Iceland video

[Dale D]

Please enjoy this video- FULL SCREEN. Contains drone sequences as well as other photography

The attached video is 14 minutes in length. Please wait until you have time to relax and watch it on full screen. I consider it my best work yet although there are still a few glitches I would have liked to correct. My drone piloting needs some practice as an example !

This video is the culmination of 4 years of learning, studying, and practicing the techniques demonstrated in this video. Carol and I have just returned from a two week trip to Iceland, June 14-23, 2019. The video attached is a multi-media production including the following techniques which I have learned over the past 4 years.

1. Single images taken with theNikon D750 DSLR, and edited in AdobePhotoshop. The lenses were either the 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, or the 14-24 mm f/4 wide angle lens.
ND Filters: Many of these images made use of neutral density filters (to hold back light and slow the shutter speed). Mostly I used the Lee filter system, with 6 stop of 10 stop ND filters on a tripod and shutter release

2. DJI Mavic Air Drone videos- many of the videos are taken from the drone as those flying over waterfalls or fields of lupine, lava fields, or lava black sand beach and sea-stacks.

3. Videos with other means- I also used theiPhone XS MAXwhich has an amazing 4K video capability and great resolution and sound- used mainly in the driving scenes, or at the Ice Lagoon

4. Time lapse videos- these are taken with the Nikon D750 in high resolution and processed inLR Lightroomsoftware to render the hundreds of individual images into a video

5. Time lapse videos taken with the Nikon using a SLIDER- theDynamic Precision slider with the NMX Motion controllerand iPhone app

6. Videos taken with the newDJI Osmo Actionvideo camera.

7. The entire production was processed usingAdobe Premier Pro video editingsoftware and involved a year’s long learning curve and multiple lessons from the community college, a workshop, and hours of You Tube video studies

8.Music was from a subscription toMusicbed.com
A great source for royalty free music.

I hope you enjoy this and welcome all comments, positive or not.

Dale

 

[MPone]

Very good. Interesting form of presentation.

 

[MPone]

You're very brave. Most of the locations are no drone zones. But yet you flew the drone .

 

[jeplane]

Iceland is an amazing country, and it is perfectly understandable that you would be excited in creating a 13-14 minutes video. However, this would be better served for family and friends perhaps. Alas, on a public forum, our attention span is probably a lot less....

Some still shots are redundant...
We get that you did some beautiful long exposure shots on the Reynisfjara beach. However, we do not need to see more than 1 or 2. The couple with wedding attire was curious too, since we do not know the context, and as such, they do not add to the story. They just make us scratch our head.

The Jokulsarlon glacier and Diamond beach have too many stills. There is an accelerated time-lapse of people walking along side the glacier, or diamond beach, and that too, didn't add anything. An aerial video of the glacier was painful, since it didn't go very far over it, and there was two abrupt movement of the gimbal to reframe the shot I guess.

We see a Google map at some point, showing the itinerary but this was the first and only one. It should be eliminated, or done more than once, if that is what you want to show on your video.

Overall, it is obvious that your talent as a photographer have helped you composed beautiful shots. The secret in photography, is to go stand in front of beautiful things, and Iceland delivers more than once.

As a videographer, it is much harder.
Think of what you want to "say", and how you want to make us "feel". Imagine David Attenborough was narrating your movie. What would he comment on? How would you do it?
And you only have a limited time to do it, so make every second count.

Good shots as a cameraman!
Now, go become a movie director....

PS: And of course, if you could be compliant with the no-drone zone, it would help the rest of us.

 

[Dale D]

Hi Jeplane:
I loved your review! You hit it out of the park on each and every comment, which, you had better believe, I wrestled with each and every criticism you mentioned. I had first planned a 3 min. video as I well know the short attention span required of most forums. In fact, I still have a plan to do such a video. I also wrestled with ideas of using labels, maps, and titles, since I know that no one could possibly know these locations. The Icelandic language has a lot of umlauts, and weird words to the English reader. Because of the need for brevity, I cut most still images to 2 seconds with no transitions. Yes, many still shots were redundant. You should have seen the ones I left out. I tried to keep them to a minimum of 4, and make them all different wave patterns to show the viewer the variety of prolonged wave exposures available. The accelerated time lapse was actually an attempt to capture the glacier and cloud movement to accentuate the vastness of the scene. It turned out to be sort of cartoonish and comical so I left it in. The aerial view of the glacier was particularly painful. I had gotten my courage up enough to actually cross the water and go over the glacier and at that time my heart was in my throat that I would run out of time, or lose the drone. The only footage I came away with was this one,with jerky yaws which was all the footage I had to show. You are so right to spot that. The couple with their wedding attire was indeed an oddity. I left the image in the show without being able to explain it which would have taken up more time. Visiting Reynisfjara Beach is a wedding tradition in Iceland, as you know.

The video is indeed aimed at family, friends, and 67 people on my photography mailing list. These are photographers from around the world that I have met during my travels (95 countries to date-some more than twice). We have traded addresses and we send each other our work. I have also attended numerous photography workshops over the years and both students and teachers are on that list. So the video was an attempt to cover many bases.

I am intent now on doing a much shorter video. I cannot address the drone issue without putting things into print that I'd rather not. Believe me, I wrestled with sending this drone forum a video with non-drone photography.

Thanks again or your comments, and I will welcome more of them from anyone. That is, after all, the way I learn, as we all should.

 

[J Brown]

Please enjoy this video- FULL SCREEN. Contains drone sequences as well as other photography

Very nice!

 

[W2EJ]

Please enjoy this video- FULL SCREEN. Contains drone sequences as well as other photography

It's very thought provoking. Before I watched the video, I saw that it was 14 minutes long and I thought I would probably just kind of skim through it. Once I started watching, I was very interested and watched all of it, enjoying it thoroughly. I was thinking how far advanced you are in your video capture and editing from my meager skills. I have been taking stills for many years and I feel I'm pretty good at that, but I'm still very new to video, only starting about a year ago when I got my first drone. Then I read the comments by @jeplane. At first, I thought that they were kind of harsh, but upon re-reading them, they're accurate. Your reaction to them was very well taken and appreciative. I can only hope to progress in this wonderful hobby and get to where you are, and then maybe even gain an understanding of the whole thing like @jeplane obviously has.

 

[Dale D]

Dear W2EJ and others:
Thanks for your kind comments. Yes, the criticisms were well founded. That is why these forums are helpful. They will stimulus us all to
go out there and perfect our craft. I stated at the outset that my drone piloting needs some work. I struggled to keep the camera on a straight line toward that **** glacier but I had to keep correcting the direction, and it showed up as jerky in the final result. I should have had another run at it but the guide and group were waiting so I couldn't do a re-do. Then I had to decide whether or not to even include the clip in the show. Lacking any other footage, I used what I could and tried my damndes to edit it as best as possible.

My journey into video started with timelapse, and the challenge to learn video editing. It was really daunting for several years. Then, when I learned the drone, I added to the demands to learn video editing. But I persisted, and this video is the result of years of hard work, studying, YouTubes, etc.

 

[Photo Beaty]

I want to add my admiration for your video. You used several different techniques and equipment. You put it together in a way that I totally enjoyed watching. The music was very pleasing to me.

 

[Dale D]

Thanks, PhotoBeaty:

I really appreciate your watching this and your comments. It was a truly multi-media presentation. (1) timelapse sequences (2) motion timelapse with a slider (adds about 10 pounds to the luggage) (3) video from iPhone (4) video from drone (5) video from DJI Osmo Action (6) music service provider, (7) DSLR Stills with ND filters, etc.

 

[PACSMAN]

Please enjoy this video- FULL SCREEN. Contains drone sequences as well as other photography

I little long but I liked it a lot. I just returned from there on Wednesday - did a one week camping tour to the highlands with the same company you used.

Well done.

Fred

 

[4K Beaches]

Dale, this was stunning video from beginning to end. The length needs no explanation as the content continuously changes showing how dynamic the environment. Thank you for sharing. Now I need to check flight tickets for Iceland.

 

[Dale D]

Dear 4K Beaches,et.al.
I'm so glad you enjoyed the video. Needless to say, it was years in the making and 4 weeks of 12 hour days at the computer for 16 days after my return from Iceland. Each timelapse required 30-40 minutes to shoot, and another several hours to process at home, and of course required hundreds of shutter actuations each. Iceland is a photographer's dream and we are already planning a return trip to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, which we missed. The flights really stink. We went the best class Delta had to offer but the seats didn't recline more than a few inches and there was no foot rest. Once you get to Reykjavik, the Flybus takes 45 minutes and there is a transfer at the main station before you get near your hotel! Food is very expensive. It is all worth it. I would highly recommend a guided tour- half the secret of good photography is the scouting the locations . Instead of spending hours looking for a place to shoot, the guide leads you right there! My trip was a photo workshop which was great.

 

[jcbff]

Please enjoy this video- FULL SCREEN. Contains drone sequences as well as other photography

What a wonderful and satisfying video. I really enjoyed the different styles you used, especially the stills that always seem to show up at exactly the right time. This allowed me a moment to stop and absorb what I was watching. Well done!