I made this videoclip for two guys I met on a festival in Kampala: Kingsley & Philla. Struck by their performance I offered to make them a videoclip. These talented artists are now beginning to spread their message outside the boundraries of Uganda and take their music to the rest of Africa, Europe and the States. In june they will come to Holland for several performances, so go check it out!

It has been a while since I uploaded the screenshots of the videos I took while tracking the gorillas in Bwindi. Today I had some spare time left and decided to edit these videos and cut them with some other footage taken with a flipcam and iPhone by my friend Gijs Koning. I hope this video will give you an impression of the gorilla tracking in Bwindi Impenetrable forest and the hour we spent with these amazing primates!

Being in Uganda for some months last week it was time to go and explore some of the gems in this beautiful country. Of course the first thing on my list was a visit to the mountain Gorilla’s of Bwindi Impenetrable forest. Because of poaching, disease and loss of habitat these magnificent creatures rapidly declined in numbers in the past decennia to a worldwide total of about 800 gorilla’s. They are now only found in small reservations in Uganda, Rwanda and DRC where they are protected by several conservation programs. In these three countries there are a few “habituated” groups, which basically means that through years of sporadic visits by humans the gorilla’s can be approached by visitors. And as I found out, approached very very close, sometimes to close for comfort.

Armed with a DSLR and tripod we set out in the early morning to track the gorilla’s in their natural habitat. We found them in some dense secundairy rainforest within an hour of walking. Being with the gorilla’s I couldn’t help but notice that there are so many similarities between us and them: physical features and even emotions. Presented with the opportunity to be very close to these creatures, who may not be around longer than thirty years, I deceided to film them. It was an experience which I will not likely forget. The images you see here are some screenshots of the movie, which I will share with you later. I hope these pictures will give you a good impression of the hour I spent with them and also show the importance of conservational work for the flora and fauna we have left on this planet. Enjoy!

Yes!!!! After more than a month of hard work the first videoclip in Uganda is finished!! It’s a Kadongo Kamu song, literally meaning one instrument. This local equivalent of a country song in the West is sung in the local language Luganda and is very popular with the Luganda speaking population. The song is titled “Omwoyo Gweka” which means “The Soul for my Roots”. It’s about a familiar African problem: People leaving their villages to go to the city where they get detached from their roots and culture.

My first attempt at a starlapse. Location Besania Hill in Mukono Uganda. All of the shots are composed of RAW pictures, except from one that zooms in on the radio tower, which is shot in HDR. I shot the pictures on my Canon 550d in manual mode using a shutterspeed of 15 seconds with 400 or 800 ISO value (I kept the ISO low, because the moon was out too). After processing in Lightroom and Quicktime pro I editted the movie in Final Cut Pro also adding some motion in the shots with the use of keyframes.

Unfortunately I ran into some issues while shooting the RAW stills, possible because of the Magic Lantern firmware. After a varying amount of pictures on each of the three shots the camera froze and I got an error stating: “Error 070, switch of camera and remove battery or card”. Besides these issues I noticed that even though I switched of auto playback in the menu, took the camera out of the live view and turned the display of at some point the camera would ignore this and show me the pictures I shot anyhow. I had a look in both the Canon an Magic Lantern menus to see if there were any strange functions turned on, but this wasn’t the case. Googling for the errors didn’t give me a possible cause or solution as well. So if anyone can enlighten me on this matter I would be very gratefull!

Pros: Broadcast quality video! Superior image quality in comparison with semi-pro camera’s and the possibility to change lenses fit for the specific situation. Even the 550d with its 1.6 crop sensor has a bigger sensor than the most frequently used professional (and very expensive) camera systems like RED and XDCAM! The big sensor results in a better image quality and, dependent on the specific lens (with a low aperture value like say F1.8), much better lowlight performance and the possibility to create the shallow depth of field needed to create that film look!

A good example of the shallow depth of field that can be created when filming with a DSLR and a suitable (low F-stop) lens: In this case the ultra-cheap Canon 50mm 1.8II alias “Plastic Fantastic”

Another Pro of DSLRs for filming is that they are relatively small and unobtrusive, so ideal in situations where you don’t want to attract too much attention. Because of it’s size and stealth ideal for travelling, documentary work and reporting in (potentially) dangerous situations.

Cons: A DSLR is a photocamera in its essence, so although the image quality is fantastic, the sound recording capabilities without additional equipment and/or firmware, at least for professional use, are terrible.
Also, in order to get satisfying and in term professional results you will have to learn to tweak your settings manually within a blink of an eye: focus, aperture, shutterspeed, iso, sound etc. Needless to say, if you’re used to a fully automatic videocamera, you have to know all the ins and outs about the workings of these aspects on a photocamera in order to work them properly. But when you learn to work them properly you’ll be that one man production team delivering broadcast quality!!

More about this in part 3 of this blog!Next time I will give you a glimpse in the world of the various DSLRS!

Since I couldn’t catch any sleep after 3.30 this morning I decided it was a good opportunity to do some tests with a HDR timelapse of the rising sun. Since it was a test I decided not to take more than 30 HDR pictures for each shot (which with 3 levels of exposure comes to 90 photos per shot already). So in order to have a decent amount of viewtime I used 12 frames per second for each shot (with a normal timelapse you would want 24-30 fps). I made every shot in manual mode with 3 exposures, 2 stops difference each (so -2, 0, +2), except from the last shot where I used (-4, 0, +4 which wasn’t a great succes). I used Photomatix with the Tone Enhancer to blend the shots together. And again except for the last shot where I had to use the Exposure Fusion (since the Enhancer made the picture looking horrible because of the huge differences in light). After this I imported it in Adobe Lightroom, cropped the shots to 16 : 9 aspect ratio and exported them at 1920/1080 (full HD). And Quicktime Pro made it easy to put the pictures in a sequence and export them to prores in order to edit them in Final Cut Pro! I used a Canon 550d with Magic Lantern firmware and a Sigma 17-50 2.8 OS to make the shots.