Guide 4
Videos
I started to shoot some video of squirrels with the Sony A9. Video was unfortunately not a strong point for this camera, but it was capable of shooting slow motion at 120fps in full frame, full-HD with sensor stabilization. On the down sides it only allowed for highly compressed 8-bit colour depth and there were no log profiles either. The latter restrictions meant that filming in the snow lost a lot of detail in the snow, but I was happy to get this footage while shooting hand-held.
These two clips were taken on different phones. My wife took the left video on her iphone, which is also capturing the audio. On the right I used the Hikmicro E20+ thermal camera on an Android phone to register the squirrels body heat. I synchronized them in post so they should be showing the same moment. I originally planned this to show the heat from cracking nut against the snow, which it does do, but I didn't plan for it to be such a fun audio clip. I think this is due to it being mating season.
Now that I have a better camera for shooting video I am able to capture slow-motion footage like this in 4k, with 10-bit, 4:2:2 colours, much better bit-rates, decent colour profiles and focus tracking. I still wish that Sony would have added animal eye-AF in video to the Sony A1, but nothing's perfect I guess...
Here is a video from the Sony A7CR. Despite it having a high resolution sensor with a terribly slow scan speed, it does support 4k 60fps 10bit video. The animal eye-AF in video really helps here, so I will try to use it more. This is also the first video that I have done with the Sigma 135mm f/1.4 lens.
Here is another snow video from the Sony A1...
I would like to keep trying to shoot video, so I hope to revamp this section soon...