Yep, it’s time for another video posting! I finally had a chance to get some squirrels to come on camera Thursday - a very nice test for the HDV camera… Most of the time, they faced away from the camera, like this:

Ol’ Bulging Eye

It’s in those shots that I notice a few things:
• Squirrel eyes are a lot bulgier than I thought… I knew they were large, but…
• The video really shows the texture on the squirrel’s ears as well - interesting look (especially on the full-size version of the above picture, please excuse the interlacing artifacts - it looked worse de-interlaced)

Of course, that picture isn’t the best shot of the mix, and there’s a lot of cool shots where the squirrels do face the camera, but this picture shows off the ear texture the best…

One other thing I found interesting in the video was in the chipmunk segment in the beginning - there’s a mosquito buzzing around it, trying to suck blood from it, and it (seems to) succeed a few times that I saw - it’s a little hard to see (the mosquito) in the web version, but very clear in the raw version!

 

 BBFP Squirrels, 9-28-06 [2:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

It was s u p p o s e d to rain yesterday, so I didn’t set anything up. The squirrels were apparently getting ready for the rain also, because there were about 3 of them resting up before the “storm” was about to hit…

Sunday Sleepy Sunday

A 2 minute video of the squirrel sleeping is below this post… At one point, the squirrel moves it’s left ear in - very interesting - I didn’t know they move their ears independantly like that… I think the only rain drops the entire day can be seen on the little branch above the squirrel’s head…

 

 Sunday Sleepy Sunday, 9-25-06 [2:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

Another sunny day yesterday gave me the opportunity to try more HDV shots… My favorite shot?

This one…

What?!

And of course, as I went to tilt up to fix the crop of the shot, the squirrel moved… Ah, well… A short video from some of the best of my test shots is below…

 

 Backyard Feeder Project HDV Test, 9-21-06 [1:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

Well, it’s been about… forever… since I posted anything, mainly since I haven’t been able to get anything lately. Whenever it’s fine to shoot video, I’m working… when I have time to shoot video, it’s either raining, I’m busy doing something or, I set cameras out and get nothing…

A few weeks ago, I sold one of my better camcorders and upgraded it to a 1080i HDV camcorder, and I’ve been itchy to try it out on my project. It’s been raining constantly here since I got the camera, which both leaves the animals to shelter from the rain, and I’m not going to put the camera out in the rain, of course…

Last week, I was fortunate to tape a squirrel resting, trying to dry off… There is a QuickTime version (I lost the ability to make .wmv files, as an OS upgrade made me lose the serial # to my WMV encoder) of that file at the bottom of this post, video size greatly reduced for the page, of course…

I finally had a chance to try it yesterday in the sun, with the platform setup that I’ve done in the past. The dynamic of what comes to eat at what times has changed greatly since August, with squirrels not even trying before noontime or so, so I didn’t get any squirrel shots… but I did manage to get a chipmunk eating some peanuts…

Chipmunk stuffing his face…

Today? 60% of rain (and of course, it’s sunny now)… Sometimes you never win…

 

 Chipmunk stuffing his face..., 9-19-06 [0:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

 

 Rain, rain, go away..., 9-15-06 [0:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup