| In 1998, my pair of discus fish ('Germany Red') suddenly laid numerous
tiny eggs. Before I realised it, hundreds of tiny fries were hatched and
these cling on to the parents, feeding on a mucoid secretion from their
body. It was an amazing sight and I told myself, "Hey, you got to record
this and trace the breeding process". So I bought myself a Hi8 video camcorder
and that started my love relationship with camcorders. However, the fries
soon died and I turned my camcorder on birds. Yes wild birds. And I began
to try to record the diverse species of interesting birds in my MNS (Malaysian
Nature Society) birding trips. |
| Very soon, I found that the quality from Hi8 videos did not meet my
expections and in 1999 I got myself a SONY TRV900, a 'prosumer' MiniDV
camcorder. One year later, I could not resist the temptation to acquire
another MiniDV model, the SONY TRV20, to do simple digital editing so that
I can archive my recording in DV format. I have made a comparison
of the TRV900 and TRV20. Later, I also bought a SONY D8 model to archive
footage into D8 format instead of miniDV format as I believe D8 tapes are
less prone to damage and drop-outs. In September 2002, I bought the SONY
TRV950 which replaces the TRV900. |
| However, shooting birds ( I mean with tapes and not bullets) is very
different from the usual way of using a camcorder for family functions,
parties etc. For this I am creating a separate page on bird
videography to share with you my experience and insight in bird videography.
The same principles also apply to nature videography in general. Samples
of still pictures from my videos are found in the various
albums. |
