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Overall gear update and first weekend out.
Technically not really my first steps, I’ve already shot and published 4 short videos of wildlife that I found back in Georgia at a nature reserve.
But that was just dipping my toes in, this is the all out venture. I consider the money and time spent now an investment into my future. This is what I want to be doing as a career.
So about a month ago I made a decision and that was to finally jump in with both feet. No more halfway into this, I’m making bold moves now. Personal debt was fairly high and I was already doing budgets and trying to cut out unnecessary spending. That honestly has been going on for months. But it finally got to a point where it made financial sense to consolidate my debt into one lower monthly payment. And at the same time, take out enough of a loan to also purchase all the video making equipment I wanted.
That, realistically, is the only way I’m going to be able to make big purchases. I just don’t have enough income with my job to convince a credit card company to give me a high enough spending limit.
And at least with this loan I can’t spend anymore on it. It’s a one and done, paid off several credit cards entirely and now I just have to make sure they stay at 0. And then be making payments on the loan just like I’m already doing with my new car.
The loan came through no problem, I fixed up my credit and started making purchases.
Of course I had been doing research for months and already knew exactly what I wanted. BlackMagic Design is the way to go for me. Being able to shoot in 4k raw and then do color grading, yes. I’ve already gotten very familiar with the process over the last 6 or 7 months with the Pocket Cinema Camera 6k that I shot the above mentioned wildlife videos. As well as the food videos I’ve been doing.
Davinci resolve is the best editing software I’ve used, I do prefer it over Adobe’s suite personally. Although I’m sure I’ll wind up using both for different purposes going forward.
Orders were placed, tracking numbers were checking obsessively and things started to arrive. Every piece of equipment arrived before the camera, because the camera is totally and completely out of stock everywhere. Backordered until January, or maybe discontinued. Now that the Ursa Mini Pro 12k is out (which I would have loved to have gotten instead, but it was 10 grand and I was already stretching the budget beyond what I had available with the 6 grand and accessories for the 4k camera)
Almost everything was perfect. The only hiccup being a DOA SSD recorder. Which is an upgrade to the camera that you can use SSD’s instead of memory cards. Which let me tell you, is a must. If I’m going out in the field for a minimum, half day, I’m going to shoot every second that wildlife is in my viewfinder. Which adds up real quick.
For the wetlands video I shot that over 4 or 5 outings, 1TB at a time. Because I could only afford one SSD and when it was full, time to go. Really I need to stock up on SSD’s, memory cards etc. Everything I can get my hands on so I never have to worry about running out of space. You never know the exact moment that a wild animal could do something that you want to have on video. And unfortunately the only cameras I know of that are running constantly and just save the previous few seconds are worth more than a house and used for Slow Motion specific footage.
There is a possible problem with the SSD recorder, besides it being dead. But because it has been discontinued. As I mentioned above there is a new 12k camera that everyone is getting and they’re not making the same version of SSD recorder for it. The new one is faster and better and uses USB-C. Which sounds lovely, but here’s the catch. The only USB-C port on the 4k camera is inside the flip out LCD screen. Meaning you cannot close the screen and still be recording. A deal breaker for me, I need to be able to quickly move from on tripod to shoulder mount and be using the viewfinder both ways. With the screen extended my face is right there pressing into it.
I know because the entire first weekend that’s all I did, as my old storage option was to use an NVME SSD with an enclosure and USB-C cable. It worked, but it’s not ideal. So with that being the last piece I do have one on the way that I had to pick up used, hopefully won’t be a problem. I used to get everything used before.
I’ll do a full dive into every accessory I got and why if anyone is interested in that. Just lemme know in the comments.
I did finally manage to get one through an Amazon FBA seller who put up two in stock and I jumped on that immediately. It was a bit of a hassle because Amazon doesn’t allow for a split payment and I had to purchase gift cards in large amounts in order to get all the funds arranged. Which triggered an automatic fraud flag on my account and locked me out.
I finally placed the order and began to lower expectations, it wouldn’t be the G2 model and I would have to send it back. This, like another seller before, didn’t actually have them in stock and would cancel my order. Etc etc.
December the 4th comes, it arrives and is perfect. Now I have it all and it’s time to assemble. I had been slowly fitting together accessories as they arrived throughout the previous two weeks. I had already been testing the new wide angle lens, a DZOfilm 20-50 cinema lens. Amazing btw. Really makes me want a cinema specific telephoto lens, but phew those are pricey.
During assembly is when I ran into the issue with the SSD recorder. Troubleshooted for a few hours, but just couldn’t get any results. There’s no other option. It’s got to be dead. Got it all packed back up and ran out to get it shipped that night, one less thing to worry about.
Try to head to bed early because I’m waking up to get out before sunrise? Nah. What about staying up way later than usual to get everything ready for the next day. Having to pluck the foam for the carrying case, that took a while. But despite all that, I still got up before 5am the next day to get everything in the car and I was off.
Which is where I found out something fun. Just because the forecast for here in town says, eh it’ll be a little below freezing. Doesn’t mean it’ll be that when you go an hour outside of that out into the plains. My car was reading -6. I was prepared for below freezing, I was not prepared for below zero temperatures. So I was not out of the car for long.
I tried to find an entrance that wasn’t private property to the wildlife reserve I visited back in September. Last time I went to public campgrounds and there were so many people camping. Still no good this time, looks like all the entrances were shut and the ones I found were to private property… I’m fairly certain. Need to head out again and find out.
But regardless, I first found myself at a lake that I had scoped out the night before on google. It was right next to the highway and as it turns out, completely frozen over. When I arrived I spotted something moving, but it was so far away I couldn’t at all make it out.
I did what I was there to do, got out the video camera and started recording. Even with a 100-400mm lens at full, with a 1.4x extender. Still didn’t really know what I was getting footage of. I actually forgot about this until when I was editing the footage and zoomed in even more.
It was a wolf walking across the frozen lake. Although the footage is not great by any means, it is available to see on my Patreon. Pretty cool that I saw it.
I packed up real quick, because again it was SO cold. I had some layers and thought I was prepared, but I was not. I am by the next weekend, already went ahead and took care of that. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The rest of that day was mostly driving around looking from place to place, went back to the campgrounds where surprise, no one was there. Got some cool shots of steam coming off the frozen lake, again see Patreon for these exclusive clips.
I ate my premade burrito and decided to head home. I was about 20 minutes from the city when I spotted something big in a tree, I’m fairly certain it was a turkey. Which I did not think could get up that high in a tree, it was a good 15-20 feet off the ground on some not so stable branches.
By the time I got the car turned around, it was almost noon so the highway did have a fair amount of traffic, it was gone. But I did see something a bit unexpected. And fair warning, this is a little creepy.
I assume deer? Maybe pronghorn since those are common. But yeah just a whole ass skeleton right there.
So that’s fun. Nothing like coming face to face with the eventuality of death when you’re coming off a not great day of trying to find your purpose and coming up short. That doesn’t make you feel just warm and tingly.
Anyway, that was the first day. Which certainly wasn’t going to scare me off, I’ve had more than enough of coming up empty when you go out looking for wildlife. Sometimes you just don’t find anything.
Second day was a little better in that regard, but way better in the regard of location. I found a much better spot that is a bit closer, I can actually go there and park and walk around. And it seems to be fairly empty, the weather was fantastic and by the time I left only 2 other cars were there.
Getting ahead of myself just a bit. I showed up a sunrise just in time to get this picture on my phone as I was hauling so much camera equipment from the car probably a half mile away until I found a good spot.
Phew, that’s just pretty.
So I settled into a spot, hadn’t seen any wildlife since I got out of the car. Saw some as I was driving up the mountain, a buck and a doe. Probably both Mule deer but the sun wasn’t out yet so hard to say for certain.
The spot I found though was really nice, big wide open space with a valley down to a small frozen pond. I could hear running water down there so I figured this is a good spot to sit and wait, hopefully something would come along.
Also I had my back up against some rocks and kind of covered on one side, which was really useful as it was WINDY up on the mountain. Just constant wind pulling my hood down, fixed that by the next weekend as well.
I tried to take some pictures of myself out there, trying to get into a habit of the vlogging thing since I imagine that will be good content for the Patreon. Although I don’t plan to do much talking while I’m out there (scares away wildlife) I can do plenty of showing. And I’ve never been used to being on camera so no time like the present.
First attempt, camera isn’t in focus. Take two was a bit better. Although you miss out on the neat logo on my hat, which I got from a RoosterTeeth extra life stream raising money for a children’s hospital. So you know, good hat.
Pretty good spot. I’m happy and confident I’ll see wildlife when on future trips.
I did get hungry and head back to the car for lunch, I was planning to do a bit of walking around and shoot handheld but then somebody showed up with an ATV and I knew that was it for any wildlife nearby. Went to explore the area instead and I’m glad I did.
I did see some Mule deer, got some okay footage of that. And the sights, phew. From the top of a hill you could see a lot, including some cool rocky mountains with the erosion lines. Again I gotta plug it, these clips are all available to Patreon supporters in the $5 tier. They may become b-roll footage in future wildlife videos.
That was about it, I found a great spot, I got some great videos of landscape, I did see wildlife. I’m happy. What else could you ask for on a first weekend out?