Oh look, moving pictures

Long ago I took a filmmaking course at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay. The campus was embryonic in those days. I learned the basic tricks of cinematography with an enthusiastic instructor and a close friend who was mad about animating dinosaurs.

Now, in the digital age, like everyone else, I have a camera that can take both still shots and movies. Until a few days ago I had not gotten around to exploiting my little Canon’s moviemaking abilities. It took the cumulative effect of various upgrades some time to sink in. Suddenly it hit me: Oh, I can do this — I have enough drive space, Windwoes will not hork up because I have sufficient RAM for every process, I have a decent video card. I can eff around!

And so I have been effing around. I am pleasantly surprised at the quality of the Canon PowerShot A550’s performance. IMO it does very well, for an affordable (barely, on my budget, when I got it) point-and-shoot. Of course all depends on the steadiness of my hand and the readiness of my eye, with a good measure of luck thrown in. Anyhoot, the short movie clips I’ve shot so far are at least good enough to play with.

I have lost my YouTube virginity.

I shot these iris pans during a long insomnia session this morning, stitched them together, and uploaded before I crashed. The original shots are much better quality, but bandwidth is a resource that I believe should be used judiciously.

Or — since the embed seems reluctant to function for me right now — Morning Irises

The flowers are just around the corner from my house. The sound is what I live with.