Today we have two lovely videos from reader Tara Tanaka, a Floridian whose Vimeo channel is here. You can enlarge these (and you should enlarge these) by clicking on the four diverging arrows at the video’s lower right, which will take it to full screen, and then press “escape” to return here.
The first is a melange of waterbirds (Tara’s notes indented):
Digiscoped on the Swarovski STX85 scope with an equivalent focal length of 1000mm, all manual focus. The segment with the White Pelicans was shot using the GH3 @ 29 fps and slowed to 31%.
How many of these “bathing beauties” can you identify?
And. . . a surprise felid!
I was in my blind for a few hours this morning– still waiting for baby Whistling ducks, when I looked up to see a bobcat‘s [Lynx rufus] tail disappearing behind the maidencane near the duck box. Still no baby ducks, but when I was headed back to the house I saw him in the yard, closer to the house than I was, and eating what had to be one of my many animal friends. He hadn’t seen me, so I slowly put down the tripod, which was already very low, and kneeled on the ground. I was dressed in camo and moved very slowly, but as I kneeled he saw me and from that point on barely took his eyes off me. I could see he had something gray, and he was very near the area that I usually see our resident bunny eating. He finished his meal, and then slowly walked away. When he left I walked over and found a squirrel tail, two feet, and a few apparently undesirable organs. I hope it wasn’t a female with young in the nest. Tonight a fox came and ate what was left of the tail.
This is straight out of the camera, and was shot in 4K with a GH4 on the STX85 using the Digidapter.
Damn! Simply gorgeous videos! Even the bobcat clip straight out of the camera. He was certainly keeping track of you.
Big Red is in the running for Model Of The Year. He has it all. Looks, attitude and charisma.
Equipment envy – the Swarovski STX 85 scope ain’t cheap – you can buy a car for less!
I noticed that. 🙂
It’s a VERY nice scope, and I have been very fortunate to win two Swarovski scopes. Although it’s expensive as scopes go, it is considerably less than a $10,000 DSLR lens than many use for wildlife photography. The scope doesn’t give you autofocus, but I prefer to manually focus anyway, so it’s lighter and less expensive, but with very high quality glass.
I take it you won the two scopes by submitting prize winning shots you took with something lower cost?
I won the first one with a photo I took with a Kowa 884, and the second one with a photo I took with the first one I won.
That’s a decent bit of social climbing. Congratulations. Maybe you’ll go on to win the 10K glass!
Thank you Darrelle! Big Red is such a pleasure to photograph and video!!
American oyster catcher… some species of merganser… punk heron?!
That reminds me – quite a few wild cats have those back-of-ear markings – signal system for fellows of the same species? Tigers have white dots, lions a black mark, other wild felids also have some dark/light marks…
any suggestions?
This feature seems widespread among the wild cat species, and I had heard it is thought to a signal fellow cats that are behind them: look that-a-way.
If you can find a reference do put it up!
Amazing bobcat video. I am surprised it didn’t take off when it saw you.
Thanks Lou – I think that by moving slowly and being low when he saw me, and most importantly that he was right in the middle of his squirrel breakfast, he figured he’d keep eating as long as I didn’t make any moves. I was about 75′ from him when I recorded the video.
4K video downgraded to 1080p looks terrific.
That’s a very steady hand on the focus ring.
Yes, there is no comparison between 1080 and 4K down-rezed to 1080! Lots of practice on the focusing!
Wow, beautiful videos!
Thank you so much – they are very different from one another!
Good job. Both videos looked great on my 4K monitor. Don’t get many chances to view 4K material. Thanks for this.
Thank you! The video of the birds was shot in 1080 at 96fps, and the camera outputs it as 30fps. The bobcat was shot in 4K, and then down-rezed to 1080 in processing, and then unfortunately Vimeo compresses it significantly — so what you’re seeing isn’t close to what it looks like on my PC (which is 1920×1080 pixels, or the same as 1080 HD). I don’t have a 4K monitor, and the only way to REALLY appreciate it would be to view the 4K version on your 4K monitor. I see that they are starting to sell a lot of 4K TV’s, but there isn’t much 4K footage out there to watch yet.
YouTube does offer video in 4K. Here is one that I shot in 4K and that is available on YT in 4K: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7qagwD475o I’d be curious to know what kind of a difference you can see between the 3 highest resolutions.
I think it would be possible to allow download of the video from Vimeo, if it’s saved as 4K. That way you could avoid the compression. I’ve seen that some Vimeo users do that.
Eh? I’d always associated Swarovski with gaudy high-dispersion baubles. Cubic zirconia. That sort of thing. Fine if you like that sort of thing, and interesting optical and chemistry properties. But fundamentally baubles.
Or is it just another company with the same name?
Hmmm, to Google, or to watch cat videos? Choices!
Both.
Whoever wrote that line about “nature red in tooth and claw” obviously hadn’t watched how fastidiously a cat cleans up.
What does Google have to tell me about the gear? Ah, different divisions of the same group of companies. Well, no great surprise there’s a lot of overlap between the optics of peculiar materials and just getting optics right.
Swarovski is one of the biggest names in birding scopes and binoculars. Also generous donors to conservation efforts. Good folks.
Very good folks – a pleasure to work with. They are a small, privately-held Austrian company. In the US they are SONA: Swarovski Optik North America.
So I see. Not an area I’d looked at.
Gorgeous!
Thanks so much!