I’ve been culling the video I shot at Bosque del Apache NWR last November, and I saw this “footage” for the first time this afternoon. It was one of my favorite bird photography afternoons, with hundreds and hundreds of Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese filling the sky. Families and larger groups of cranes were coming in continuously, and I shot everything in this video as one clip – I just cut out the parts I didn’t want to include. As soon as one family would land I’d look up and choose the next group to follow in. There was still fall color, and it was a gorgeous afternoon.
This was shot with my GH5 mounted on a Nikon 300mm f2.8 ai-s manual focus lens in 4K 60fps, output at 30p (half of normal speed). The piece of gear that's often overlooked for this type of shooting is the tripod, and I used my beloved Vinten Vision Blue3 on RRS TVC-34L legs to achieve the steady panning that I needed in order to capture these graceful birds.