Alligators!!!

G

groveChuck

U-matic Member
... birds and wildlife, shot from the rear seat of a canoe (challenging, to say the least).
My latest nature short, Florida's Silver River in early January.
Very chill (the video, not the weather; it was in the 60s).
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Hope you enjoy, questions/comments welcome.
=>Watch Full Screen<=
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Looks like a shoulder mount or Merlin might have helped you out. Were you using OIS?
Those low shots over the lilly pads were great and that alligator on the log is one badass!
Great environment---love that DVX!
 
Thanks, yeah, I'm an old shoulder-mount camera shooter, so anything would have helped, but been hard to deal with from my position in the rear of the canoe.
Plus I had the Century .7 wide angle on- good for the wide shots, but a little front heavy.
Mostly, I held the camera waist level, both hands underneath it.

I think I did have OIS on (possibly for the first time?).

I also used Avid stabilization for the first time- on the Kestrel up in the tree (small bird in the falcon family) and the Ibis wading bird.
Smoothed the shots out, but degraded the image from having to resize/zoom in slightly- no spare rez in the DVX, unfortunately.

Yeah, the 10ft + gator on the log was not amused by us... or maybe he was, he's smiling, right?
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We made 3 passes by the gator- paddle hard upstream, turn around, drift.
I'm steering in the back with the DVX on a short strap around my neck.
Line up parallel to the log, put my paddle down, pick up the DVX, then have my wife in the front keep us going straight (props to her!).

That shot was the 3rd pass, you can see the shadows of me and the DVX.

Thanks, I like the lilly shot too, it was hard to get the angle right because of the canoe's shadow from the late afternoon sun.
 
Nice man :)
Vivid colors, nice editing.. And I don't mind shaking.. It adds to the flavor!

Keep it up mate!
 
You are a mad man!

You are a mad man!

You must have nutz the size of a Halloween pumpkins my friend.
I wouldn't be near a gator, let alone in a canoe, lol.
Great shots.

Major balls bro!
 
Thanks Tomatoes! I'm still working on getting more familiar with Magic Bullet.
Don't you wish you had alligators in Norway, eh?
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ccastro, we're not that close, it's a, uhh... in camera illusion!
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Thanks guys, thanks for watching.
 
hey Chuck...a bit late eh....but here finally.

Overall its nice footage. I was however bothered by the deterioration of the image in some shots...mostly wide shots from the chromatic abberations (thats how u spell it???) to the edges and just overall lack of sharpness on those shots to my eyes. It could have been an enocding combo also?! cuz i;ve seen other works and they are sharper (your work). I just read u were using the century wide angle. I;ve heard good things about it but it seems to be letting ur image down here in some cases.

Anyway, nice low "flying" shots near the water, risky 2...but its what we do. Also nice shots of the alligators.
Def would not want to be around those big suckers.
 
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You guys have seen Jaws too many times...

Nah... I've shot gators for over 20 years, including in the Florida Everglades at night with gator hunters. They don't jump into boats, they don't knock boats over, and no, they don't attack hands holding DVXs!

And though there's some dark water there, most of it has 10-15 ft visibility, so you can see below.

Would I swim in that river? Yeah, with a mask, I might. I know a guy who holds his breath, dives under logs, and pulls gators out with 1 gentle finger under their chin. You might have seen him on Discovery a few years ago.

I dive (SCUBA) and free dive (hold breath) with sharks, barracudas, and sting rays, so...

jambredz said:
Overall its nice footage. I was however bothered by the deterioration of the image in some shots...mostly wide shots from the chromatic abberations (thats how u spell it???) to the edges and just overall lack of sharpness on those shots to my eyes. It could have been an enocding combo also?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's not looking as nice as I want, I don't know if I need to revisit my scene files, or what. I'm not sure I see CA, I'll check.
I do know (as I wrote) there's "deterioration" of the shots I used Avid stabilization on because it's resized/zoomed in slightly. Don't know if you mean shots other than those.

Doesn't look as sharp in general as I'd like, some might be due to the Century .7, but I know other stuff I've shot isn't as sharp as I want, either.
Back to the (Future) scene files...
 
That is some great footage. Maybe you can get enough of it together and sell it to one of those travel channels. I doubt there's a lot of people lining up to get those kind of shots. I'm guessing you maybe already do this though, although you should get it in HD.
 
Thanks redtrain. Yeah, the odds of selling SD are small, but you never know.
No, I've never sold stock footage, maybe I should try?
Hope to get better looking stuff soon.
Thanks for watching.
And welcome to DVXuser, redtrain!
 
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hey Chuck...that thing u did one time involving baseball (yeh i suck at remembering this)...but i know you were shooting over some days and it was being shown on cable i think. Is there a chance to see some of that?



Ur a daredevil it seems...swimming in those waters. my brother's mechanic in belize and his bro are hunters and one borther would jump into the river and lure them while the other shoots 'em. crazy i tell u. And they wanted us to go hunting jaguars (illegal ) at night in the jungle. lol.
 
No, GREAT memory, I'm impressed!
It was on ESPN a couple of months after the early August shoot.
I thought the producer told us October 21, but it was Sept 21 and I missed it.
I looked for it on the web, can't find it, doesn't look like it went to DVD either.

The gator hunters I shot were legal, and the only way I'd shoot a jaguar is with a camera; that's just plain wrong hunting such a rare animal.

But I suppose I do like a bit of adventure... there's the time a rattlesnake sunk it's fangs in the rubber lens shade, once a hurricane nearly blew me in the water...and then there was ...
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That was great! I bet it was the Avid that gave the soft look? The shot of the gator dipping his dinosaur claws was beyond amazing!
 
Thanks Milo. I'm not sure about the soft look, trying to figure it out, some shots look better than others.
Yeah, the claw CU is one of my fave shots (and not soft), thanks!
 
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