Hudson River- A Wildlife Film shot on AF100

Z

Zachary Halberd

Member
Wow. I just wrote a long article about the AF100 and my experiences with it in the field on our new film -HUDSON RIVER- A Wildlife Film, and went to post it and all of my text had disappeared. Not typing all of that again. So to make a long story short, the camera rocks for it's price basically. Holds up in post. Thought the Nanoflash was a waste of cash. The codec holds up. lightweight for my backpack on our treks into the Adirondacks. etc. etc.

The only shots in the video below that were not shot with AF100 are the bald eagle shots. This was with the Canon 7D, which I do not prefer. Just my humble and personal opinion.

We will be in the field and under water (Equinox housing) shooting the Hudson River like it's never been shot before. All with the Af100. Raised $22,000 on Kickstarter and hit the road. First wildlife film in history about the Hudson River. Watch this space.

Have hired the AF100 previously for History Channel as well as Discovery etc, and everyone loves the image. It's a great tool. Nothing more. I'm tired of making my eyes bleed searching the interwebz for the latest and greatest camera. I bought one that I could afford, and am sticking to it. I like it, and plan on continuing to kick a** with it.

Keep shooting,
Zachary Halberd

Please check out the AF100 in the field here:




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Zachary Halberd said:
It's a great tool. Nothing more. I'm tired of making my eyes bleed searching the interwebz for the latest and greatest camera. I bought one that I could afford, and am sticking to it. I like it, and plan on continuing to kick a** with it.
Click to expand...
Best. Review. Ever.

Stop shoppin', start shootin'.
 
2:30 that drafonfly moves right after the rack focus- perfect timing. Love your choice for music, I have a few albums from SOTL- their sound just washes over you. Pairs up with the visuals nicely. Lull is a good one too...
 
Great stuff!!! Love the range of scale (and focal lengths), from grand to macro.

Love the beaver sequence!

Is that a Kipon on the Canon 300? What are your wide lenses? EDIT- I see elsewhere you have the Tokina 11-16.

And what tripod is that? Love your smooooth pans...

Best of luck with the project, and yes, share some more in HD!
 
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Sure changed my view of the Hudson River. Living out West I imagined a NY river of barges, Staten Island ferries and toxic waste. The lingering shots of beauty were overwhelming. Good work!
 
Very nice. What lens did you use for the macro? Also interested to know how the Equinox housing works out for you.
 
Wonderful shots, Zachary. Three thumps up for this one.

And yes: In terms of pure practicability and versatility the AG-AF rocks and is really extremely usable - even when in some tech-spec olympics it (seemingly) may fall a bit back at times. And when it survives and shows such obvious qualities in the harsh conditions of a wildlife shoot thats proof of that.

Are you happy with the new Manfrotto head? Own the 501HDV and found it to go slushy quickly. Am pondering to buy this new one as Sachtler is a bit out of my range for personal use.

Keep on shooting.
 
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Zachary, well done. You have made me proud to offer a camera that allows someone like you to capture the beauty you have in this short film. Besto of luck to you.

Best,

Jan
 
So, I guess the AF100 is "not suited for documentary work?"

ROTFLMAO! Thanks for showing how great a tool the AF100 is for doc shoters. You rock!
 
This is great to see, it's beautiful stuff....I hope you get a little further up the Hudson, maybe all the way to Mount Marcy (it's starting point) in the heart of the Adirondacks as there are many more beautiful stops along the river.

...just be careful of the bears! :)
 
Thanks for awesome comments folks. Now that it's the following morning and I have fresh coffee I wanted to write a few more bits about my experience with the camera and other gear. My time with this camera is still early on, and I have limited experience shooting narrative with the system, so all thoughts come from nature use.

I will be releasing an HD version on our website only. Still working on that. Just got back from a fund raiser in Woodstock and am catching up on house cleaning first.

The adapter is a Kipon. Some things about this adapter. It works. And that's about it. MAJOR DRAWBACK is that I can't change the iris in the lens with this adapter. It DOES have it's own iris, however the iris is obviously behind the rear element of the lens which causes a couple of issues. When you iris down, it vignettes the image! It's kinda weird, but can be a little creative tool to use. I would prefer to leave the vignettes for post personally. I'm not entirely confident on absolute focus with this adapter. It wiggles on it's rotational axis, and as a veteran AC, I don't trust it. But it's all I got until the Birger surfaces. I can't wait for the Birger and it's phantom power contacts for the IS in my 300mm. This will be a MAJOR update for us to have IS on long lens shots.

WIth the given crop factor of this camera, it was difficult to find a lens that I felt was wide enough for my doc that was decent glass. I was on a disgusting shopping binge at B&H (we've all been there) and this gal asked me if I wanted to try the Tokina 11-16mm zoom. I was really intent on owning all primes. In fact, I had already rented the Nikkor 14mm f2.8. I had made my mind up to buy all Nikkor lenses as they have the manual iris on the back (and I can tell all adapters to f*** off because I had a real lens finally) but the 14mm was not wide enough. The Tokina is awesome. Sharp, rugged, little distortion, chromatic aberration is nil, and it punches in just enough to change it up. It's built like a tank, and I think it's a perfect addition to my AF100. Oh, and I use the Novoflex Nikon to Micro 4/3 adapter for this lens. Great adapter by the way. Does what it says on the tin without the weird iris b.s.

The tripod is the new Manfrotto 509HD. Carbon fiber legs and magnesium blah blah make it light as hell. Good for me. The head is exactly what I wanted. Pans tight, takes the weight of my long lens rig no problem. Smooth action across the board. However, I find that tripod heads are unique to the operator. I prefer working tighter than most. Try it out for yourself. The tripod and head system was a major research effort for us. I of course wanted an O'Connor and baby legs for ROCK SOLID mounting and movement. But I can't even hire a sherpa to carry that mother around, so we went with this. Plus it's like $1500.00 for the lot! I thought that was cheap. I've added a photo of the tripod in low mode in the river (yikes). This tripod does all sorts of funky movements, and is really rigid. Good for rocks and creeks etc. I put it in mid-low mode for extra stability. I usually sit low at this level in the blind for hours, and this was a must. Now I have a tripod that I'm happy with and it will last me years. I bought the Kata VB-510 Video Backpack and now feel comfortable knowing I can go anywhere on the train or on the trail without killing myself with all of this lightweight gear.

I use the 32GB Sandisk extreme pro SD cards. Waterproof, shock proof, heat proof, beaver proof. I love the cheap media, and the fact that this camera records for freakin hours. I rolled on a wood chuck for half an hour the other day without thinking twice at Hudson Falls. He just sat there sniffing the air for me and scratching his belly. One would think that a codec like this must be ugly. Nope. I had a blast in Color. I pulled detail out of clouds and no mush. I exposed for shadows, and let the waveform whisper it's secrets about the highlights. I honestly felt that as long as I monitored my waveform and kept my shadows reasonably lit (which can be noisy in this camera as I've noticed), that my vision went just as planned in post. Out of hundreds of shots during import, only four or five were overexposed, and even then I was able to pull them down. I also had my 4x5 field camera with us and took shots along side the AF100 for our coffee table book of the Hudson, and it still amazes me how sensitive in the lows HD can be.

Macro is the Canon Ultrasonic 100mm F2.8. Amazing. I will be more amazed when I get the new Birger mount and can control my iris. The Kipon adapter puts my Canons at a default wide open, so I'm pulling focus between a fly's a** and it's eyes. Starts to look like the 5D Mark II. Too extremely shallow DoF for me personally. I would like to be shooting at around an f8 or more for these shots. I bought a tiny little fold up reflector disc for the bugs, but I haven't been able to use it because it's too damn bright anyway. Have I mentioned I'm waiting for the Birger?

I dropped the cash on the Solid AF100 base simply for one reason. ITS A SOLID PIECE OF METAL. I wanted a baseplate that I could slide my 15mm bars into and create an absolute RIGID rod system that will keep my long lens setup from wiggling the slightest bit. Not to mention, long enough for the big battery as counterbalance. This pretty much sorted the issue. lol. Plus, this baseplate system allows me to connect the compact cinema prime adapter in the future! Its kinda cheap in price for what it is too. It also has the two screws that mount to the camera. The big one and the little one. It's like they say. Solid.

I rented the Nanoflash and recorded 100mbps out the back of the AF100 for a History Channel program a few months back. Recorded onto SD cards simultaneously. Magnified the images side by side to 800x and played around in Color. meh... It's not worth all the dingy s*** hanging off your camera, the extra weight, the batteries, and the $$$$. The codec held it's own. I have always obsessed about recording the most pristine image imaginable. I love tinkering my picture profiles with cameras to squeeze the most out of an image. I've promised myself this year that I will do less obsessing over bits. I understand the need to record 4:2:2 sometimes for broadcast rules or chroma keying. That's fine. But I wouldn't recommend it for projects like this. I'm super picky, but could barely see any difference after hours of fine tweaking in post. Numbers shmumbers.

I'm glad to hear people are learning more about the Hudson. It's an awesome ecosystem and for us city folk (soon to be country folk!) it's an amazing place to get the hell outta dodge!

Has anyone seen the film MICROCOSMOS on Netflix instant? a-m-a-z-i-n-g

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Thanks Zachary for this report. Great read. Learned a lot. May warm towards the Manfrotto now. Keep on shooting such wonderful stuff!
 
Thanks for sharing - inspiring. You pretty much expressed the same things I like about the AF100 - its versatility. Appreciate too your patience to get the shot - and most of all, the subject matter itself. I lived upstate NY for awhile, but you bring it in a whole new way for me.
 
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