Quail Point Hunt Club was our destination this week. David Martin, the owner and manager, has always been generous to Ron and me when we want to do dog training or test some new ideas. This time we each had some new film gear to play with.
Ron just added a Ronin gimbal with a Ready Rig stabilizer to his arsenal. I am hoping that it can be part of the solution for filming wild upland hunts that are, by definition, not staged and therefore not predicable. It’s always challenging getting a camera and tripod into place and the Ready Rig/Ronin combination should help.
In the same vein, I’ve been thinking about a smaller lightweight mirrorless digital camera for a while. I chose the Sony A6500 with an F4 16-70mm Zeiss lens and this was my first time filming with it in the field.
I’m not an equipment tester and there are other blogs where you can read product reviews but I will say that after this test, I’m really looking forward to working with all of this gear come hunting season. I couldn’t have been happier with the camera. We shot video with it handheld, on a tripod and on the gimbal and it was easy to operate and delivered great results in all cases. The Ronin provided a steady mobile platform and the Ready Rig made it possible to carry the whole setup in the field while following Patty around and through the cover.
So, what’s vetch got to do with all this? Not much really. Vetch is an invasive plant here in California. There were several patches of it in the field where we were filming Patty and since they were in bloom, they added a little color into what was otherwise a sea of green. Video coming soon.
Patty Outdoors 