Yellowstone in the Fall: Smart Video in Nature Needs a Zoom Lens

People travel from all over the world to visit Yellowstone National Park. I'm fortunate to live about an hour away from this natural treasure. It is one of the most beautiful and unusual places on earth. There is everything from rock basins and bison to geysers and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

Although I enjoy shooting video on my smartphone, on my most recent trip to the park, my video tool of choice was a Panasonic LUMIX 4K ZS60. 

Image Source: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41M6my4HIbL._AC_.jpg

For many situations, shooting on an iPhone with FilMic Pro works wonderfully. However, zooming with your feet to get close-ups of wild animals and spouting geysers isn’t recommended and can be downright dangerous. 

Walking along the wood boardwalk near some hot pots, we heard a rustling of branches up a hill in a thicket of trees. We were face-to-face with a bison . . . face to face from about sixty feet, that is. With the help of the 30x optical zoom, I got a much closer look than would have been possible with my smartphone.

Buffalo in the pines!

The video below includes clips of Old Faithful, steaming geysers, and other natural wonders that would have been limited to wide shots and extreme wide shots if shot with a smartphone without an add-on lens. I have experimented with zoom lenses for smartphones, but they are a bit unwieldy to attach and use—especially on the fly.

I cut the video using Adobe Rush on my MacBook Pro laptop. Adobe Rush is great for cutting together a quick video, whether editing directly on your smartphone or editing footage on a laptop shot with another camera. 
Currently, using a smartphone to get tight shots from a distance isn’t really an option. However, that may soon change. It will be interesting to see the quality of the video with the new telephoto feature on the new iPhone 14 Pro Max. Here are some of the new iPhone 14 Pro Max tech specs:

Pro camera system

• 48MP Main  | Ultra Wide
• Telephoto
• Photonic Engine for incredible detail and color
• Autofocus on TrueDepth front camera
• Action mode smooths out shaky handheld videos

iPhone 14 Pro Max

The price of the new iPhone is currently out of my budget, but I’m anxiously waiting to get my hands on one and put it through the paces. For now, when I have to get some good shots from a distance, my Panasonic LUMIX will be my tool of choice.