Desert Bats

[Andrew Walker]

Over the past two weekends I've been shooting footage of these bats under a freeway bridge out in the desert. It was an amazing thing to see out in the middle of nowhere. The only thing I didn't get was some audio of the bats and that was because I left the mini-XLR plug up at my car the one day I brought my mic out there and I didn't want to hike back up to get it. I shot this with a Red Drive and some CF cards. Most of the shots I used my Nikon primes and was shooting 3K at 50, 60fps. The first and the third shot were done with the 18-50mm Red Zoom. Everything else was a 35mm f~2.0 and a 85mm f~1.8. I would have used the Red zoom more but by the time the bats made it out it would already be pretty dark out. So I needed those faster lenses.

I also learned from now on I need to bring a cover for my Red because when the bats fly right over you they dribble a little. I had to clean my Red afterwards because it smelled a little.

I also didn't put still on this post because I didn't want to spoil the video.

1920x960 120.5MB

1280x640 73.4MB

(Right Click and download)

 

[Brandon Fraley]

last few shots are SWEET

 

[Andrew Walker]

Yeah the last couple turned out really good. The other shots in the beginning are just establishing shots for this clip. So there isn't much going on in them.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Drew,

Have you been doing mount swaps in the field? I have found that it's really not that tough, as long as you have relatively clean area to do it. Otherwise you leave the OLPF exposed for too long and could have some nastys fly in.

I just checked my Nikons again the other night and they still seem to be on in terms of backfocus.

I absolutely love the last two shots. Really nice job!

 

[Ed Blythe]

You shouldn't stop there. It is bat country.

 

[Andrew Walker]

Drew,

Have you been doing mount swaps in the field? I have found that it's really not that tough, as long as you have relatively clean area to do it. Otherwise you leave the OLPF exposed for too long and could have some nastys fly in.

I just checked my Nikons again the other night and they still seem to be on in terms of backfocus.

I absolutely love the last two shots. Really nice job!

I'm not doing the swaps in the field. I could do it in my car if I wanted to. But for these shots I was just changing the mount when I got back to my house at night or in the morning before I went out.

Swapping the mounts is really easy. I'm just waiting on the Torx head screws to come in for the Nikon mount so I don't even have to think about stripping the allen screws. Its happened once so I'm really careful not to tighten the allens too much.

This footage took me three times going out there to get the different angles. There are so many cool shots out in the desert that I need to get. I can't wait for monsoon season to start. I just need to get a rain jacket for the Red.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

With those allen screws they don't have to be tightened very much because there are 8 of them. Snug does the job. I haven't run into problems with stripping them. Of course, now I will because I just said that.

The desert is a great place. Death Valley would be a lot of fun to shoot with the Red. I was there a few years ago with my DV camera and had fun shooting.