Capturing High-quality Wildlife and Bird Videos on the Canon R5 and R3

[@HarryCollinsPhotography]

It was a lot of fun making this video with you. Hope many of you find this helpful!

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Harry, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do the video with me. You have a ton of talent and I am always impressed with your work. Looking forward to our co-leading our Falcons and Costa Rica tours. Cheers.

[@RogerZoul]

More of these types of videos, please!

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

I will do my best. So much to do with only 24 hours in a day. Thanks for watching and sticking with me.

[@DaveKnowlesFilmmaker]

Hi, Just found your channel and it is so good to have someone who discusses using the Canon cameras for video shooting as so many just cover stills. A couple of things though, Firstly the R7 does allow you switch on and off servo while filming and secondly I found to overcome the real annoying thing of the camera on switch off loosing focus but this does not happen if you switch off "retract lens on switch off". Not sure what happens though if you have this switched off with a retractable lens fitted on the camera but as I have one I expect I will one day find out when I forget to switch it back on when using that lens.

[@RogerZoul]

Helpful video. I didn’t need the info here when you guys dropped this video, but now I’m knee deep in the thick of it, so thank you for doing this.

[@BIRDCHECKBRASIL]

awesome content guys !

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Thanks so much and thanks for watching and taking the time to comment.

[@petersterling5334]

Nice Collaboration! Always enjoy your Videos.

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Glad you enjoyed it. Yes, Harry is a great guy and good friend with immense talent. It was great to do a video with him and we hope to do more collaborations like this. Thanks for watching and commenting.

[@dieseldavey]

Thanks for the video 👍🏻

[@iralakritz9746]

Fantastic video guys! Really appreciate your educational content.

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Our pleasure! Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks so much for watching and commenting.

[@spikeboydell]

Greetings from Sydney. As someone who photographs and films birds from a canoe, I found the detail you went to in this video very helpful. I use a 1DX Mark 2 with an EF 100-400L, so when filming it becomes a mirrorless camera without an EVF! It does, however, have super fast Wi-Fi with the EFT-e8 transmitter and minimal lag using an iPad Pro as my monitor (with the ability to manually focus using focus-peaking with the excellent FieldMonitor app). The benefit of having the iPad secured to the thwart means I can track the birds (on a carbon fibre tripod with video bowl and Acratech Video Ball Head), so I have some of the benefits Harry mentioned. Love your work.

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

hey, thanks for adding your input. Much appreciated.

[@dglatz01]

Guys nice job on this. Appreciate all the work that went into this. Very informative and constructive. Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge.

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Our pleasure! Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment.

[@jazinzlaty4823]

I’m learning a lot here!

[@topilot]

This is very timely on great tips on shooting video of birds with our new mirrorless cameras. I shot out a link to our TCPG Photo Group members so they can see what you have in store for them this month Ron. Thanks!

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Thanks, Tom.

[@noelchignell1048]

Interesting video guys and thanks for going to so much effort to share your knowledge, I have one of Ron's speed shooter harnesses and I recently went to a hands on tryout of the R7 at a local camera shop here in New Zealand so I showed the set up with my (very heavy) 30 year old EF400mm f/2.8 and the Canon reps and camera shop guys got really excited and started filming/photographing me (ironically using their phones 😂) Thanks Noel

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Thanks so much for your comment. Much appreciated.

[@edkaminski6355]

I have not watched this yet, but know that it will be really interesting. I have been shooting bird video for several years. I am interested in improving my results. Thanks !!!!

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Hey, thanks. And be sure to add your experiences to the discussion as we all need to continue to learn from each other. We def do not know everything.

[@abdulsattarmughal3752]

Great video guys. so many valuable insights :) On R5, I always struggled finding the "red button" to start/stop the video recording while looking through the view finder. I didnt knew you could assign it to the shutter button. just changed it after watching the video. I think it will be a great help in the field :) Thanks!

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Awesome. Thanks so much for watching. Glad you found the video useful.

[@PantheraPhotoSafaris]

Hi guys great vid. I have found on the R5 to stop it hunting if i dont want it too (AKA bird on a stick, flies away, waiting for it to come back) if you hold the autofocus button in when you have good AF on the bird it will lock. Keep it held in until the bird arrives back again :)

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Thanks for the input.

[@janegimpelj3155]

Great video; very informative. I have the R6 (not R5) with RF 100-500 lens and do want to start taking some videos now. I was wondering about shutter speed...is it double the recording quality? I seem to remember from another youtube video for video's in general that if you to shoot at 24fps your shutter speed should be 1/50. They then use a graduating filter to prevent highlights from blowing out. Do you follow the same general rule? So, for 60fps, do you set your shutter speed to 1/120th or do you leave it set to what you used for images?

[@dglatz01]

Jane you are correct on the shutter speed. Twice the frame rate so 60fps = 1/120 of a second (or as close to that as you can get). You will need variable ND filter to control highlights in sunshine.

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Yes, we did not cover shutter speed and that was something we should have covered. The twice the frame rate rule is a good one to follow most of the time. However, you can break that rule, especially if you are shooting birds in flight or other fast action and plan on slowing the footage down when making your final edits. Also, if you plan on doing frame grabs from your video footage faster shutter speeds will make each frame of the video sharper (i.e., minimize motion blur). Slower shutter speeds are generally used when shooting video because what makes video look "natural" to our eyes is blur within/between frames. Like many rules, some are meant to be broken. I would experiment with different frame rates and shutter speeds when practicing to learn how they two parameters work with and against each other. Ron

[@janegimpelj3155]

@@dglatz01 Thanks David. I do have a variable ND filter and will bring it along when I try this.

[@janegimpelj3155]

​@@whistlingwingsphotography Thanks Ron. I did try taking a video last weekend when I was out looking for an owl. Took some images of a woodpecker and then decided to take a video; I just kept the settings of what I used for the images. I already know the video won't be very good because I had to use a very high ISO and did not have a tripod with me. The bird was in a dark wooded area of the park, and it stays dark (dark for image taking) even on bright sunny days. I also use Davinci Resolve and think for anyone on a budget, you cannot beat free and it is very powerful. My next try is to shoot at 60fps and slow it down to 24 or 30 for slow motion. I hope it is easy to do in Davinci. But, as you stated in your video, if there is audio it would slow down also. More to test/try and must buy an external microphone and recorder so I can sync the audio (or try to sync it).

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

@@janegimpelj3155 Slowing down footage in Davinci is very easy. Just add Retime Controls to the clip you want to slow down and then change the speed to 50%. With regards to an external recorder. They can be useful, but I would try connecting an external microphone directly to the camera. This way you don't have to synch the audio and video. Just a suggestion. Cheers, Ron

[@eranger29]

Hi Ron, What bag do you use for your RF 600 ? Is it fit with body attached ?

[@petere6036]

Interesting Dialog!

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Thanks. We tried to keep it organic and unscripted. Was not sure if that approach was the best or not, but...

[@colintraveller]

As am not a R5/R3 user can you tell me if you are able to Record video whilst looking thro the view finder .. or do you still have to use the large Screen ???? As i hardly ever bother take video .. Depending on what it is .. I'll use my Samsung Ultra22 phone instead . I didn't spend my money on a Camera to take Video at any oppertunity .. I spent the money to take Photographs lol Curious Q .. Why does nobody ever mention using an Anamorphic lense ?

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

One of the big advantages of mirrorless cameras is you can look through the viewfinder and track your subjects while taking video. You do not need to be in Live View like with a DSLR. However, like Harry mentioned in the video, if you attach an external recorder to the HDMI out of the camera, then the viewfinder turns off, so you then have to frame your shot via the external recorder's screen.

[@Vollpflock]

Off-topic question that may only you could answer: Is the 600mm f4 EF (mark ii or iii) faster with the R3 (stacked sensor) than with the R5 or is it only faster on the RF 600mm f4? I ask because I have the R5 with the 600mm f4 mark ii, it's too slow and I don't want to buy the RF 600mm f4. Would appreciate your help :)

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

They are a bit faster on the R3 IMO, and the AF is better on the R3 than the R5 overall in my experience so far.

[@Vollpflock]

@@whistlingwingsphotography Thank you, great to hear :)

[@adinew8920]

Thanks....

[@whistlingwingsphotography]

Welcome