Blog Entries from the WeHuntSC.com blogging crew
This past weekend we took to the woods and shot some HD videos that will be edited, produced, and come to the site soon. Trying to take myself serious in front of the camera proved to be a little difficult for me (and may prove difficult for you as well). Though, one of the neat parts of how we?re working our videos at this point is that we ask site visitors to suggest video ideas and contribute information to videos that we may not have included. We ended several segments saying ?If you do it differently or have something interesting to contribute, just let us know and we may come out and film you?. As the goal of this site is to be an information hub rather than a site to promote videos of the WeHuntSC.com team, we hope to get out and around the state to get video segments from different areas and see different ways of doing things. So be sure to let us know if you have any ideas or insight for future videos. If you aren?t use to having a big microphone hanging over your head, light reflectors in your face, and a camera right on you?it can be a little intimidating. We went around and shot some videos on stand placement, stand location, trail markers, and sign in the woods! Whenever they get finished, we?ll publicize them on the site. I?m really excited to see what Jason and Yellow Cape Communications can create. I know whatever it is will be quality as I?ve seen a lot of his work before + he shot video of the WeHuntSC.com girls on the site. Hopefully he?ll reduce the glare off my bald head! With that said, all I we can do for now is wait on the edit? more to come later. Regards, Clint
I?ve had hunters ask me which video cameras we use for our videos on the site. Well, that is a question with a two-sided answer. For any video that we shoot HD in 1090DPI that will be edited and professionally produced, our camera guy from YellowCapeCommunications.com brings his gear down and sets up shop. I can?t even begin to describe his cameras as they are every expensive and have more model numbers than I can remember. If you are interested in that level of camera, then you may want to contact [email protected] . I will tell you that everywhere those cameras go, so goes some source of lighting. So if you?re interested in getting into high quality video production, you must also get interested in learning about lighting!
Anyway, for our ?in the field? videos, several of the WeHuntSC.com team members carry ?Flips?. We carry them in our hunting bags and/or pockets because you never know what you might find in the great outdoors. Most often, we use these to shoot short videos that we embed in blogs or for videos that we post on the site. I go back and forth between shooting videos on my IPhone and my Flip. With my IPhone I can shoot a video and upload it straight to YouTube from a tree stand or really anywhere, but the quality of the IPhone video is not nearly as close as the quality of the Flip.
The Flip The specific model we use is the Flip Ultra HD which sells for around $189. The Flip Video Ultra HD is a small, lightweight video recorder that can fit in your pocket. It is very easy to use and only has a few buttons on the camera. You don?t have to be a ?tech-head? to understand how to use this thing. It has 8GB (120 minutes) worth of memory and you can play back the videos you shot on the internal screen on the back of the Flip for quick viewing. The Flip comes with rechargeable batteries, starts up quickly, and can record within moments. One of the features I like most is the ?Turn Sound Off? feature. I turn the sound off so that every time I click a button it?s not beeping out in the woods/swamp/tree stand. The flip has a USB port (the plug that plugs into your computer from the camera) on the side of the flip. You simply click the button and it opens up and it directly interfaces with your computer. The software you need to get your video off the flip is right there on the flip itself. If you own multiple computers, you can install it on however many you like. The program you install lets you edit and share the videos. For our purposes we use it to sometimes give our movies intros and credits at the ends of them. The software also allows you to merge multiple clips together and edit the length of the movies as well. (See an example of a video created with the flip using intros, merging clips, and credits here) Again, its user interface is very intuitive and simplistic in comparison to standard video suite software, so it?s nothing to be scared of. Once we shoot the videos, load them into FlipShare software for editing, we export and then upload to YouTube. Uploading the HD videos to YouTube does take a little bit longer, but the clarity in the videos makes it worth it in my opinion.
Benefits
Drawbacks
So, if you?re looking for a relatively cheap video camera that shoots HD and can fit in your pocket?look no further. As you see on the site, we love to integrate YouTube videos and you can contribute yours on the ?Game? pages. Whether you get a flip or not, we encourage you to start posting some videos! Regards, Clint
Do you remember the blog entry ? A long, cold winter ? that I wrote back in the middle of December? The gist of the blog entry was that nature gives signals about the upcoming winter. I had talked with a gentlemen about the large amount of acorns that were present this past deer hunting season and he told me that was a sign that we were going to have a long and cold winter. So I went and researched and it turns out there are many different signs that outdoorsman say can predict an upcoming difficult winter.
Well, so far, I would say that the gentlemen?s prediction is right on track. We?ve had more snow than I can remember in a while. It has definitely been colder, (and rekindled ardent conversation on global warming all on the news!), snow has reached parts of the coast that haven?t seen snow in a long time, and the groundhog predicted 6 more weeks of winter. It does seem that nature?s forecast of a long cold winter was accurate.
Here in Rock Hill we got 3 ? 3.5 inches of snow and Pageland got 4 ? 5 inches.
If you?ve got any neat pics from the snow in your location, send them to me and I?ll post them to this blog.
Regards,
Clint
I?ve learned that the first step in the creation of a food plot is to get what is called a ?soil sample?. This soil sample is nothing more than a zip-lock bag of dirt that is collected from the acreage where the envisioned food plot is going. Once the food plot acreage is selected, a soil sample must be collected from it in order to determine the PH levels in the soil. Since the land area will most likely be of decent size, it?s best to get a balanced soil sample. By balanced I mean that it?s best to get soil from the 4 corners of the food plot acreage + some from the middle. Once you collect all the soil, you mix it in the zip-lock bag. This way you are getting a uniform blend of soil over your intended food plot acreage.
This past weekend some of the WeHuntSC.com team members went coyote hunting with Terry Williams. Last deer hunting season we got a lot of coyotes on our game cameras and frequently see dead coyotes in the road on the way to and from a certain track of land. So, this year we decided to try to hunt some of these ?Wylie Coyotes?.
Terry's coyote decoy
Terry's custom coyote "Howl Call"
After I graduated college I went and played football in Finland. Yes, they do have football in Finland and yes it was very cold. To read more about my time in Finland simply go to www.ClintPatterson.net and hover of the Finland link and you can find all the info there. Anyway, I stay in touch with a lot of the Finnish guys from the team and we talk about the glory days and all that, but every now and then one of them will travel over to visit. Well Kim Gronlund traveled over to visit several of his friends in different states and he stopped in SC for a weekend to visit me.