I went to Fingringhoe Wick (no giggling at the back, you) nature reserve yesterday. I took the DSLR and the video camera, but ended up just using the video camera. I got some footage of a dragonfly and a lizard. Both are very small, and I am really impressed with the quality I got from the camera - the lizard was about 5-6 cm long.

With nature photography, you have to just wait. My sister knew there were lizards there - you have to set up the cameras and wait. And wait.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRC86h1d ... ideo_title

The voice in the background, and the odd clicks, is my sister (http://www.clairedunning.co.uk) who was with me, being a tourist with her Nikon .

*bites tongue*

Were you using a tripod Paul? One of your pans was extremely fast and level.

ill assume monopod,

your sister sounds very foreign.

the video reminded me of when I had a crappy compact camera and dragonfly flew right onto my face and I shut my eyes and guessed where the dragonfly was and took really really close up shots of dragonfly, sun was too bright so pics came out awful

Yes - I could not have done any of that small stuff without one.

I watched the HD version. Very good, although the first time the lizard moved it took a bit to get it back into focus, was that the AF points focusing on the wrong thing, or do you have to manually focus in film mode?

I haven't tried the film mode on my new Canon yet - that said, my last 4 cameras have all had video modes and I think I have made about 30 seconds of video so far.

It's all manual focus. It's been a long time since I did such close work on a video camera, and focussing using the viewfinder is tricky. I'm glad to see the viewfinder is good enough for that kind of thing, but sadly, my reactions and lack of practice aren't.

It's a video camera I'm using - not a DSLR.