First video with E-M1 MkII - Democratic Republic of Congo - Gorillas and Volcano Lava Lakes

@Jonathan Spool - thank you so much man that means a lot.  Really appreciate that!

@Martin.au - stabilization is super helpful, but also used a tripod for the volcano and also had a gimbal for a few shots in the jungle on my GoPro.

@RSSrsvp - hit me up if you ever decide to go and I'll walk you through every detail.  It's a complicated trip but the reward is amazing.  It's obviously a conflict zone so don't expect to be able to roam the streets at night for a nice restaurant to eat as you'll be confined to your accommodations.    Beyond that, people are amazing, the scenery is incredible and the wildlife is second to none.  You could easily get away doing this trip with just a 40-150mm except will be difficult in the jungle with the low light.  My 40-150 f2.8 is what I used the most in there with the gorillas but anything longer would have been too long.  The 100-400 is perfect for the volcano or for safari drives.

@John Koch - the audio wasn't actually that great as my shotgun mic died before the trip started.  Other than that, there was either lots of wind noise or the gorillas were surprisingly silent.  I missed a few gorilla sounds and a few shots of them beating their chests which was too bad  I just re-uploaded and let a few of the audio bits come through just now.

No issues with the Mavic - I had about 15 minutes of battery life at the end.  The bigger challenge was not flying it too far away from the volcano to try and get the whole cone in sight because I would be flying over rebel camps and cause some stress for everyone involved.  The other challenge was the constant warning for magnetic interference but I took the risk because I thought the reward was worth it.  It was a hairy flying experience so I didn't get the best footage I had hoped for.  I would have liked to have flown a few times but the circumstances didn't allow.

The gorillas did not get fed by the humans whatsover, nor were we allowed to touch them - even if they approached us to examine and try and touch (which they did).  This family in particular was habituated to humans and is very friendly with the ranger team and were very friendly to us.  More than anything they just wanted to eat and horse around and after a few minutes of watching us, go on with their daily routine of gorilla-ing.  We were informed prior to meeting that we shouldn't make eye contact and we needed to stay 7m away at all times but as soon as we arrived we couldn't find space to be more than 1-2m away and the rangers didn't seem to mind - we just wanted to respect the family.  The face masks were for the gorillas protection.  As they are susceptible and less immune to many of the common diseases humans have.  We didn't want to put any unnecessary health risks to such an endangered species.

@Searching - the light was horrible in the jungle and there were a few scenes near the beginning where I used my GoPro in the jungle - those scenes were the worst as the sensor is so small.  Definitely not sharp!  The gorilla shots I thought were fairly sharp for the low-light.

Thanks again everyone for the feedback and comments!

Nice work, wonderful video - thanks for putting it up.

What SD cards are you using?

The video is simply stunning!  The camera and lense combinations worked beautifuly to capture, in my opinion, a show worthy if not better than anything I have seen on the TV.

Great, great work.

Cheers,

Gary

The main shots I used with the drone were the ones where you see the volcano cone and edge of the crater.  Any of the lava shots were taken with the 100-400mm to get up close and personal.  Technically you could fly it over the lava, but the geologist we were with said he witnessed a few people lose their drone into the crater and the lava.

If you're an adventure traveller who enjoys going off the beaten path and is ok with challenging conditions, you will be heavily rewarded with the best trip of your life going to DRC.  Feel free to PM directly and I can help you coordinate your trip.  We almost didn't go because the cost and logistics can be quite prohibitive.

@searun - thanks!  I was using mostly a Lexar 1000x UHS-II U3  micro SD with adapter in slot 1, and a Sandisk Ultra 64GB in slot 2.  Slot 1 was set for Video and Raw and slot 2 for JPG.

@GDB - those are incredibly kind words!  I really can't stand the early footage with the gopro in the jungle (but it shows the journey) so its a huge compliment to hear you think the video is that good.