Flowing Fields - Olympus E-PL1 video

[Robert Watcher]

Strong winds caused the grain fields to look like flowing ripples on a lake. It was an amazing site. I pulled out my Olympus E-PL1 and shots sections of 3 different fields on my way home. The wind was very strong and the biting cold temperature, made it a challenge to stand steady out in the elements handholding the camera while filming.



YouTube - Flowing Fields




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[Robert Watcher]

I was saying to my wife Anne this morning, something along the lines that video allows me to capture things I never could if I only had my stills camera with me. If I hadn't had my E-PL1 with its video features with me last night while driving around, I wouldn't have bothered stopping and shooting when we noticed this phenomenon out the side of our eyes.

I did have my E-3 (with 12-60) with me and because I had stopped the car and was getting out anyway - managed to take 2 shots with it before shooting the video - - - however the still images while interesting, cannot capture what is going on in the same way that video can - and would not allow the viewer to get a sense of the experience we were taking in, the way the video does:

 

[Asher Kelman]

Rob,

This is a wonderful experience. It might be better to keep the camera on one section and just let the waves come in. Cutting should give new information. I hope you can go back and do more. I'd love to see what you might be able to create using a camera and taking stills. As you study this, look at pictures of the waves coming in in paintings and photographs as inspiration.

For sure others might know of photography of moving corn fields.

Asher

 

[Robert Watcher]

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Dawid Loubser]

... made it a challenge to stand steady out in the elements handholding the camera while filming.

Oh Robert, if only you had a tripod with you. The rolling "waves" are majestic, but the majesty is unfortunately destroyed by the hand-held camera shake.

But you are right, the built-in video in cameras like the micro four thirds allow for another dimension of memory capture, without having to put up with point and shoot image quality.

I have always felt this this is so often the biggest challenge with still photography - to convey atmosphere, and motion, in a single image. Some images succeed wonderfully, though, but it's very difficult, and usually requires (I believe) a bit of luck as well.