On Saturday afternoon I headed out to Ocean Beach to practice using the video functionality of my Nikon D7100. It was sunny at my house on the Panhandle but by the time I got out to the Inner Sunset it was grey and misting! I thought I saw clearing clouds to the west and sure enough by the time I got to the Great Highway it was sunny and warm, although a bit windy. The storms clouds were headed eastward and I was in for a perfect fall afternoon at the beach.
I opened my trunk to get my camera and tripod only to discover I was missing the plate that attaches the camera to the tripod! Ahhh! I guess my first video attempt was destined to be a shaky hand-held operation.
I had been experimenting with the video settings the night before and had the camera in monochrome mode. I turned the camera on and liked what I saw and the black and white colors seemed appropriate for a post-storm November outing so I left the settings as is.
I left the camera in aperture-priority mode and for the most part the camera behaved like I wanted. The focuses proved to be the trickiest aspect because it was hard to see the live display on the back of the camera due to the glare so I couldn't always tell if the image was in focus.
I tried to follow some guidance I had read online of shooting a few 10-second clips and then editing them together at the end. I tried to vary the shots - some landscape, some details, some personal.
When I got home I still didn't have a viable option for the video editor! I did a little research online and downloaded the Microsoft Movie Maker, which proved to be just the right balance of simplicity and functionality for me to stitch together the clips, add transitions, and overlay a soundtrack.
Hope you enjoy!
Ocean Beach from California Beach Blog on Vimeo.
