Goats!

This past weekend I went hiking up on Monte Sano, like I had mentioned in my previous post. The trip was an overall success. I ended up finding the goats that I had wanted to film, and even managed to get a few good shots of them. But more on that later.

Before setting out for the mountain, I took a few practice shots in my backyard to try to get used to the outdoor lightning on my camera. I found that late afternoon/early morning were the two best times for shooting outdoors, since the glares caused by the sun are a lot less harsh around those times.

The first video was an easy one. Just a clip of my dog laying down in the sun. Her complacency made it extremely easy to get a nice, stable shot of her:

The second series of clips were a little more difficult to film. I chose to film some birds in my backyard. All of these videos were zoomed in almost to max, because I could not get too close to the birds without them flying away. As a result, I shake the video camera a little too much than I would have liked. Still, I believe that I was still able to get some decent shots:

Finally, at around 3:00 p.m., my friend Cole and I headed up to the mountain in search of goats. After only about 30 minutes of hiking, we found them. This early success led me to believe that the hard part was over, and that the rest was going to be incredibly easy. I was very wrong. The goats, likely seeing us as predators, made sure to place a great distance between themselves and us at all times. Every time we took a few step forward, no matter how carefully placed those steps were, they quickly bounded off into the distance. Realizing that we had to change tactics, Cole and I separated so that we could corner them. Fortunately for us, it worked. Cole was able to scare the goats right to me. Unfortunately for us, I had forgotten to start recording when they bolted towards me. At this point, the goats decided to change tactics too. They hid directly underneath the rock face we were on top of. Seeing this opportunity present itself, I decided to climb down the mountain while Cole stayed up above the goats. After I made my way down to the goats, I found a decent hiding spot and began filming. In my mind, I was going to stealthily make my way towards the goats, so that I didn't have to rely solely on an extended zoom. Unbeknownst to me, however, Cole had grown impatient of waiting. He had also climbed down the rock face. Cole was able to bridge the distance between the goats and himself to a mere 10 feet, something that I was in the process of trying to do. If he had been the one with the camera, our footage would have been much more clearer than it is now. So what did Cole do with this extraordinary opportunity? He scared them. In an attempt to chase the goats towards me, Cole let out a series of yells, which caused the goats to go fleeing not towards me, but in a parallel line towards safety. It was then that I decided that the goats had had enough excitement for the day. We packed our things and headed home.

Although we didn't exactly get the shots that we wanted, we ultimately succeeded in getting what we came for. I was able to improve my grasp on outdoor lighting and even got a few semi-decent shots of three goats in the process. Plus, we now know what does and doesn't work when trying to film wildlife. Hopefully, this little excursion has made us much more prepared for round two.