BTW, two other heavily processed shots. I was feeding dog food to 2 of the 3 magpies that come to visit me a number of times each day, and this kookaburra decide to muscle in.
1/125s, f/5.6, ISO640 (it was early in the morning), 250mm FL.
1/320s, f/4, ISO800, 250mm FL.
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Here's a short video clip of 2 kookaburras' on my back fence, shot with a Panasonic HC-V770 camcorder. I picked it up in a hurry so as not to miss this. I was shooting standing, unsupported. The excerpt starts at 11x and zooms to 16x, so while I have OIS activated, it was only partially successful. Unfortunately, the kookaburras here were only chuckling, not full-on belly laughing.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/yt0obk6irm8zd8o/Laughing%20Jackass.mp4 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recently had a holiday at Cooroy Country Cottages.
COOROY COUNTRY COTTAGES
Here's an excerpt from a video of magpies & kookaburras eating dog food at the homestead. The proprietor feeds them after 4pm every day.
Taken with a Panasonic HC-V750. While I normally shoot using Full HD 60p 50MP MP4, on this trip I decided to use Full HD 60p 28Mbps AVCHD for a change.
The 1st clip was shot with AF, but this resulted in the focus always being on the palms in the rear. (It started on the palms without any birds - when the birds arrived, the focus didn't change to the foreground.) So for the 2nd clip, shown here, I switched to MF and focused on the rim of the feed bowl.
Also, I was recording 5.1 audio in the 1st clip. Since there was the noise of kids swimming behind the camera and a caged bird inside the house, I switched to Stereo mode with zooming mic in the 2nd clip.
It had been drizzling and it was overcast. This made the birds a little more hesitant to come feed, so I set the camera shooting on a tripod and walked some distance away. This was a bit of a pity as I should have come back and framed a little wider/higher.
Also, because of the late-afternoon, overcast conditions, I'm fairly sure I shot with backlight compensation.
As usual, I find the output, straight from my HC-V750, lacking in contrast. So I've used the NewBlue ST Video Tuneup plugin that comes with Vegas Pro 12 to give it a bit more punch. Original on Left; Processed on Right:
A funny thing happened. I was playing the OOF Clip 1, searching for the sound of a distant kookaburra "laugh" that I could mix in to the audio track of Clip 2 to provide a bit more atmosphere. I was playing the clip fairly loudly in my computer room here in Brisbane. One of the local magpies, which I'm feeding, was nearby. He got excited, bobbing his head, and ran along the top of the fence in front of my open window looking for the source of the new magpie calls he could hear.
https://www.facebook.com/dosdan/videos/1587938641244686/
Dan.