At 11:49 PM +0000 4/9/08, stephenvitiello wrote:
>Does anyone have any advice on videotaping or filming fireflies? There
>is a brief moment every spring in James River State Park (Virginia)
>where the fireflies light up the trees like the most beautiful storm
>of electricity. I've tried video with fairly good cameras and every
>possible shutter speed. I've also tried super 8 and 16mm but nothing
>does it justice. I can imagine that there are fancier cameras used for
>scientific recording but I just don't know where to look or who to
>speak to for advice. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks
>and best to all. Stephen
>
A firefly's illumination is quite dim-- about 1/40 FC according to:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/insects/beetles/Fireflyprintout.s=
html
I was able to produce some acceptable video of fireflies using the
video low lux mode which is a video equivalent of time-exposure. It
captures light over about 3-8 frames before "printing" one frame. I
used long takes and extracted the segments where the lightning bugs
passed within a few feet of the camera and were thus larger and
brighter. I superimposed many of these single passes to create a
fairly realistic impression. I used a luminance key to insert the
composite flies into a background. The older Canon A1 Hi8 video
camera has one of the better low lux modes that I've used. Rob D.
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