Videography ? (1 Viewer)

Now then coming from a Stills photography background/Hobby I thought I'd take the plunge and Try Video, Mini-DV to be exact.
Why ?
Well My wife has just given birth to a beautiful little boy, and its a new gadget (The camcorder that is !!)
Used the Internet for research purposes (During work of course)
and as I am on a limited budget (see baby reference above) I weighed up all my options and plumped for a JVC DV-700, seemed to have the best Lens/CCD/feature combo for the money.
Now then as well as taking endless hours footage of a sleeping baby I thought I'd start taking my Vidcam out in the field with me, either accompanying my 35mm gear or just with Bins, SO any advice using Video when Bird-watching ? any experiences to share, difficulties to avoid ?
Cheers in advance
Scott

Advice?
Get a good tripod because you will not be happy playing back jumpy (no matter how good your internal stabiliser is) handheld footage, especially to a large TV. Fluid head is a must, learning to pan smoothly, more so.
Get a decent teleconverter (at least 2x) - your current optical zoom will be roughly equal to a third of the magnification from your bins - like all good optics, it won't be cheap, though.
Learn how to manually focus accurately. Against our grey skies, your camcorder often won't get enough contrast to get a steady autofocus lock.

Congratulations on the new arrival

Cheers Esmondb,

pretty much the same advice as for Still photography, agree about the Tripod though, a good fluid head will be imperative.

I dont think I can attach convertors to the Model I have chosen, and unfortunately there is very little manual focus control, I deliberately started out at the lower end of the market with this particular camcorder, with a view to upgrading should I decide I enjoy making video, perhaps a good 3-ccd model in a year or two's time.

Now I'll just have to get an upgraded PC and decent editing software and try and find the time....

Scott.

JVC do this one for the DV700:
http://www.jvc.co.uk/product.php?id=GL-V1452U
and Raynox make the DCR-1850pro (1.85x).
I'm sure there's more out there.

Carry plenty of spare tapes and batteries and don't wait until either one runs out before changing them. You just know that when this happens a good bird will come into view!

Dave