Brush Cuckoo

[Romy Ocon]

This individual is an immature, and may easily be confused with the hepatic female of the larger Oriental Cuckoo. I saw it for three straight days along the banks of Bued River, after which it was gone. Solitary and secretive, it has a total length of 9 inches. This was the first time I got some video footage of this species.

Many thanks to Rob Hutchinson (www.birdtourasia.comm) for confirmation of the bird ID.

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Brush Cuckoo (Cacomantis variolosus, resident, immature)

Habitat - Coastal mangrove to montane mossy forest.

Shooting info - Bued River, La Union, northern Philippines, September 22, 2018, frame grab from a 4K video capture, Sony RX10 Mark IV + Uniqball UBH45 + Manfrotto 455B tripod,

600 mm (equiv.), f/8, ISO 100, 1/60 sec, manual exposure, near full frame resized to 1920 x 1080.

And the full HD footage:

[Bobby Kintanar]

Another great presentation Ka Mastah! The video is very well done. Thanks for sharing this. :-) How long does it take to process the video files? Full HD is already very acceptable, but most video enthusiasts are talking 4K now. I think it's too much for Youtube. :-)

[Romy Ocon]

Thanks Ka Bobby!

The processing is divided into two major stages:

1. Editing (cutting, grading, effects, transitions, audio refinement, etc.) - this video took about 30 minutes to edit.

2. Rendering - this 40 sec video took about 5 minutes to crunch with my laptop (i7).

I believe full HD as an end product should be good enough for the next few years. Still, I prefer to shoot in 4K to give me editing flexibility (digital zooming/cropping and NR), and for future-proofing.

[Bobby Kintanar]

Got it Ka Mastah. Looks like I'll stick to stills photography till I retire from my day job. :-)

[Romy Ocon]

Sept 27, 2018 8:02:14 GMT Bobby Kintanar said:

 Looks like I'll stick to stills photography till I retire from my day job. :-)

Filming (capture and editing) is much more challenging than stills - it's tough to nail the exposure with the narrow DR, keep the focus where it matters if the subject is active, and tame shake with slowish shutter speeds. In the digital darkroom, editing and rendering take much longer than processing stills. File sizes are huge too. Because of these difficulties in video, I get more satisfaction out of it if things go right than stills, especially considering than I've photographed most of the easily accessible bird species in my place.

I hope you'll dip your toes into filming too even before you quit your day job, Ka Bobby, hehehe. It'll present a whole new universe of challenges and opportunities for you.

[Bobby Kintanar]

Okay Ka Mastah, and thanks for the info. Maybe 'll try it one of these days. :-)