Today I recorded the video with the most action yet! I was in the campground of the Tombstone Territorial Park, hiking through the snow-covered campground, and set the tripod up on a snowmobile trail, looking through the trees along a path down to a clearing.
I walked back 30 feet or so while it was recording, and stood still. About 10 minutes in, a red squirrel came down the tree. And he sat by the base of a spruce tree. This was the most activity I’ve had on a video yet!! He was so fun to watch that I decided to keep the camera going past my usual 15-minute target. At about 30 minutes, he went back up the tree, so I walked back to the tripod to shut off the audio recorder and camera.
Only the screen was black.
The camera was dead. Nooooooooooo!!!!
I immediately remembered hearing what sounded like the shutter closing about 20 or so minutes ago, but I brushed it off as unlikely.
Bummer!!!!!! That meant I had recorded none of that squirrel’s antics. The camera battery was dead.
Feeling dejected, I went back to my truck and switched camera batteries to see I only had 6 minutes of video. Should I try again? Could I ever recreate this? Nah, I left and went on up the road to the lookout.
I thought about making a video here. Only there is no movement or noise at all, unless a truck goes by on the road behind me. The snow is still far too deep to think about walking somewhere with a better view. It will be awhile before this thaws! If there is no sound and no movement, wouldn’t the video just be a photograph screensaver?
I decided I didn’t like feeling defeated, so I went back to the campground, with full batteries in my devices, and tried again!
This time, the squirrel made an appearance, but didn’t attempt to entertain like the previous attempt. But he’s there! Unfortunately he didn’t make much of an appearance until a big transport truck started applying its Jake brakes as it came down from the pass. So loud! If it wasn’t for the squirrel, I would have cut out the truck, but here’s the compromise.
While this one was filming, a cloud shifted from the mountain peaks, bringing fresh snow! Watch for the snow start, despite the beautiful sunshine!
I’m not super happy with the end result of this one. When I film these, my camera makes 4 minute long separate videos as it records. This time they either didn’t splice nicely together or I got one out of order. I’m not certain, but there are noticeable frame changes. The sound of silence is also far too loud, even with hours of work playing with the compression and with an equalizer to make sure the birds and squirrels came through okay. Still so much to learn!
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