly moving and is so shy that it takes off the moment the camera lens is pointed but this morning I managed to capture it on a short video and these are the stills taken from it.....it seems that the bird is an Alpine Accentor - a cousin of the Dunnock! It looks so different in every shot as its body shape changes :)
http://www.tonykeenebirds.co.uk/sbirds/alpineaccentor.html
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This bird is constantly moving and is so shy that it takes off the moment the camera lens is pointed but this morning I managed to capture it on a short video and these are the stills taken from it.....it seems that the bird is an Alpine Accentor - a cousin of the Dunnock! It looks so different in every shot as its body shape changes :)
http://www.tonykeenebirds.co.uk/sbirds/alpineaccentor.html
big name for a little bird ;)
this technique is working well for birds; what program are you using for the still captures from video?
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Cohan, these particular photos were captured screen shots of video running in preview on my Mac then taken into Photoshop to apply levels only. Not good images but representative of this bird in action from different angles the whole thing over in seconds ;D
You can also freeze frame in iMovie or any video editing programme but I find that using the page arrows in preview to see each frame is OK and there might only be one frame per action worth making into a still - I suppose the main thing is one captures the spirit of the image rather than a perfectly lit portrait of the subject.
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thanks, robin, i'll have to try sometime, not sure what i have on this computer for video editing;
on a positive note, i've got the photo editing sorted out--the interface for saving photos from the camera to computer in windows 7 actually works really well (it can be set to divide the photos into folders by day as they download, saving me a step later) and we found a good shareware editing software- photoscape-which so far is working really well, and has good editing and batch editing, so its doing what i was using 2 programs for before..
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Although there is still snow on the ground there is a Spring feeling in the air on sunny days in the Swiss Alps. Riding on the larch twigs and feeding on the ground the Siskins have a happy bird day :)
This is dedicated to Lesley who loves these beautiful little birds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKtjxCRq8Vs
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Robin do the sanitize the ground where you feed your birds? Greenfinches are in trouble because of a parasite that lives in bird droppings
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We've only just started feeding birds in this area but clean the areas/feeders regularly though not with disinfectant or anything like that. There are a pair of greenfinches that have been coming and also another one - I'll post a photo
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Here it is -
What do you use Mark? Is Jeyes fluid OK?
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Thank you so much Robin, for the delightful little siskins. A very generous swap for a couple of little bulbs. :) I'll watch it again next Thurday and have a happy bird day. :)
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That's interesting about the parasites in droppings affecting greenfinches, because it was found many years ago that domestic hens when kept too clean, i.e. when their premises were cleaned out regularly and all the droppings disposed off, the birds didn't thrive and needed some bacteria or something that was present in the droppings. Any comments about that?
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It's a chaffinch.
I use weak Jeyes Fluid
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Interesting what you say about gut bacteria in hens Lesley; I hadn't heard that before. It's a protozoan parasite (Trichomonas gallinae) that greenfinches and other birds pick up in food contaminated with droppings and which eventually kills them (e.g. see here (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1008/1224256167128.html) or here (http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/health/sickbirds/greenfinches.asp)). Fortunately it's not the same species causing the STD in humans :P
It's interesting too that greenfinches, like many birds, apparently use brighter plumage (http://www.springerlink.com/content/clhck4x3gjt43utw/) to signal to prospective mates their greater resistance to parasites & hence better reproductive fitness.
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Glad you enjoyed the Siskins, Lesley - it was a pleasure to compose it :)
Also it is good that the little video has drawn attention to how important it is to not only feed birds but keep areas clean and safe for them when they come to feeding areas. In all the years that we have had birds coming here I have never noticed any sick birds but perhaps you have spotted something Mark in the birds that caused concern and I would be grateful if you could specify anything untoward.
We only feed birds during the winter until end of March say and I see from the links that one of the main times of contamination is during breeding. Most of our feeders are off the ground but inevitably seed falls. We have one area for ground birds.
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Interesting what you say about gut bacteria in hens Lesley; I hadn't heard that before. It's a protozoan parasite (Trichomonas gallinae) that greenfinches and other birds pick up in food contaminated with droppings and which eventually kills them (e.g. see here (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1008/1224256167128.html) or here (http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/health/sickbirds/greenfinches.asp)). Fortunately it's not the same species causing the STD in humans :P
It's interesting too that greenfinches, like many birds, apparently use brighter plumage (http://www.springerlink.com/content/clhck4x3gjt43utw/) to signal to prospective mates their greater resistance to parasites & hence better reproductive fitness.
this was all a bit alarming, so i did a quick check on the situation here-nothing quite as worrisome--the main disease of birds mentioned here is salmonellosis, and it is thought this may be as likely to spread among social birds in the wild as at feeders...
http://www.srd.alberta.ca/BioDiversityStewardship/WildlifeDiseases/documents/Avian_salm.pdf
another link about bird feeding in north america:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Publications/Birdscope/Spring2003/In_Defense.html
however, i think i will remove the debris below more often (i only feed over cold months, and there tends to be regular snow anyway), plus relocating the feeders occasionally..but perhaps the biggest difference i can make might be to have two separate feeding areas--one with only sunflower seed for the chickadees-who don't eat much if any of the smaller stuff in mixed seeds (and kick it all to the ground digging out the sunflower seeds), and another with small stuff for the redpolls who do a lot of ground feeding...
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I'm pretty sure I read about the hens needing something in the floor rubbish, in an American book whose name I can't remember and I can't locate it right now in the general debris of my home. I have around 4000 books here, ostensibly in bookcases but those long ago overflowerd and I have no room for more. The book was by a man who had bought a couple of rather wild acres in the east somewhere I think, and setting about becoming self-sustaining. It could have been vitamin B the hens obtained from the floor litter. That rings a small bell. The book was hilarious and there was a chapter called "The great Tomato Race" about a competition with his neighbour. Wish I could find it and re-read it.
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Thought that I would just try and add this,as we sat in the lounge looking out,the sun was starting to set and it looked stormy,and the last sun rays on the magnolia seemed to turn it red
I just had to try and capture it
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Wow Chas, you were quick off the mark to capture that! Fantastic image of your Magnolia reddened by the sunset - just what this thread needs 8)
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Hope someeone is propagating that exceptional scarlet form of Magnolia. ;D
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These Goldfinch babies close by are feeling a bit peckish! Enjoy the drama!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DY8I2ZnQnM
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By the river, in a sunny spot, a sudden flutter of delicate wings announces the arrival of Speckled Wood butterflies feeding and sunbathing in the late afternoon in August.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIAYOuzPLQQ
best viewed in 480p
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Just enchanting! - Especially the video!
Gerd
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Thanks Gerd, I'm glad you liked the video. These butterflies are so delicate in the low level sunshine and they love this patch of water mint
it attracts a lot of insects :)