I just took another look at your bee. (do you think we are developing a bee fixation?)
Your bee's have much more black on them. Think about it...how clever is nature? Black absorbs the most heat.
I guess that's why our bee's are lighter in colour? Not as much black.
With all the heat here your much blacker bee's would roast to death in this sun! :)
I'm not sure, but those we filmed might have been the "native" bees...
I have heard that the native bee's are different to "honey" bees.....I must research this. (yes definitely developing a fixation here, lol!)

If you could Chris, could you tell me exactly which shots looked washed out? I think I know but I just want it clarified....then I can have a think about what I did and why I did it. (Or Richard.)
We did use the zebra striping...on 70%.
I'm finding it more useful though for when there is a lot of sky.
If there is only minimal sky between leaves and I'm trying to adjust aperture and shutter speeds to keep the zebra happy then I find that it screws up the focus because there is not enough light.
For example...the shot of the gumnuts at 38 seconds - the sky between the leaves there is very bright and the zebra was protesting, BUT....the gumnuts were in shade....so I had to ignore the zebra striping and adjust the aperture and shutter speeds in order to not have the gumnuts look as though they were black silhouettes...
Know what I mean?
I probably should have just tried to film them from behind, as I think there I was filming into the sun. (By that stage the kids were getting very antsy having carried great big globs of white CLAY from where the water was. They were covered in it. (I should have filmed THAT! lol!)

Anyway, thanks for watching and commenting!
:)

Also....we had a similar experience.
Ahead of us on the track there was a puddle of water completely in shade.
A beautiful tiny little wren looking thing....bright red on it's body flew down and began taking a bath.
We immediately sat down, zoomed in and started filming.
The only thing was because half the scene was in deep shadow and the other half full glaring sunlight it was impossible to adjust things in order to get the bird and puddle bright enough to SEE, without making the upper part of the shot so bright that it looked completely white from the amount of sunlight.
Richard was wondering if in a situation like that it is possible in editing to mask sections of the image and adjust brightness......like in photoshop?
Do you think this is possible....or maybe these shots are just ones you should avoid?
It really was a beautiful little bird. :(

The opening scene seems ultra bright with leaf detail somewhat compromised - I can see that `white` Australian daylight lol ...
also at 32 secs into the film the large tree on the left has a lot of reflected light coming from the bark - a few steps down on the brightness control would resolve more detail. There's also a bluish tinge to the light which suggest auto white balance.
47 secs in you have the most beautiful shot - superb!

53 secs in, another superb shot ... and then the magical bee shot ... lovely.
At 1:30 secs we're back to being a little to bright, but at 1:34 secs you've caught stunning contrast and colour.

Apart from White Balance with bright areas having a slight bluish cast on edges, and some shots a little to bright, I think you're starting to get to grips with this cam ... the old penny dropping like I said it would.

Some shots seem like obvious `auto` mode shots or part auto, and some seem really balanced with a classy look that says excellent videography ...
It wont be long before I'm asking for tips from you, I can see it coming ;-)

Overall, beautiful and creative!

Thanks Chris! Yes, I see what you mean about it being a little too bright in those shots. And you're right. We forgot to do white balance again. By the time we remembered we realised we had nothing white with us. Richard suggested my bra, but I declined.

With the very first shot I was filming into the early morning sun.
I wanted to try and catch that effect of the light on the leaves. At that point, while filming , I had it in mind to do a video from sunrise to late afternoon, catching all the changing light through the day....but all the sunrise video we took we must have accidentally deleted.

I don't know that the penny HAS dropped, lol.
A lot of it is just us looking at what we see and looking at the LCD screen to compare.
We didn't use Auto mode at all, so any mistakes we are making we can't blame the camera for :)

I'm coming to the conclusion that while this camera is absolutely FANTASTIC for the close up shots - and this is where it seems you have the most amount of control manually - when it comes to very distant scenery shots, despite our continued experimentation, they are just not AS great no matter what we try.
Now perhaps this is because of haze in the distance, or perhaps, like our eyes, things in the distance DO appear slightly out of focus, or maybe to get what I am trying to capture you really need a high end, really really expensive camera?

At this point that is my greatest frustration because when we film in the outback THAT is what I want to capture - the wide open spaces.
I think perhaps I will have to film things like endless stretching roads fading into the distance......or focus on a lone dead tree standing in the middle of an absolutely flat plain.
There are places out there where there is literally NOTHING.....just a completely barren gibber plain, which I DON'T think will come up well as there is nothing really for the camera to focus on.
Out there the heat haze is very significant too which will further add to disrupt focusing on distant things.
Then again to capture THAT is also true to life of what you see out there.
I am concerned about getting the distance scenery out there, but really there is no way to practise at it because the landscapes are just completely different to what surrounds us here at home.
I guess it really will be a case of just experimenting whilst out there.

Secretly I am quite insulted that Chris thinks our bees look like a dowdy wasps.
;)
I agree David. I think Chris's bee is a BUMBLE BEE.
It's much too furry to be a normal bee.....unless it gets THAT cold in the UK that they grow a coat!

Anyway, thanks for watching! :)
I can't wait till you've got some video's up on here to show us.
One bee shot IS required!
I think we should make it a pre requisite for the JVC crowd. :)

It is indeed a Bumble Bee, or its correct name `Humble Bee` ... why it was changed I don't know. Our Honey bees are small slightly hairy looking and don't look anything like the more common Bumble Bee, which is our native bee.
Our wasps are nasty things and will attact and sting over & over if bothered. Our bees can sting too but will die after if they do, so are not as aggressive.

In fact out of all UK insects, the only thing I'll run from is Wasps and Hornets ... YIKES!
Your bees look friendly Tracy and only look a little like Wasps.

PS ... Our Bumble Bees get so fat they can't fly ... lol.

It's all those chips! ;-)

Thanks RastAsia. I went over to check your bee out, just in case it was cause for bee envy.
I'm sorry but your dragon fly blew your bee out of the flower.
:)

Hahahaha...