The FX-30 as a wildlife video camera

I thought I'd try out the Sony FX-30 as for bird-videography a few weekends ago.

The subjects were the kāruhiruhi (pied shags) at the Chelsea Heritage Park, and I hadn't realised they were nesting. So I got some footage of the nesting birds as well. I had wanted to video the tākapu (gannets) at Muriwai but that's been so ravaged by the Cyclone it's still cordoned off to visitors.

Originally I'd planned on adding titles and a Voice-Over narration, but well, our semester started. So you just get the base footage...

To view the short video (c 2.23mins) this Vimeo Link. You can see some nestlings in some of the clips.

I filmed in 4K and Hybrid-Log (HLG) which let me do some colour grading, but in retrospect, with the difference in the white and black feathers I should have done it in S-Log 3. The video clip I uploaded is HD not 4K however.

Some thoughts- well, the with the Tamron 150-500 on the FX30, I had an 'equivalent' reach of up to 750mm. I also set it it up to do 'Clear Image Zoom', the best 'digital' zoom possible. This could be activated with 'zoom lever' which is very smooth. No jerky action at all. So you can really zoom-in a long way, and it still produce nice footage.

I use my Azden microphone rather than the audio setup with the Zoom H5 and Sennheiser MKE-600. It's still good audio. You can hear some kāruhiruhi squawks some of the time. So that was ok. It's easier with just the Azden to set it up.

I probably should have used an external monitor however, as the small camera screen was a bit harder to use at these extreme zoom distances. Plus the manual focusing was more challenging.

The Sony FX30 also comes with bird eye detection. This works really well when it can see a bird- like the ones perched in full view on logs. It tracked the eyes extremely well. It doesn't work so well if the 'bird shape' can be identified. So a chicks in nests don't show enough "identifiable" bird for the eye-tracking to work.

addy landzaat wrote: The video says: Video is not rated. Log in to watch.

Oh, well, I've added ratings now so it should be watchable. I'll add a direct link to my website next if this doesn't work.

Edit:

NZNaturePhotos Link Full HD

NZNaturePhotos Link Web (low quality)

Edited by Wētāpunga - 12 March 2023 at 00:52

Thanks for the comments Howard.

I was pleased with the Azden (SMX-30's) sound. I know how good the Sennheiser MKE-600 is fed into the preamps of the Zoom H5. So I was a little worried the Azden would be noticeably poorer at the recording distances I had.

One of the problems was the HLG setting. It has more exposure range than many picture profiles. But not as much as the S-Logs. So I couldn't recover the burnt out regions. I probably should have underexposed the scenes slightly also. My nascent skills were pushed by the bright light, shade and exposure range in the feathers. Next time, hopefully, I'll get a more consistent exposure.

Once you do start using the log Picture profiles you do have to do a bit of colour grading later in post. Which means you're really going to need Adobe Premiere or DaVinci or Apple FCPX on your computer.

I hadn't noticed anything unusual with the leg scratching, but I did notice it had a kind of 'club foot'. I was recording at a 50p frame rate for 'smoother' action, whereas the native Pal or NTSC frame rate is about half that. Maybe that's what affected your view.

Completely agree about the multi-dimensional chess aspect! There's probably a good reason 'filming crews' rather than 'filming person' is the norm. There's a lot more to manage. At least the newer cameras, like the FX30, can automate a few of those decisions. And it can be customised readily.