Trout flies

A good neighbor just dropped off some hand tied flies.  Thank you Chuck!

 

Stomping grounds

In my last post I showed the place where I roost.  Here are a couple of short videos that show some of the surrounding country that I have to play in.  Of course I’m still playing with the new camera, but I think I have it figured out.  What a difference high definition makes!  I’ve had one person tell me that she had trouble with the sound on both of these clips, but I played them back here and they are fine.  If anyone else has a problem please let me know. 

 

 

First snow - 2012

 

We’ve had a couple of dustings of snow, maybe an inch on the ground, but this was the first significant snow of the season.  This video is a couple of days old, and most of the snow is gone already.  At least here around the house.  It’s unseasonably warm now and we’ve had some sprinkles of rain.  I’m afraid it hasn’t helped our snow pack much.  The melting snow is going right down the river.

If there is one thing I’ve learned about high definition video it’s that the files that are produced are huge!  To large to upload a clip of any great length to a hosting site; at least not at my connection speed.  For instance, this video is just over 5 minutes long, and at high definition the file is over 600 mbs.  I have DSL, but not the high speed version.  Upload time would have been over 2 hours!  I had to keep playing with it, reducing the resolution little by little, until I came up with a file of a manageable size.  The original is fantastic here on my monitor, but unfortunately you can’t see what I see. 

Time for an upgrade

Well I took the leap.  I’ve been thinking for awhile about a high definition video camera; just needed the proper nudge.  It’s almost impossible to keep up with the technology.  By the time you get a new camera out of the box it is already outdated, or so it seems.  My first video camera was analog.  The year after I bought it everything went digital.  I was almost happy when a horse fell on it and smashed it beyond repair.  That camera was replaced by my first digital camera which has served me for the last few years; but it has now become a dinosaur with the advent of high definition video cameras.  There were some really great sales, almost half price, over this holiday season; and I thought if I was ever going to do it this was the time.  The new camera arrived a couple of days ago, and yesterday I took it out for a test drive.  I was really hoping for some shots of wildlife, but settled for a static scene just to get some footage recorded.  I also have a new editing program to get the hang of.  

 I set the camera to record at the highest resolution possible.  Today I waded through the instructions for the editing program and downloaded the attached video to my computer.  I have a 24 inch HD monitor for the PC, and what I am seeing there is fantastic compared to what I am used to.  I uploaded this clip to YouTube, and oh boy.  I have DSL, but not the high speed version.  It took an hour to upload this sort clip.  Maybe I need to reduce the resolution some before an upload?  The longer videos that I see on YouTube all the time must be uploaded by someone with a very fast connection speed, or they are lower resolution to start with.  I’ll do a little more reading on the subject tomorrow, and any advice from people with more experience is welcome.  This is a whole new ball game to me.