Llangollen by Narrowboat


My first competition winner! (joint first). This short film was shot whilst on holiday on a narrowboat to the Llangollen aqueduct. I used a mixture of timelapse, speed ramping, and fisheye shots.


This was shot entirely on the Canon 7D whilst on holiday. It is cut to music as nearly all location sound was useless (only had the 7D sound), and trying to pilot a narrowboat whilst filming is no mean feat, so the sound suffered! There were some other really nice shots that could be included as the 7D ‘jello’ effect was really apparent due to the vibrations of the worn out hire boat (you can see this in the heron shot).

I have made extensive use of the SamYang 8mm fisheye lens which is such good fun to use. What is really interesting is that it depends on the aspect that the lens is held as to the effect you get. For example, looking up at the sky (opening shot), as you go under the bridge, it almost comes down towards you. In other shots when it is aligned with the horizon, it looks like any wide angle shot, but as things get nearer they quickly distort.

When tilted downwards (such as when mounted on top of the narrow boat), it creates a spherical image, such as the shot of the canal where boats seem to climb up hill then go down hill. And finally, a similar effect when shooting out the side of the boat. Things that should be straight get distorted.

Aside from those shots, there are a few shots in here that show off the 7D. As always, when the lighting, composition and subject matter are right, your on to a good shot, but the 7D just seems to add something else. There are also a few filler shots (ones I wouldn’t have chosen), as I didn’t quite have enough gorgeous shots. There is also some experiments with timelapse as life on a narrowboat is very slow, so some elements show compressed time thanks to the intervalometer. I would have had some better sequences, however, no matter how many lenses, and batteries I took, I left all my CF cards back at hone and had to pay through the nose at Jessops to get a 16Gb card.

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