Over the last few years I have had some wonderful footage on OtterCam but I am always looking for more. I enjoy the challenge of getting better videos, both technically and in content. One of the limitations of trail cameras is their restricted field of view, so aiming them and predicting where the subject will be can be difficult. I now put close-focus lenses on the front of the cameras routinely but it occurred to me that a wide-angle lens would both increase the field of view and the depth of field. So I splashed out on a clip-on wide-angle lens for a mobile phone (£6 including postage) and sawed off part of the clip with a Dremel. I glued a bit of wood to the top of the camera, clipped on the lens, put on an outsized rain cover and set it up to try it out. Here is the set up, with a standard camera (plus Blu-tac and close-focus lens) on top and the wide-angle lens on the camera below.
And here is the result. I sort of had an inkling there might be something going on here but never thought it would be as good as this. Imagine how frustrating this would have been if only the top camera was in position. Its contribution here is just to get a slightly better view of the departing otter. The otter really looks as though he is enjoying himself. Is it my imagination or is he playing to the cameras?
Two nights later he was back for a repeat performance. You can see that the field of view is now slightly wider than the light from the infrared LEDs but that doesn't really detract from the image. It also improves after four seconds when the top camera switches on so using a second camera routinely may be a good plan.
Otters have dense waterproof fur and spend a lot of time looking after it. This rolling behaviour helps with grooming but I have never seen it before.
Fabulous footage Chris!
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