My first attempt at video: western thatching ants in action!

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that in late February I bought a new camera: an Olympus OM-D E-M5 (see I’m baaaack! (Part II)). I had a number of reasons for buying the camera, and one of them was that I really wanted to try my hand at video. My Olympus e-volt 620—the camera I have used to take most of the photos on this blog—is an absolutely great camera and I have been very happy with it. But it doesn’t record video.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Deas Island park (one of my favourite places to photograph insects) and took the opportunity to take some video of western thatching ants. I really didn’t have a plan, and to be honest, I wasn’t all that sure of what I was doing! But I shot a few minutes of video, came home and edited the footage using MS Movie Maker. Amazingly the whole process only took a couple of hours! Mind you, it’s amateurish and probably a bit silly—David Attenborough certainly has nothing to worry about—but it was fun to do. This little project really has me thinking about the possibilities…

Please check it out and don’t hesitate to comment. Any suggestions for improvement would be gratefully received.

Cheers,
EC

The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M5
Lens: Zuiko 12-50mm ƒ/3.5-6.3 zoom
Settings: auto exposure (wide view: F8 @ 1/320 sec; close-up: F6.3 @ 1/100 sec)
Lighting: Ambient light
ISO: 200