After much thought I have decided that
my condition has improved to the extent that I will return to
updating The Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer Blog on at least a
limited basis. If I continue long term will depend to a certain
extent on whether upcoming eye surgeries are successful. The first
is scheduled for December 11th, and the second sometime
later.
Since several of you like to photograph
the River Otter for today I am featuring “Bedford County River
Otters-Another Page”. This is a 21 minute film, which begins with
an overview of the Pennsylvania Game Commission's efforts to manage
the wildlife of Pennsylvania and to re-establish species that were
extirpated such as the elk, eagle, and river otter. of an otter
release in the Juniata River near Everett, Pennsylvania on February
19, 2002.
This was back when standard definition 4:3 aspect-ratio mini-dv camcorders were what most small video production companies used. Two of the favorites with wildlife film-makers were the Canon XL-1 and the Canon XL-1s, which had recently replaced it. From 1997 until early 2002 my front line video camera was a Canon L2, which recorded to Hi-8 video tape. This camera was a powerful tool for wildlife as one could mount any Canon EF mount lens on it by means of an adapter. If I recall correctly this camera had a 1/2” sensor which gave a crop factor of about 5.4X. As an example a 500mm lens attached to it gave an equivalent focal length of 2,700mm. The XL-1s had an even smaller sensor which increased the crop factor to 7.2X. Since the XL1-s was a new camera it was used to document the events of the day, but the wildlife footage that is used was mostly taken with the L2 and the old Canon 35-350L zoom lens.. The video was edited on a Casablanca Avio stand-alone video editor, which looked much like a VCR. Its' main selling point was that it was guaranteed to work as it came and one did not have to configure it like one does a computer. I used this from about 2000 until 2005 or a bit later when I began using computers. The video features several speakers beginning about 3 min. 35 sec. Into the video. Some of the speeches are lengthy so if you want to skip them and continue on to footage of the release, drag the slider under the video to about 15 minutes.
I hope you enjoy the film.
Willard Hill
