Antonio di Lussi

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<p>Another tiger from Ranthambhore National Park...</p><div></div>

<p>David,</p> <p>Ranthambhore National Park is a very good choice when it comes to see tigers. I have been there twice, and had really good tiger sightings. Please have a look at <a href="http://jalbum.net/en/browse/user/album/1026845">http://jalbum.net/en/browse/user/album/1026845</a> for a 6-episode video series of my second trip to Ranthambhore.</p> <p>Be advised that you need to stay at least 3 days, but preferably more, with both a morning and afternoon safari every day to optimize your chances of seeing a tiger. I would recommend that you stay away from the big 'bus' but arrange for a personal vehicle (with a driver and a park guide), unless you like many (and usually unpleasantly loud) people for company.</p> <p>Ranthambhore is easy to reach by train from Delhi: if you take an early morning train to Sawai Madhopur (the city closest to the park), you will get there by early afternoon, just in time to check into your hotel, and to get ready for you first (afternoon) safari.</p> <p>I haven't been to Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary (now called Keoladeo National Park), but it looks pretty good, especially considering that Bharatpur is one of the stations where the train from Delhi to Sawai Madhopur / Ranthambhore stops (around the half-way mark). So if you want to cut travel whithin India to a minimum, this park is certainly a good option.</p> <p>Another bonus of the combination of these two parks is that the city of Agra is also fairly close, so a (cultural) visit to the Taj Mahal would be possible without too much of a detour.</p> <p>Please be advised that my personal interest of the natural world has a strong bias towards (big) cats, so tigers (and a reasonable distance from an international airport) were the most important reasons for the selection of a park. YMMV ...</p><div></div>

<p>Flower of the (Northern) Rata</p> <div></div>

<p>More images of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016 edition on the Natural History Museum's website:<br> http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/wpy/gallery/2016/index.html</p>

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<p>Cosmic C already pointed you to where the lock file can be found:</p> <blockquote> <p>In the folder/directory where you have the Lightroom catalogue (ie the .lrcat file) lightroom creates a file with an extension ".lrcat.lock" to indicate its using the catalogue.</p> </blockquote> <p>If necessary, you can let your Windows Explorer search for it: type ".lock" (without the double quotes) in the Explorer's search box.</p>

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<p>Have you considered the effect of the camera's IS system? If it is ON, then the IS will try to "freeze" the image in its original position upon starting the pan, and upon stopping the IS will likely attempt to continue the camera motion. This might account for the unexpected results at the start and end of a pan. Try panning with the IS switched OFF, and see if that makes a difference.</p> <p>As a rule of thumb, more resistance on the pan and tilt axes will give you better (smoother) results. I had some tutoring by one of the BBC Natural History Unit's wildlife camera men, and that guy also let me use his fluid head, hard-mounted to a 4x4's so-called "camera door". Initially, I was taken aback by what appeared to be an extreme amount of force to move the head, but the resulting pan was very very smooth. The idea behind the (very) high damping is that any movement of the camera stops whenever you stop applying force, so that no 'overshoot' occurs. And yes, needless to say the IS was switched off ...</p> <p>O yes, one more thing: a big (and heavy) fluid head is one thing to make smooth camera movement possible, but you need a rock-solid support when panning/tilting. If mounted to a tripod, that thing needs to be pretty serious thing. Also keep the tripod as low as the shoot allows, and tie or weigh the tripod down to get that rock-solid support...</p>

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<p>Hoi, I agree with you on the wide-angle issue: the AG-AC160 lens (at the wide end) is the equivalent of a 28mm lens on a full-frame DSLR, which is not bad, but can be a problem in small rooms in your case. There are wide-angle converters out there that could be used on your Panny, but with the rather large front lens of that camera, you end up with a pretty expensive converter.<br> Zunow seems to be one of the best options in this case, but you'd still end up with about 0.7 x 28mm = approx. 20mm of equivalent focal length. That 14mm on a full-frame DSLR (FX in Nikon land) is a lot wider, but on a APS-C sized sensor (DX in Nikon land) that would be about par with the wide-converted Panny. It's up to you...</p>

<p>Hoi,</p> <p>I also have the AG-AC160, and while it is a fairly large (and not really lightweight) camera, it is very very very good with respect to Full HD (1080i/p) video. It might also be helpfull that it is a 'small sensor' camera, meaning that you will have very little problems with focusing on what you need/want to show when doing real estate presentations. Unless you need really small depth-of-field, the Panny will serve you much better that any DSLR. As Michael already explained, camera handling (especially when it comes to the zoom/focus/iris controls) with the Panny is a breeze compared to a DSLR for video work.</p> <p>Be also advised that you might have a slightly different color response from a (Nikon) DSLR compared to the Panny, which could mean more time in post when you need/want to use footage from both cameras. I do mix footage from the AG-AC160 with footage from a Panasonic GH3 without any issues, but both cameras come from the same manufacturer, and have pretty similar color response.</p> <p>There is one other option to using a DSLR, as Craig said: "Just about any HD camcorder would be fine...", so you might as well consider using a small handycam, which also works pretty well on one of those simple (balancer-type) steadicam gizmos. Here again you need to consider the color response if you want to mix footage with that of your AG-AC160, so a Panasonic handycam would probably be a wise choice.</p>

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