Wildlife Cinematography

[Tom S]

I was quite inspired by the RED Collective by the Russell and Shannon Wild. I am thinking of doing some wildlife cinematography for fun. I have a Canon 400mm 2.8 with PL mount, but it is quite heavy. I am thinking of buying the Tamron 150-600mm with EF mount (like Shannon uses). It just seems so much easier for traveling out of the country. Bringing Canon lenses also allows for stills shooting. I'm 99% sure I want the much lighter lens, will I regret this at dawn or dusk?

The rule of thumb for photography is 1 over focal length for sharp images, but I guess this doesn't matter filming 23.98 on a tripod. If its sunny wouldn't the optimal settings for sharpest images be around f8 and 1/100, 1/250, 1/500 etc shutter speed. Is motion blur good with animals? I think animals running/flying would look good at 6k with as fast a shutter speed as lighting allows.

Any recommended settings for sharpest images of wildlife using really long telephoto lenses? I currently have the Skin Tone OLPF, would Standard be better?

 

[Karel Šimůnek]

I want to ask the same thing but I'm thinking about Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 because I already have a Sigma 18-35 and 50-100. Is there anyone who has any experience with Sigma or maybe Tamron 100-400mm? And the last question how much light and sharpness I'm going to lost with a 1.4x/2x converter? Thanks guys

 

[Patrick Tresch]

I use the Tamron 150-600 but on nikon mount, but it's not supported by Red... So I have to open the iris with a trick... It's mainly to shoot moon. So the Fstop stay fairly the same throughout the shooting.
The sharpness is ok but doesn't work with X1.4 extended from Nikon.
If I would shoot movie I wouldn't go faster than 180 degree shutter. Perhaps if your DR is enough (and your SSD is big enough) you could use HDRx track to have a 1 stop faster shutter speed for still images and use ADD to clean the rendered frame from noise?

Dragon 6k Magnesium Zoomed in x2
https://vimeo.com/241250914

 

[Karel Šimůnek]

Anyone knows if Sigma 100-400 is supported by RED? I don't see it on the supported list on RED website? Thanks guys

Patrick - that moon video on Vimeo is very nice:thumbsup:

 

[Owen Rennie]

I shoot wildlife for fun occasionally with the Dragon and Canon 800mm. I’m always wishing I had more light which is why the Gemini would be cool... I mainly shoot 4K 125fps with 250+ shutter. A faster shooter looks good with birds etc moving. I find the high frame rates very important (especially at 800mm) as you may only get 1 second of the subject in frame and in focus when its moving fast. I try to keep my lens f8-f11 as I need as much DOF as I can.