Capturing Moments

[Stephenb]

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...

[Ragged Robin]

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  

[Stephenb]

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....

[David Sellars]

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.

[Ragged Robin]

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 

[David Sellars]

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

[Lesley Cox]

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?

[David Sellars]

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.

[Maggi Young]

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!!        I don't know what's keeping you...

[Lesley Cox]

Too many rocks to move Maggi and even at 22 one gets tired after a day of that!

[David Sellars]

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!

[Maggi Young]

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!  

[Lesley Cox]

My God, a grandfather at 22. Took me until my fifties to have grandchildren.

[Ragged Robin]

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

[cohan]

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?