Swamp Harrier Heaven
As New Zealand prepares for Cyclone Vaianu to hit us, the weather has been remarkably sunny and calm, I decided to take advantage of this situation and set up the hide to try and get some decent footage of the local Swamp Harriers that frequent my property.
There is a trio of these magnificent birds that come and go, although lately I have only seen two of the three which give cause for concern that one of them has been hit by a car somewhere as happens quite a lot to these carrion feeders. It’s because of this, and also because I like to film them, that I often put out dead bunnies or trim from a good butcher friend of mine as my hope is that it’ll persuade them to eat that over the road kill and may prevent them from getting hit on the roads.
I had tried to film them a few days earlier but upon reviewing the footage I was bitterly disappointed to see that everything felt mushy and soft despite the camera telling me it was all in focus. This led to a bit of a journey of discovery on my part and I ended up running test upon test using the various lenses I have, assuming it was down to the RF to EF adapter or maybe the lenses etc. etc.
Ultimately I landed on the codecs being used in the camera. I found when using the SIGMA 60-600mm that at 600mm the image was “sharp” but at 60mm everything was soft and I hadn’t really noticed this previously because most of the time I am shooting at the long end but as I dissected the various tests I landed on shooting in RAW (well sRAW and RAW Light) over the standard AVCS or HEVCS codecs that I had previously used.
The extremely versatile SIGMA 60-600 mm zoom lens, ideal for Wildlife filmmaking
Finally I was seeing the same quality of image I was used to getting when shooting stills! It wasn’t the lenses after all!
Of course this revelation comes at a time when CF-Express cards are almost as valuable as gold thanks to the AI mega centres buying up all the SSD’s and HDD’s they need to run their models.
Anyhow geek stuff aside what followed was quite possibly one of the most special and rewarding times I have had in the hide, witnessing a large female and an older male squabble over the trim that I out down with the larger female being triumphant as she is most of the time, and at one point the same female taking off and flying directly towards the hide with some meat hanging below her and literally brushing the hide with the meat as she flew over it despite it being secreted away among trees. It was almost as if she knew full well I was there and was flying by as a gesture of thanks! This with other footage I captured of them fighting over the meat was breathtaking and reminded me why I love doing this so much.
Like many around the World, here in New Zealand we’re feeling the side effects of the War in Iran and this coupled with my current employment situation or lack of employment I should say has led to me feeling quietly depressed if I’m honest. Not being able to afford the things I would like or even now to travel to places to film, even locally has weighed more and more on me, but somehow nature has a way of finding you and showing you something to uplift you and let you know it’s all going to be ok.
