American Widgeons in flight and landing at sea
I love to capture birds in flight :) In this video you'll see a small flock of American Widgeons do a quick fly-by and then land along the shore of Stanley Park. I was able to track them quite well and they flew right at me as they landed in the water, which was nice of them :)
You can hear the Mew Gulls vocalizing as the widgeons do their thing. Widgeons love to eat the bright green Sea Lettuce that has disconnected from their holdfasts and is lapping at the shore with the waves :) The sun was setting as I shot this video, so the lighting isn't great, but I hope you enjoy it :)
This video was captured along the shore of Stanley Park between 2nd Beach and 3rd Beach (what creative names :) in Vancouver BC, Canada.
Thanks for watching!
It can't be easy to keep these birds centered in the frame while they are flying, good job! :)
Thanks neighbour :) The fluid pan head shines for stuff like this. The position of ones feet is important because trying to step around while focusing on the lcd panel and tracking is always messy ;) A type of multitasking that I'm still having a hard time with :)
Fluid pan head... so you're shooting off a tripod? I guess you have to in order to keep it smooth.... see, I know nothing about video. I do everything pretty much handheld, so I would need a full steadycam rig to do video! :)
Yes this was shot with tripod supported by sandstone and seaweed :) Steadycam is on the wishlist ;) and the drone!
Handheld is often actually easier for tracking something (ironically), but the second that that something stops moving, then the shaky hand syndrome kicks in :) Overall, the tripod is best for realizing a higher definition though.
I love doing birds in flight (should probably post some soon) and I could only follow a bird handheld.
I've always found it weird that my handheld video, while in motion, seems pretty steady, but trying to hold it still on a stationary subject is shaky.
I look forward to your in flight shots :) That bald eagle was amazing!
Don't feel that you have to upvote my comments :) I'm just making up for my lack of steem power; every comment is an opportunity to even things out :)
Haha! They landing as an airplane :) Can not get the first time, go to the second round.
We have wild ducks on the big river on the outskirts of the city. They love to swim there and sleep on the islets under the sun.
By the way, what camera and lens do you use?
Yes @ratel, I was lucky that they decided to skip the original landing plan and loop back for the camera man ;) They do land like a float plane!
My camera is a low end camcorder: Canon Vixia HF R200 that I bought on craigslist for $80 :) It's the second one I managed to get for $80 on CL, the first one had a really loud zoom slider :( This one is much better :) The camera has a 20x optical zoom and has the following on the front of the camera: 3.0-60.mm 1:1.8 Which I don't even know what it means :)
Very obliging Widgeons @stanleyparker landing right in front of you. I hadn’t seen or heard of them before and I think they look a little bit like ducks. Wonderful video footage.
Thanks @trudeehunter! They are ducks indeed :) The widgeons are migratory and spend the winter here at Stanley Park, then all of a sudden, there gone :)
Well, yes.....they most definitely look a lot like ducks. Perhaps I thought a widgeon was half pigeon and half duck 😂. Glad we got that cleared up before I embarrass myself again. 😡