Let's hear some of your painful experiences while filming a hunt. Myself, I'm making lots of mistakes just because of being newer and constantly trying and testing new things to improve. With that, one of the biggest painful lessons learned for me so far is 100% audio related and caused me to FINALLY deciding to pony up and buy a good wireless mic. Up until now I've only been using the shot gun mic on my camera with pretty good results of the hunt itself overall, but once things start to get a little windy the voice of the hunter started to suffer a bit. This Spring while chasing turkeys with my kids, the hunt went great till the end when suddenly the wind picked right up as my stepson was talking about getting his bird. A mic on him would have been great! When I upgrade my camera this fall, a wireless mic will definitely be added to my shopping cart as well! How about you?
Some of the hardest lessons ive learned: - When filming someone else with a gun, take your hand off the camera at the kill shot. Ive flinched and bumped the camera off target before. - Not taking my camera with me. Has burned me a few times.
Yeah, good audio is very important. I hate my wireless mic's. They run on 2 AA batteries that seem to always be dying on me and unless I'm really paying attention I don't notice it. Also, they have multiple channels, but the buttons to change the channel are on the face and if I'm not careful I will actually bump the button and lose that whole part of the audio. Moral of the story, make sure you get a good quality and well designed wireless mic setup.
Another lesson learned making sure your settings are correct. Last year I was using my Sony A57 for my second angle camera. I was running it full manual. I was running on a pretty low ISO and as it got later in the evening, the second angle was too dark. Especially for the after shot interview and subsequent b-roll and additional footage. I'm going to be running in auto ISO from now on, just to be safe.
Great tips, unless im the main camera man, im always on auto mode. Especially in my second angle cams.
I used to always be in auto mode till that burned me on a few hunts, then I learned how to use manual better. I was muzzleloader hunting and had my decent 10 walk in. I got the camera all setup on him and took the shot only to have the auto focus pull in onto the smoke. I literally did not get the shot on video even though everything was perfect... Now I'm running 100% manual, even when self filming. I get much better footage that way.
My buddy Jim Campbell who films for a living pointed out to me that once you start really filming a TON for a business, two AA batteries are cheap compared to losing the audio. He changes his out every single morning. He says he cannot afford to not get the audio for the shows he films for. That's likely what I'll do. Maybe not for my turkey hunting, or even self filming necessarily, but for sure when I am filming someone else, or for someone else.
Been there, done that! Last Fall I actually had my safety harness bite me. The strap that connects my vest to the tree actually got caught on my camera arm when I was rushing to get completely turned around, and I was too focused on the deer till I attempted to draw my bow only to have the strap hit my arm causing a flinched release... I shot right over the deer because of that... lol
Don't forget to press record and make sure your camera is on your target and doesn't slowly began to pan downward Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This is what I was going to say. On my last hog hunt I was so focused on running them down on foot that I realized too late I never hit record on the Tactacam. I spent at least 8 hours actively hunting and then failed to capture the kill shot. All I have are the memories in my mind.
I'm famous for forgetting to press record. Also this yr filming an 8pt I wanted a real closeup of the arrow hitting the deer. I had him broadside at 25yds. Always at full draw I check the viewfinder just before I shoot. The zoom was up so much the deer had taken a couple steps and was off camera. I tried to move the pan handle with my elbow at full draw. We all know what happened next. Bow got away from me, my elbow slammed the camera swinging the whole camera arm all the way around the back of the tree. The deer bounded away to 50yds or so away looking around not knowing what that noise was. I was able to swing the arm back refocus, recompose, and because it was peak rut was able to call him back in for a 32yd. shot. However I had the zoom way backed out to make sure that out of the frame didn't happen again. It would have been a spectacular close up kill if I coulda pulled it off but it was a miracle I was able to even call that deer back.The screwup is at 6:10 in the vid an the shot is around 10:40
I do ALOT of self filming, and because of that most of my kill shots are zoomed out as well. Still liked the video, need to shorten it up a bit though. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Another thing I was horrible at, was remembering my action cams. I'd have them set up and ready to go, just forget they were there once the hunt started, OR not have enough time to do anything about it till after it was too late anyways. I solved that problem though by adding a large battery pack to my cameras and can literally film with my action cams for the entire sit and never miss a thing again. I've updated my battery packs to an even bigger one than in this video, which only made my life even better.
